# where could they have gone?



## DROPTINE 14 (Jan 20, 2006)

bait 1.. always been productive, 7bears taken from it in the last 10 years i had 4 hitting it every night till thursday and nothing since.

bait 2... 4 bears taken in the last 10 years. i had 1 hitting it every night nothing since wed.

bait 3... had 3 hitting it every night coming in at all hours of the day staying for hours. had a pic of a hound running accross my bait on tuesday (on private land) and the ***** have not even been back.


what say you? why would 3 baits over 10 miles all dyr up so fast?


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## Wiggler (Dec 23, 2000)

beechnuts and everything might be ripening up right now... our beechnuts are fallin everywhere over here and every animal in the woods is on them right now.


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## sourdough44 (Mar 2, 2008)

My partner reported a drop off in activity the last few bait checks. Still getting eaten, but fewer visits. I did see some choke cherry trees heavily laden with cherries when I was up last. We all know what bear poop looks like while they are ripe. If I was a bear though I think I'd rather visit a pile for dinner, that is until getting spooked off.


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## brookwood (Jul 15, 2008)

Droptine... Im no expert on this, but.....

That hurricane started movin up the coast the begining of last week. As barometric pressure changes before a storm deer, bear, elk, racoons, etc. start to feed more heavily in preparation for an incoming weather system. I notice that the barometric pressure was moving, but then leveled off around Friday as the storm moved up the coast. Maybe that affected things a bit? Did your bears gorge themselves for 3 or 4 days then go and hole up somewhere? Just a thought, like I said Im no biologist.


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## da Appleknocker (Jan 26, 2009)

Droptine, I think you answered your own question in your bait #3 statement. If you have dogs running bears they will disappear for a while. Just been my experience.


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## TVCJohn (Nov 30, 2005)

da Appleknocker said:


> Droptine, I think you answered your own question in your bait #3 statement. If you have dogs running bears they will disappear for a while. Just been my experience.


Kind of a bummer as it looks like the hounds are running on his private property. Not sure what to do in that case????


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## Mickey Finn (Jan 21, 2005)

da Appleknocker said:


> Droptine, I think you answered your own question in your bait #3 statement. If you have dogs running bears they will disappear for a while. Just been my experience.


So, the hound guys that run their hounds off of their own baits. Are just wasting their time?

My guess for the OP would be natural food source. They'll come back, just keep the bait stations stocked.

ATB


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## thunder river outfitters (Aug 21, 2007)

Tvcjohn just stopped by my house to grab some bait. We were talking about the shut down, there is no doubt in my mind it has to do with natural food sources.
Berries are abundant, along with beechnuts..ect just be patient, give it a week or so and everything will be hunkydory.

For the record, we had 8 strong baits going and all have pretty much shut down.


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## thunder river outfitters (Aug 21, 2007)

brookwood said:


> droptine... Im no expert on this, but.....
> 
> That hurricane started movin up the coast the begining of last week. As barometric pressure changes before a storm deer, bear, elk, racoons, etc. Start to feed more heavily in preparation for an incoming weather system. I notice that the barometric pressure was moving, but then leveled off around friday as the storm moved up the coast. Maybe that affected things a bit? Did your bears gorge themselves for 3 or 4 days then go and hole up somewhere? Just a thought, like i said im no biologist.


i must say that is what i thought at first.


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## Rooster Cogburn (Nov 5, 2007)

Mickey Finn, great question you posed....hound guys would not maintain bait sites to run their dogs off of if it meant the bait would go dead after using it. Baiting costs too much money now days for someone to set up bait sites and get bears hitting if the baits went dead after running off of them. 

Regarding baits going cold, it is more likely a combination of things; 
chokecherries are ripe, most likely some blackberries in some areas are still available...and competition from other hunters baits. Bears feed heavy this time of year and will hit multiple baits, not just yours exclusively.


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## TVCJohn (Nov 30, 2005)

Just checked the weather forcast again....hot followed by real cool for Labor Day.


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## mydogisscout (Jun 24, 2005)

our baits in the gwinn and baraga units are still being pounded. we added some BoarMasters "Bear-ly Legal" to the granola and the bears won't leave it alone.


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## Bearboy (Feb 4, 2009)

Not sure where you hunt but the logical reason that the bear are not hitting is... They are not there for some reason. Lots of competition for a shrinking resource. I can tell you that this time of year it isn't some magical bait. Bear certainly don't leave when a dog walks by or even if they get chased. The bear always come back. Without gorging on food in a short time frame bears will not survive. I certainly can't speak for all parts of the state but I can tell you what's going on in the Baraga BMU. After several years of hunting bear in this BMU the population is a fraction of what it once was... Larger bear are very scarce. I run any size I can find, or I would not run at all. Not saying you can't have active baits here... But you have a poor chance at a decent bear. One bear can eat a lot of bait. Scouting camera's do lie when it comes to bear. I look at lots of pictures people show me of "different" bears, generally they are the same one. When that bear is shot... All are gone. Bigger bear don't come back after season starts... Because they are dead! The Western UP has poor hunting compared to less than a decade ago. The MBHA and other hunting groups have been lobbying to get tags reduced. It's not because they have a hidden agenda, it's because they like to hunt bear! JMO of why you have seen decreased bear sign...


