Hunting Brown bears over bait

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jim in Anchorage

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Alaska just legalized this. Easy for me just set up a bait station 50 miles South of home. Don't like it though. I would not be all that proud of a Brown shot over bait. Oddly I'm OK with shooting blacks over bait. [ This is NOT a racist post I am talking about bears:D]
Thoughts on bait hunting?
 
Mixed feelings on bait hunting. Generally I'm not opposed to others doing so if legal, but like you I would feel a lot better about taking any game animal other ways.

The problem that I've noted here in GA is that once it becomes common practice those who don't bait will be at more of a disadvantage. Until just a few years ago baiting for deer was technically illegal, but was a common practice on private property. Those areas with bait got all the deer. Folks who didn't really want to put out bait found that if they didn't would have no deer on their property.

A bill was introduced to legalize baiting. The fish and game dept didn't really want it passed, but recognized the problem was so widespread that it was almost impossible to stop. There was more opposition in the northern half of the state so the compromise that passed legalized the practice in the southern half of the state, but not the north. It is still pretty common here in the northern part of the state anyway.

Black bear are farily common in the northern part of the state, but mostly in larger tracts of National Forest. Baiting is not legal for them, and impossible to set up elaborate bait stations like those used legally in Canada and other places. Our game wardens as a rule don't seem to make a huge effort to go after illlegal baiting for deer on private property, but will do so on public property which is where I do the vast majority of my hunting. I still suspect that a lot of guys cheat. I find an awful lot of empty tuna cans laying on the ground at times. Too many for a hunter to have just eaten a snack while hunting.
 
If its legal, then its not concerning to me. I've never hunted anything over bait, and don't have plans to, hut if thats what someone else chooses to do, and its legal for the game they are pursing in their location, I have no objection to their behavior
 
Each individual has their own goals and limitations to what makes a successful hunt. You are not competing with other hunters for the biggest or the most. You are trying to achieve the personal goals and meet the challenges you've realistically set for yourself, based on your own limitations.

I have no problems with people baiting if that's what figures into their idea for an enjoyable hunt. Is it really any less challenging to take bear over bait with a bow or a pistol than it does to take one at 300 yards with a scoped rifle, or for an 80 year old man to hunt from a blind over bait, than a young and fit man to track and stalk?

I see the mere definition of baiting is a difficult enforcement issue. Many guys with "hunting land" here plant apple trees, and food plots, or even unharvested corn in certain spots. Is that baiting? If you supplement the apples under your tree is that baiting? If you hunt next to a corn field, are you hunting over bait? When it comes right down to, it takes as much work and knowledge to alter game activitries in your favor, as it does to learn and hunt their existing "natural" behaviors and habits. Then when you live in states with a one week deer gun season, it becomes comical watching guys pour out a bag of corn and hunting over it on the first day.

Game will always habit where the food is, and planting it, which is usually NOT considered baiting, and improving habitat will bring far more game to your land long term than demanding your neighbor not be allowed to use bait.
 
I've shot a few bears, both brown and black......but I've never shot one over bait...

To me, shooting over bait is for, just "getting meat" (like we use to do on caribou hunts) or to rid a place of problem pest, I don't see any trophy or bragging value in a bear shot over bait...

DM
 
I don't see any trophy or bragging value in a bear shot over bait...
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Maybe should read, "I don't see any trophy or bragging value in hunting."

In the end, it is harvesting meat. It is perfectly natural and right, it comes with some nice perks like enjoying nature and being more connected with your food source, but unless you're going to really level the playing field (See Here) how one goes about the destruction of the creature is an entirely artificial conceit. A cow "deserves" no less of a sporting chance at existence than a bear or a deer, but they often live extremely brief lives of hobbled confinement and are mechanically killed without even a moment's thought about a trumped up idea of "fairness" or "chase."

In other words, lines between and not baiting are of utterly no importance, except in the imagination of the human. Every other predator would bait if they could figure out how, and some do. Don't put your own, or your culture/society/species' whims of habit and tradition on a pedestal. See it for what it is. :)
 
I am not against baiting in general. However I would not be interested in hunting a brown bear or grizzly off of a bait. A brown bear hunt is in my mind a classic spot and stalk style hunt and that is how I will continue to hunt them. Funny thing, I don't have a problem with people baiting hogs either. For me personally that is something we only do for small children, beginners and the infirm. If I am hunting hogs I'm doing it via spot and stalk or jump shooting them in thick brush. I like the physicality of getting out and working for your game. Stand hunting generally makes me crazy.

