Last weekend, I loaded my gear into a Jeep and made the six-hour drive deep into the Upper Peninsula. I was on my way to help bait for black bear hunting for the very first time. Baiting often elicits strong opinions.
Many people see it as easy and unsporting. This camp seems to think that throwing out bait is a shortcut that takes the challenge out of hunting. Going in, I wasn’t sure what to think. Coming out, I now know: Baiting for bears is one of the more complicated and labor-intensive forms of hunting I’ve encountered.
After the drive north, I met up with veteran bear hunters who had over a decade of experience in baiting all over the U.P. What I thought would be a weekend of casually tossing some food in the woods turned out to be something much more intense.
As we hiked miles in and out of dark swamps, I got a first-hand lesson in baiting: It’s critical to pay attention to the natural food sources in the area, like acorn-producing oaks and cornfields.
A bear’s nose is 600 times stronger than the best hunting dog’s sniffer, and ursus americanus will abandon your carefully prepared bait quickly if natural foods ripen at the wrong time. Timing is everything.
We located spots deep in cedar swamps where bears feel secure but with good access routes for when it was time to hunt. It was sweaty work, hauling 50-gallon drums, bags of sugary snacks, and dog food through the thick brush and deep mud. I understood why many hunters stick to deer stands.
Selecting the bait itself was also more complicated than I’d imagined. During the fall months, bears have surprisingly human-like preferences for high-carb, high-sugar, and high-fat foods. Basically, they get a massive case of the munchies in preparation for a long winter hibernation.
We sourced our supplies from local businesses, like Raised Feed Mill in Bark River, focusing on granola and peanuts. We dumped them into the 50-gallon drums to require bears to work a little bit more for their food rather than quickly gulp it down and leave. We smeared cake icing on the barrels for bears to lick and added rejected bakery goods (a cheap and sweet option).
What is so odd about bears is how un-uniform they are: Each bear has its own tendencies and preferences, unlike the deer I am used to hunting.
“This bear might love cherry pie filling,” I was told while smearing it on a barrel at one of the sites, “but the one two ridges over might not touch it. Each bear has a personality.”
What impressed me most was learning how intelligent these animals are. Older boars will approach bait sites with extreme caution, trying to smell any changes in human scent patterns. They smell who is putting the bait out and associate that smell with snacks.
If you weren’t there putting out food before, they won’t trust your new smell when you are sitting over their bait pile… and they usually know you’re there when you’re hunting them.
We hauled several hundred pounds of bear snacks into the woods and then set up some trail cameras. Those cameras will be our eyes and ears from hundreds of miles away.
It typically takes about three to seven days for bears to find and commit to a location and 10 to 20 days to sort out their own feeding hierarchies at the bait. As I write this, it’s been three days since we put those cameras out, and I’ve found myself checking them constantly.
By the end of the weekend, I was exhausted, covered in mosquito bites, and had a new respect for both the bears and the people who hunt them. This certainly wasn’t the lazy hunting that bait-hunting critics describe.
It is some of the most physically and mentally demanding hunting preparation. Every decision, from site placement to bait selection to scent management, requires a deep knowledge of bear behavior and ecology. It’s fun and terribly complicated.
After spending a weekend learning what it really takes to bait bears well, I have a simple message for anyone who calls it controversial: Try it yourself. Make the drive, do the work, and learn what these animals are capable of.
Tom Zandstra is a passionate outdoorsman and CEO of The Fair Chase. Follow him on X @TheFairChase1.
