An Outdoorsman’s Journal: The lure of the bear
Hello friends, I have been writing this column since I was 27 and as many of you probably know, one animal that I really enjoy pursuing is the black bear. When I started writing this column back in ‘89, I hand wrote it early every Friday evening from high up in a jack pine over a bait pile for bear. No gun, just a tube of Ritz, two bottles of Labatts, a pen and paper, and kind of a crazy feeling when I had bear at the bait and had to get down, but never a problem.
This fall my bear hunting partner Doug Cibulka and I both have tags for Zone C and on April 15, Doug and I started the job of running baits in Juneau and Wood counties in a vast forest and swamp that covers more land than some counties in Wisconsin cover. This week I am going to write about how I feel a good bait setup is run.
Tuesday, April 15 — High 58, low 34 Not only do I have a Wisconsin bear tag but today I found out that I have a Montana elk and deer hunting license. Our oldest bait is 15 years old. We call it Selina’s Bait and that is because my daughter Selina killed a black bear over it. Baiting for black bear in my orbit is an adventure; first and foremost it takes time, good health, money, and the ability to handle setbacks. From the time that I pull out of my driveway to my return, I will drive 46 miles, of which half is on gravel roads and now on day 10, I can already see that my 2017 GMC Sierra looks like a bear baiter’s truck. Dust, used cooking oil, and 5-gallon buckets both empty and full have replaced what used to be a “pretty”truck. No worries; the baiting season ends in mid-October and I can clean it up then.
Stumps — as in hollow, are the key tool, and each bait site will have one stump that can hold up to at least 5 gallons of bait, as in granola, cookies, and peanut butter. Each stump will have a cover for the top and bottom, which in my case is a 3- to 4-inch slice of an oak log. The cover is as important as
your bait, as without a proper cover, mice, porcupines, raccoon, ravens, wolves, and rain will either ruin your bait or consume it before your quarry can get to it. Doug and I hike in up to a half mile and when we start our season we make sure that we have heavy logs up to 8 feet long that we put over the top of each stump to fully secure it, so that wolves do not clean out our bait. Once you get wolves, they are very hard to get rid of. Everything about bear baiting for us is physical, and by mid-May includes at first black flies, then mosquitoes, then deer flies. I put a heavily sprayed bug spray hanky inside of my hat and down my back; it really works. Some people think this is crazy, but I put a raunchy MGW t-shirt at each site and that lets the bear know who I am. My thought pattern is that they associate zero stress from my smell. When I pick a site to put a bait obviously I have to feel that there are bear there and no hunters, but just as importantly, I want it to have a tree for hunting in that is downwind, or in other words, east or north of the bait. East and north winds are the least common winds, and you do not want to be hunting downwind of your stump.
Why do I run baits for five full months? I do this because I have too much money and free time, and love to see my truck look beat to heck. No, I run bear baits because I love nature, and I enjoy the physical challenge and mental, but since I am already a bit nuts the mental part is met. I feel that running baits the hard way like Doug and I do is probably the best way possible to realistically understand the seasons, every critter and insect possible, and most importantly, what you, yourself can handle.
I also would like to add that the myth that hunting over bait is killing bear that are stupid and just there to eat donuts! Walk in our shoes for 165 days and then figure that an early acorn drop, nocturnal bear, or an animal that busts you when you are climbing out of your tree at dark and “the stupid donut eater theory” is for city slickers that do not know an acorn from a walnut.
On Sept. 3, Wisconsin’s bear season opens. If I am still alive, as well as Doug Cibulka, we will both be in the best shape we could possibly be in, both of us will be sitting in trees with very high hopes, neither of us will be upset if we do not get a black bear, and it will be “Bear Camp Time.”
Live large; someday you’re going to be in a coffin or a can! Sunset
Mark Walters
