Remy Warren (0:00)

Foreign I'm Remy Warren and I've lived my life in the wild as a professional guide and hunter. I've spent thousands of days perfecting my craft. I want to give that knowledge to you. In this podcast we relive some of my past adventures as I give you practical hunting tips to make you more successful. Whether you're just getting started or a lifelong hunter, this podcast will bring you along on the hunt and teach you how to live wild. This podcast is brought to you by Mountain Tough and Yeti. A lot of the tactics I talk about here require you to be in top physical shape. So I partnered with Mountain Tough to help get you ready for the mountain with their science based hunter specific training app. You'll get in shape and mentally tough able to tackle any hunt. Because we really believe this will help you be more successful As a listener to this podcast, we're giving you six free weeks to get you started. Just use code livewild. Welcome back to Live Wild podcast, everyone. Now this week is going to be part three of our Bear Necessities series and today we're going to cover probably the most controversial topic we've ever talked about on this podcast. Today we're going to talk about bear baiting. So that is the act of placing food as an attractant to a location where it's legal to target and hunt bears. And I really wanted to talk about it for a couple of reasons. I actually think that wherever you stand on the issue, whether you're a hunter that's like, I would never bait bears, or maybe you're somebody that regularly baits bears every season, I think that you're going to fully enjoy this podcast. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to describe some of the tactics involved with baiting itself, but also correlate that to what I've learned about bears in general that can be used in any application because I've found strategy is more involved with topography for me and looking at a map than actually the bait itself. But before we do that, I want to share a pretty funny story of the first time I gave beer baiting a try and the massive learning curve that ensued. So this story takes place quite a while ago. Like I was, I don't know, maybe in my early 20s, I don't even know, maybe late teens, early 20s, something like that. I had a lot more time on my hands then. You know, no family, no nothing. Just single and out hunting all the time. And so me and my buddy Brett, we're into bear hunting. I'd been doing some guiding for bears, and I had some time outside of guiding, and we were like, man, I'd never. I'd never, like, baited for bears. But I just thought, like, many people probably think that have never baited for bears. How hard could that be? We'll just throw out some donuts and bears will come in and we can just kind of have ourselves like an awesome bear hunt. So we did a little bit of research. You know, Idaho had it was legal to bait bears. And there was an area where you could get like two bear tags, like, pretty cheap. And it just seemed like an awesome. Like, how cool would this be? Like, we could go over there. You know, we can get two bears, a person. We can bow hunt them. Like, they'll be close range. We can get, you know, we're like, we're building it up. We're going to get some big bears, like, whatever. This is going to be so, so awesome, right? And neither of us had. We had combined zero days of experience baiting bears. We just figured, you know, put out some food, the bears come in awesome. Like, this should be easy. Like, we're gonna. This is. How hard can this be? So step one was acquire bait, right? And I didn't have any money, really. I was like, late teen guiding, whatever. Like, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't gonna go buy a bunch of stuff for bait. And I was like, we didn't really have any connections with anybody that had any foods or anything really. So I went to a, like, the local grocery store saying, like, hey, do you have anything you guys are trying to get rid of? They thought it was kind of suspect. I'm like, no, no, we're just going to bait bears. Like, okay, yeah, sure. We've got some fire grease we're actually throwing out. And I had, you know, this was before. Like, there was not. I couldn't just go online and find information on a lot of stuff. There was not a lot of information out there. Like, it doesn't seem that long ago, but it was long enough ago where just finding information about different hunting strategies and things was nearly impossible. You just kind of, like, had to talk to people. So we talked to people. And I remember, I don't even know. I heard like, man, just like, stories of people that, you know, baited bears and whatever friends that had done it and. Or gone with a guide. And they're like, yeah, they, you know, use fryer grease and whatever. So I got some of that and then I think I'd read Like Cam Haynes book on one of his books. But he had like a little thing and they called it bear crack. And they would like mix up like bacon and some like drink mix like Kool Aid or Jello or something like that. I'm probably butchering it, but something like that. Maybe marshmallows, like do like a burn and attract the bears. And so we got some of that kind of stuff, went through everyone we knew like pantry and got some things and there wasn't like that much. We didn't know how much bait we might need, but we thought, okay, we're going to need like 55 gallon drum full of something. So we got some 55 gallon drums which were going to be our bait receptacles. And thinking like what, what could we get? And oh, the idea popped in our heads, do let's go to the butcher, see if they have any leftover, like pork trimmings. Because they do a lot of like butchering in the, in the spring and stuff. Pork and other stuff. So we went