Well, its always something with me. I always seem to create my own problems…. Here is the continuing story of my first WI bear season, and some of the errors that helped me to see zero bears on opening day.
I started this fall not even thinking that I would get to bear hunt, wasting a perfectly good WI tag that took 5 years to draw. That turned around in a hurry, I found a place to go, had some days off of work to hunt, and got some bait… Ok, we’re now in business! Got the bait out and BAM!, it starts getting hit by multiple good bears within two days. Things are going great, now I just need to keep that going for another 5 days until the opener… Well, thats when I screwed up.
Often times I’m the kind of guy who thinks if some is good, then more is better. Go big or go home, right? Well, I don’t think that flies when it comes to bear hunting. Instead of reducing my bait pile to a gallon or so each baiting (just as you expert IDO bear hunters told me to do 
), I put more on than I probably should have. And to top things off since I had a little smoke leftover, I figured I’d resmoke the area to try to lure in the really big boars that I know are in the area. Great idea I think to myself, I’ll show those bears who is boss…
Well…. Turns out that I did a real good job of not paying much attention while smoking. I sprayed the area real good, but that also included spraying the bait crib (and baitpile with the large, freshly dumped pile of food). I’m sure a lot of the smoke soaked into the food, making it not nearly as appetizing to the bears. Lo and behold, all of a sudden I go from getting 35 pictures per day down to 2 and then 1 and then none. Not suprising my 5 hour sit on opening evening had me seeing exactly zero bears, with a huge pile of un-eaten bee-attracting soggy bear food sitting in front of me.
Its possible that there were other factors, too. The neighbors are baiting, and maybe they changed thier patterns / food types and the bears changed accordingly. Maybe some berries came ripe, and maybe the acorns started falling. The wind wasn’t really right last night (nothing I could do about that, but I took every scent precaution prior to heading into the woods), and the temp was 82 when I left the truck.. Not optimal conditions. Mosquitos weren’t bad, I think I sat fairly still in the stand… I’m sure there are other factors that might have come into play, but I was really hoping just to see a bear last night. But to see the bears immediately turn off the bait right after I did the idiot smoke routine leads me to believe that smoked bait isn’t great bear food. Zero bears that night basically left me deflated…
Anyway, I went from a huge pre-season emotional hunting high (I was like a giddy little kid waiting for christmas, you could probably tell from my posts on this site) to a disgusted-with-myself low after the sit was over last night. The only good part about it is that there is another month left, time enough for me to start over.
Basically, here is my plan – Go the the site, battle the bees, shovel all of the crappy, soggy old food and bucket that crap outta there. Rebait the area with a gallon or two of good bait and re-smoke the area (not on the crib!!). Try to get the area all sweeted up with gummies, sugar, molasses, etc.. Try to get them coming in again, and then re-hunt it in a week or so. I probably won’t hunt again until next week to give the area a little rest. Wouldn’t hurt to get some rain to wash some of that crap off of the crib/bait site…
Anyway, I just wanted to share some lessons learned from an obviously novice bear hunter. You live and learn, and I’m learning fo’ sho’ with this hunt. Every mistake will help increase the odds next time right?? I’m sure I will learn many more lessons before this hunt is over, both hunting lessons and life lessons. Coping with failure/mistakes is probably something we all need reminders on now and again, but I’m sure it makes us stronger hunters/persons. And as far as the highs and the lows of hunting go, I don’t think I’d want it any other way.
Good hunting/learning/living
Mike
Sometimes as hunters we tend to over complicate things and try and make it bigger and better.