Stand hunting diminishes the excitement of the hunt for me. For me the skill and the excitement comes from the spot, planning and executing a stalk and putting it all together with a good shot. I also enjoy the challenge of packing out the meat. There is a time and a place for stand hunting no doubt. I just prefer other methods when available.
 
Jim, I thought that reg was for units 14, 16, 15 and 7 where the browns were pushing the blackies out. I have a friend who has a bait station on the Kenai where he set up a trail cam. He counted 35 different brown bears hitting his bait!
 
I can't comment on hunting brown bears because I never have. I've killed 2 black bears. One by spot & stalk and one that I just happened upon while elk hunting. Neither did much to get my blood pumping so I quit hunting them.

Brown bears, however, would be an entirely different matter.
 
I live where the country is wide open, with the exception of Willows that line the creeks and trees that line the rivers, and I hunt my Brown Bears in Spring. No baiting needed there....although 'Baiting' might be the previous winters gut piles at most, where ever they may have fallen, but catching Black Bears in August, actually drawing a Black Bear out of Cover,as they travel the willows and are fairly nocturnal then, to judge their size, fat and if they have cubs or not seems to be the right thing to do. Usully its the gut piles that line the shore after we have caribou hunted, and Ill return after taking my Caribou home, place my 'newer' camp a hundred or more yards from my previous camp and wait for the Bears that way.

Baiting seems to allow for a better selection that way.
 
I do not have a problem with baiting, except that it is boring. I prefer to walk and stalk. Maybe will that change when I get older. It is legal up here. It is just a matter of preference to me.

I think the guy who can hold still for days in his blind has as much merit as I do if I have any (come on, killing an animal with a firearm... It is not hard) because I enjoy the chase and do not like staying immobile for hours.

Hunting is fun, I wish to let everyone enjoy it the way they can. :)

Up here, one can even hunt from one's vehicle if one's not physically able to do so otherwise. Do not forget many people still hunt for meat. Yes, bear is edible. It makes good smoked meat.
 
338-06 it's units 7 12 13d 15 16 20c 20e and 21d. And yeah your friends right. Guy I worked with had a black bear bait station near Soldotna. Saw dozens of browns, not one black.
H&H I agree hunting Brown bears from a stand doesn't seem "right." But I never go on a "Brown bear hunt" They are targets of opportunity on a moose/caribou/sheep hunt.

But I love stand hunting too. Some thing about hearing something approaching noisily though the fallen autumn leaves is a super high to me.
 
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I don't support the technique except...

where population reduction is required.

Otherwise - it ain't hunting, it's waiting and there's little honor in the practice nor respect for the game.


Todd.
 
When I was very young, we hunted and fished every chance we could. We needed the meat. We'd use every legal method available, sporting or not.
 
Fifty miles away wouldn't be a great idea. Baits need to be checked and replenished every day. Anything sweet(dough nuts, peanut butter, etc) or stinky. If it's stinky, the worse it smells the better. Road kill, if that exists in Alaska, fish guts, etc.
"...Saw dozens of browns, not one black..." Yogi likely chased Boo Boo away.
"...don't see any trophy or bragging value in a bear shot over bait...just "getting meat"..." Still no guarantees. You can sit for days over a baited hide that clearly is being visited, but find Yogi is dining at night. Just "getting meat" it ain't. Nothing to do with caribou hunting either.
 
Given how many anti hunters there are, I don't begret any legal method of hunting. What I've found interesting, but not surprising, on the show Alaska State Troopers hunters will often call in those who hunt illegally. I like seeing the self policing that hunters do.
 
Otherwise - it ain't hunting, it's waiting and there's little honor in the practice nor respect for the game.
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May not be over bait, but other than rabbit hunting, most hunting here is "waiting". Not too many guys can sneak up on a whitetail in a wooded area with 50 yards visibility.
 
Not too many guys can sneak up on a whitetail in a wooded area with 50 yards visibility.
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You just described what is my favourite kind of hunting, and by far! :) I even like to think I am not so bad at it. :D But this thread is about brown bear.
 
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