there and we're like, hey, do you guys have anything like. Yeah, our garbage cans are full essentially. Take whatever you guys want. So we had, I can't remember, I think we have like four 55 gallon drums and we just loaded them up with like rotting pork trimmings. Okay. I don't know if you can tell where this story is going, but like we had, we had zero knowledge of what bears would eat. We had zero knowledge of what would attract bears. We just thought like, oh, this stinks and it's going to be awesome. Like we, this is great. This will attract bears for sure. And so we loaded up these giant 55 gallon drums or whatever, metal containers, lids on them and put them onto the trailer and we struck out for Idaho. Okay. And so I had like, I had, I don't know how much time I had planned for this. I, I figured we would like be there for a week, bait bears, you know, get bears coming in, have you know, a few down, whatever. We're like, we're going through the scenarios in our head. We are just, we are pumped. Like this is, this is like a dream trip for us. Like you can get two bears and we're just talking about, oh man, I think I'm gonna try to take one with my bow first and look for a big one. You know, like all the stuff that you do when you're planning for a hunt and dreaming about the success you're going to have and how awesome this is going to be. Right. All the logistics and we found a spot to camp where we could do some fishing and set up our tent. And so didn't really have a plan on how long I was going to be hunting. I had probably like a month that I could have done it. And this story is essentially, I think I. I think I was there for 30 days. I actually was there long enough where I had to move my camp, I think twice based off of, like, regulations of how long or at least once based on how long you could leave your camp set up in one place. So. And my buddy actually, he, he actually left because I think he had a date and it ended up being his now wife. So in hindsight, it was like he was leaving me from the bear hunt to go on a date. And I'm like, what's your deal, dude? We're hunting bears. Like, we're in it. But ended up working out for. That's a, that's a whole nother story. But anyways, so we, we get into the spot and we set up our camp. We've got our, our bait barrels and now we're just like, you know, looking at maps. I mean, this was long enough ago that I don't, I mean, I don't even know if I had any digital maps. I probably did some kind like a gps. I think I had like a onyx. That's it. I had a GPS with an onyx chip. But it was very hard to like, plan ahead on something like that. Right. So I also had a ton of paper maps from the forest Service, like everything just for the roads and all this. And one of the things with, you know, being our first time, we, you know, we didn't really know where to go. So we were kind of scouting, looking for places. And we just kind of had like this loose knowledge of the types of places that we should look for. And we ended up, you know, there. There's a lot of regulations where you could place the base. So it had to be so far from a road, so far from a trail, so far from running water, which. And I think it's like seasonal running water. But we, we just were like, if there's water there, we. We avoided it. So we're trying to narrow down where we can actually set these things. And it was actually a struggle to kind of find somewhere that checked all the boxes and we thought would be good. So there was a few where it was like up a logging road or whatever. And then, you know, bump up and we found this little knob. And it seemed like perfect because it was like the road ended. It was on the top of a hill, which, you know, I probably wouldn't have done that again, but at the time it seemed like a great spot. And it was like a ways away, right? Everything that, everything that I did was always, like, further from the road, the better. Okay, now remember, our bait receptacles are 55 gallon drums full of rotting meat. And what we didn't really consider was how we were going to get these super heavy 55 gallon barrels full of rotting meat to this spot that's like over, I mean, a mile and a half away in some serious steep vertical going up the hill to get to it. So we had a dolly because we couldn't, like, you couldn't just lift these things, really. So we strapped it to a dolly and then we would carry it like, with the dolly, like a. Like a hand truck. Okay. So stupid. And our plan is like, all right, we're gonna get up there, we're gonna, you know, chain the barrel to the tree, and it's gonna be on like, this is it. We just wait. So we didn't have. We didn't own any tree stands, but we did have a ground blind. I think we had one or two ground blinds at the time between the two of us. So our plan was we did have trail cameras, and so we put up trail camera. And our plan was Zimbabwe. We're gonna put up the trail camera, we're gonna check, we're gonna, you know, and then we can set up. But this spot looked good. Like, we're gonna. We're gonna set here like this. This seemed legit. So we start out, and I mean, this, this drum is so heavy. Like we. There's like a old logging, like an undrivable, like, call, like an old logging cut, maybe just like a skid trail kind of thing to it. Giant trees across it, Everything like, just absolute shitty. And so we're carrying this, like, lifting over it, using everything we have. And we haven't even gone up the steep part to top it off. The smell of this barrel is so bad. Like, we're. We're gagging and just like. I think you're gonna throw up every time you get a whiff of this thing. So we're going. And the, the. The lid is not very secure on this. And I mean, there's like just flies and just dead shit. And we've got holes in the thing because