_OutdoorHub Mobile, the information engine of the outdoors._


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## Rooster Cogburn (Nov 5, 2007)

There's a reason why there are left over tags for the Bergland zone. 

A little history about the northwest corner of the Bergland Zone:

I moved my family here from northern Wisconsin in August 1973. That's 38 years ago. Back then I hunted bear by their stomach, meaning they were to be found in places where they were foraging for food. Knowing what food sources were abundant during a given time of year....was a good place to work with my small pack of 3 or 4 dogs. There was plenty of natural bait. Torn up logs and stumps, tipped over rocks, chunks bitten out of 4 X 4 sign posts the forest service put up, dug up ant hills, and stands of oak where bear were feeding on acorns, chokecherries, apple trees, raspberry patches. Then the clear cutting started, altering the natural scheme of things. We got a lot more deer but, as clear cutting became more pervasive we got a lot more tent caterpillar infestations. In turn, it had a negative affect on mast crops. Acorns are one of the highest protein natural food sources nature provides. Sow bears can abort if they go into the den malnourished....and sows in this region are known to not begin reproducing until they are 4 1/2 years old. So, fewer mast crops is one little piece of the puzzle.

I went about 30 years without bear baiting. Always figured the beagle guys don't put out a carrot pile for their dogs to run rabbits off of. And, 
if you are a dyed in the wool houndsman you don't need bait. The idea was to use the developed skill of the hound to find the query. 

Then came the lottery system. Hunter numbers skyrocketed from roughly 2,000 bear hunters statewide to what it is today. MDNR has now doubled the annual bear kill from what it was. 

Some areas are simply over-hunted, considering both sows and boars need to make it through several bear seasons before they are old enough to breed in this region. 

Hunting techniques have changed, too. Commercial baiting has gotten more widespread. Now they are buying granola by the tote...having tractor trailer loads hauled in plus the excessive hunting pressure from issuing too many tags for the area... with all the baits out there, bears no longer need to forage during the day like they once did. Those that make it through a couple of season tend to go nocturnal once they establish a series of baits to visit. Cutting the number of kill tags would help return things to its natural order where bears had to forage for natural foods. Reducing the number of commercial baiting operations and assigning areas to operate in would be helpful. As it is now they can pour into an area and commercialize the whole thing. The north end of the Ottawa National Forest is a good example of that. Making money off of something you enjoy doing is no sin. The sin here is MDNR's failure to manage it.


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## coyote/dave (Mar 10, 2009)

baldwin unit same problem....established baits (10 yrs ) inconsistent or not hit at all... too much natural food.. went in to a bait sunday got a strike from the hounds... checked bait..not hit...going out dog struck same spot... put the dog down.. he went forty yards and caught the bear in the water... dumped the box ...what a battle......... point being this bear was laying 100yds from my stinky bait and wasn't even interested................


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## Bearboy (Feb 4, 2009)

Baldwin is the only BMU worth hunting.


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## Spartan88 (Nov 14, 2008)

My baits are getting hit and I'm not in Baldwin...


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## DROPTINE 14 (Jan 20, 2006)

So i have bears(2) that came back to the one bait the big one is coming in at 05:30 and i have a small one (75#) coming in about 10 min after i leave and staying till the big one shows up. 

the other two baits are dead in the watter, the dog bait has had that hound running around it for the past 3 days. i cought him and tied him to a tree with a watter bowl and a food bowl, i think he was lost or left. 

the other dead bait has stumps getting ripped up and holes being dug but no hits in the bait. the closest chokecherry trees are about a mile or so east of this location and the nearest beachnut trees are about 1.5 miles south.


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## thunder river outfitters (Aug 21, 2007)

Rooster Cogburn said:


> There's a reason why there are left over tags for the Bergland zone.
> 
> A little history about the northwest corner of the Bergland Zone:
> 
> ...


i agree with ya on this. the state really needs to crack down on the bait runners. i think they are trying to do this with the insurance and registration end of it, but it really doesnt stop them, they can still fly under the radar. i seen a post on craiglist the other day of a guy saying he will run you a bait site, he also stated that he is not a "guide service"...now whats up with that?..lol


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## thunder river outfitters (Aug 21, 2007)

DROPTINE 14 said:


> So i have bears(2) that came back to the one bait the big one is coming in at 05:30 and i have a small one (75#) coming in about 10 min after i leave and staying till the big one shows up.
> 
> the other two baits are dead in the watter, the dog bait has had that hound running around it for the past 3 days. i cought him and tied him to a tree with a watter bowl and a food bowl, i think he was lost or left.
> 
> the other dead bait has stumps getting ripped up and holes being dug but no hits in the bait. the closest chokecherry trees are about a mile or so east of this location and the nearest beachnut trees are about 1.5 miles south.


i really wouldnt worry to much, yes it has been warm with alot of rain as of late, next week will change... just be patient.


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## DROPTINE 14 (Jan 20, 2006)

owner of said dog found this thread, p.m.'d me and picked up dog last night. dog got out of truck before tracker could be turned on.


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