we had it where we were going to chain it to the tree. So we, we shot holes in it with our gun so we could Run a chain through it. Dude, this is getting more redneck by the second. The more that I think about this, and so the, like, it's just oozing out. And every time, like, we gotta, like, lay it down. And so now we're, like, covered in this rotten shit. And my buddy Brett, like, I mean, it was so stomach turning. Like, he runs and he's puking now. Well, now we're. We're getting to the part where. Sorry, he's not puking yet. We're. We're. We're in pretty bad shape. Like, we're trying to cover our mouths and everything so we don't smell this thing. It's like making your eyes burn. It smells so bad. And we think, like, we're. We're in the. We're in the. All we have to do is just get this to the spot. Like, it's going to be so good. This is awesome. And so we get to the part. Now we have to get up the hill, and it's, like, steep enough that it. We can't really utilize the dolly well. So our thing is like, we're under it. We're carrying it. Like, somebody has to be at the bottom. Someone has to be at the top. And we're just, like, moving it inches at a time. I can't remember if it was on the dolly or if it took it off the dolly at this point. And so we're like. We're manhandling this thing and the juices are, like, on us. Brett's, like, running over, puking. He starts puking, I start puking. Dude. We're just vomiting. Our eyes are burning, and we're like, we have to. We just have to do this. So we get the stupid barrel to the top. And it was just, like, all we could do. It was so. It was so horrible. I mean, one of the nastiest. It's like something you would see on Fear Factor, right? Like, it was just maggots, like, squirting out of the barrel and just disgusting. And so we set it up. We set up the cameras, we set up the ground blind, which was pretty close to, like, there wasn't many places we could put it. Terrible, terrible setup. Like, had I known more, I would have never set up there. But it ended up being the only place that we actually did get a bear to come in. We did that. We did, like, the little sweet burn thing. So our plan was like, we're going to sit this. That'll be, like, our place that we sit because it seems really good and we'll just in the daytime continue to try to find other places. So me and him would just sit in the blind, hope bear would turn up. We couldn't, we could only put the blind like 15 yards away from this. Just so dumb. So we did that and then through the rest of the time just trying to scout out spots to put the other baits like. And it was kind of a similar scenario. Like too heavy of a container. We got. Had to get them out of our camp. Cause it was just horrible smelling. Every time the wind would blow it just like flashbacks from the first day of just getting soaked in disgusting rot. So we, we end up like getting. I think, I think we each had three bear bait permits. But we ended up only doing like three sites and just putting both of our permits on it so anybody could bring new bait or do whatever. So we had three sites between the two of us that we were going to maintain one. The second one was just like. I think the second one we did another 55 gallon drum in like an abandoned logging road that we just wheeled out like two miles. And it was so overgrown, so thick. It just like. Also not a great spot for it. I mean probably would have been an okay spot actually had we just like known what to use for bait because you know, we had the lid off of the things and thought, oh, the bears will just eat this rotten meat. It'll be perfect. Like great. Well come to find out, like they, they didn't touch it. They. I think the smell probably would have attracted them to it. But yeah, it just was inefficient. And then you know, and then we have like the other barrel that we stashed to like utilize to refill the other ones. And then it was just filling like buckets. I don't know what our plan was. It was just stupid. So we had, and then we had another spot that we ended up going into getting some like dog food and something else to utilize to try. And so that spot was like a bad spot on a really steep hill. There was nowhere to even sit if a bear did come in. And nothing ended coming into that one. The, the second spot that we had, we tried a couple different places. Like we had it in one spot and then moved it to another spot. I mean weeks later, whatever, just to kind of keep moving them just like until they'd get hit. So we kind of keep rotating these spots and doing all kinds of different things. One of them on the logging road, I went in to check one day. I actually got. I like heard I'm walking up to it. I'm sneaking up to it, thinking maybe I'll see something super thick. Like, we put it in this. You couldn't even see it. Like, if something came to it. I don't know what the plan was going to be, because in this thick alder patch. And here's something. It was a wolf actually running down the trail, and it was so thick, I don't even think it knew I was there. And I yelled like, hey. And, like, went to kick at it and it veered off, and there was another one behind it, and it was running, like, super fast. I shot into the ground and scared it off. I don't know if it was like, almost like it was smiling. Like, I swear it was just. I thought they were maybe chasing each other. But then, you know, in hindsight, I'm like, did they just hear me and run in to see what it was? It was weird because I never, like, felt threatened. I felt like I scared it as much as it scared me. But, you know, I. I don't know. It was like, you know, in hindsight, I'm like, I don't think a wolf that's coming in is going to look a certain way. I mean, I don't know what it would look like, but they were close and they were moving fast. It to me seemed like they were almost like chasing each other down this road. And it makes sense. Like they smelled the meat, they investigating that, and then maybe they're just chasing each other off or whatever. It wasn't like this aggressive approach, but it was super thick, and I didn't know how many others were there. And I. A shot, like, just into the ground and spooked it off. The second one that was coming in. But, yeah, that was like the only real interesting thing that had happened over the course of. Like I said, it was probably two. Well, it was definitely, yeah, 14, 28 days. So, like, almost a month of trying to bait bears. I got maybe one on camera on that first spot. We actually had, like, a mountain lion come in. I had some chocolate sauce from a friend's house. We put out, and the only thing that got touched was like, a mountain lion came in and licked up the chocolate sauce. And then we had a giant bear come into that one. But he would come in, like, we would go and put what we did have. Like, we ended up making some friends out there, like, in the camp, and guy was like, oh, here, I'll give you some of this bait. It was like, stuff that he got from a Hostess thing or something. So they just throwing out the donuts. Thing probably would have worked, but he. He gave us some stuff. He's like, here, I'll give you this. You know, you just gotta unpackage it or whatever. He's like, my friend works for. Is pickup person for Hostess or something. So it costs nothing. Go for it. Like, you guys are clearly struggling. And so we'd put that out, but we'd go in, we'd put it out. The bear would come in essentially after we would leave and then eat that and then leave. So anytime we were sitting would never come in. We tried everything, like, maybe he's hearing us undo the barrel. So we would go there. One guy would walk out, one guy would stay seeing, like, hoping the bear can't count because we'd have a trail camera. And we would leave, and the bear would come in right after we'd leave every time, grab the sweets and run. Never touched the meat, nothing. So. So that was like essentially a month of bear baiting. And I was like, I'll never do this again, right? There was way more work than anything that I'd done for bear hunting. Like, I was pretty successful spot and stock bear hunting. I mean, like, every. Every year, I'd get a bear, spring bear, you know, spot and stock within four or five days of hunting and got to move around and see some country. And like, this. This hunt was kicking my butt. And I just kept, like, gritting my teeth and being like, it's gonna, like, I'm gonna figure this out. And I didn't figure it out. And. And it was very unsuccessful and way more work than just going out, spotting a bear and taking a bear. Like, and it completely changed my thought on bear baiting. Like, it was. It was something that, like, probably many people, I'm like, oh, so easy, right? It seems easy. And I. And we talked to other guys that had found success and. But there were guys that had done it for years and, like, had spots that they, you know, knew and. And had the right kind of bait and other things. So I learned a lot in that time. And I also was probably like, the longest I'd been unsuccessful with a hunting tactic because I just honestly didn't know what I was doing. And I would. I kind of glean some stuff from some guys, but there just wasn't a lot of information. And it was like, there wasn't a lot of information. And it was a massive, massive learning curve of thinking that, like, okay, I can go in here, and we're going to Be super successful and this is going to be super easy to being like, this is the hardest way that I've ever hunted for bears and that. And that's the truth. And actually like, after I'd done that, it was years before I even thought about trying it again. And so I think that it was kind of fun to at least have had that experience. You know, it was a, an awesome time. Like being out caught a lot of fish, I guess did a lot of camping, carried a lot of rotten meat, did some puking and worked my butt off and had zero success. Like not even. I didn't even lay eyes on a bear in that time. And I was committing to making the bear baiting work. So, you know, over that time too, like we set up those first ones and I would continually try different spots, move things around, try to figure it out and just no success. I like to share that story because I think that there is that like misconception that, oh, you just go throw out some bait and a bear comes in and there's probably places where that is 100 true. I think like on the bear baiting side, if you were to like, if somebody else was doing the scouting, the newer to put it, put the bait out, did it and then you just show up once they're like continually feeding and other things. That's a completely different experience than having to find the spot, acquire the bait, put the bait out, maintain the bait site. There was like a lot of work in the maintaining the bait site, finding the spots, scouting the spots, having something to be successful. And I mean I just got my butt handed to me in with a hunting tactic that I thought should be super easy. Maybe I'm like an anomaly and it just like wasn't meant for me, but maybe I'm not right. So I ended up, I actually since had went and hunted with a buddy in Alaska who had, you know, done it for years and pretty successful with it. And so he, you know, he gave me some pointers and was like, dude, yeah you, you've been using the wrong stuff. Spring bears aren't looking to fill up on a gullet of rotten meat. They're looking for things that are a little bit sweeter. You know, they're mostly hunting for grass and other stuff. You don't need a ton of stuff out. You just need enough to keep them interested. And so he kind of walked me through it and this is like we were, you know, he showed me in places of remote Alaska where we accessed it by his plane would land and it was like summertime, this is probably ten years after that. And so, and so we, you know, would, would do that. And he kind of showed me the ropes and having that just like firsthand experience. Game changing on. Okay. My thoughts and philosophies going forward. But I still, in the back of my mind was like, man, I would really like to be successful getting a bear to come in. Now I say this, I'm not giving tips and tactics necessarily as the expert at this. Right. I'm telling you the story because I've struggled with it, like struggled with the success end of baiting for bears in the past and then kind of gave up on it. It was like, okay, cool, I'm just going to perfect the craft of spot and stock bear hunting because I seem to be good at it and it's fun way to do it and just continue to do that and then. But it was always in the back of my mind like, man, I actually have to try to. I kind of have to figure this out. So I had hunted with Jeremy, my buddy in Alaska. We, you know, like learning the ropes of, of like debating process. And I thought, okay, I have a lot better knowledge on bears now. I have a lot better knowledge on like the baiting process. Let me give this another try. And so when Covid happened, we're all locked down. Not, you know, I mean, things were going on, but it was like, dude, I. Okay, you know, I wasn't going to New Zealand and doing anything over there. I wasn't really traveling. And so it was my, my wife. We weren't. Were we married at the time? Yeah, we were married, yes. So it was my wife and I and I was like, we're just hanging out. Why don't we, why don't I just. We're just going to hunt bears. You know, it's like cool, so what's available right now? And I thought, you know what, why don't I try to see, see if I can get this baiting thing figured out, like whether I harvest the bear on it or not. I would like to be like successful in the process and learning for myself. And so I took a completely different approach the second time. The first time I kind of went out there willy nilly thinking that if I just put something out to attract the bears, I'll be successful and it'll be super easy. The second time I was still in an area that I'd never hunted bears, but I decided to do it a lot different. So my plan was I essentially did all of my pre planning and scouting Per se on onyx. Just digi scouting using topo maps and looking for areas that I felt like check the box for legality of this far from road, this far from whatever. And I started looking for those places. Then I started to look for a certain kind of topography. Things like that I would look for essentially in. In kind of any hunting situation. Like when I'm e scouting for deer, for elk, you know, I look for a certain kind of topography. What I was looking for here is like these places where it benched out. Because my problem before was like I would. I was always on these super steep hillsides that just didn't really lend themselves good to even hunting that area if a bear did come in. So I looked for areas that were like natural travel corridors. Places where it's like, okay, there's maybe a creek here, but here's a draw that's coming down that doesn't have water in it. It flattens out and has like this flat topography surrounded by steep or drop off or maybe like a funnel, a pinch point, things like that. Where it's like natural ways where if I walking through the mountains without a trail, I would kind of gravitate toward these particular places. So I started using the topography to build out potential places to go. Okay, so then through this same journey of like doing that, I go, okay, so I start highlighting. I'm dropping pins and now I'm gonna get out. I don't have any bait with me. I'm just going out to scout. I'm gonna go scout these areas and see if it's a suitable spot, if it has what I need, or if there's any bear sign. So the first place I go, I've got three, you know, like three places that I think I've highlighted on the map based on topography and like movement that I think would be highly successful spots for putting a bait. Where it's like it has this topography where it just a natural corridor, a natural movement on the mountain where it just seems like, yeah, if I was walking, there's no trails here, but like I would walk up this way, where's the way that I would walk and then of that place that I would walk, where's the place where it kind of flattens out, where I could, you know, set up my area, my zone and you know, maybe it's got like hill or mountain above it and below it where the scent can move in different directions, kind of almost on a spine where it goes on both sides and flattens out on the spine almost like a Place where an elk would really bed, but more closer to that bear habitat. So, like, following the waterways and then an offshoot of that where it's within smelling distance of that, but has, you know, some mountain and some other stuff and fits the bill. Okay. So I started identifying these places. First place I go to guess what was there. Someone else's bait. Okay. And it was like an outfitter's bait that had clearly been used for, I don't know, years, probably as long as that outfitter was around. And it was. It was a. It was like I could. I didn't know this at the time. Like, they were taking. They went in a different way. So I didn't know that there was no tracks or anything when I went in there. And they'd used horses to go. Like, apparently they would take clients in using horses from just a little bit different route. So I had hiked in a different way. I had no clue that whatever. But all of a sudden, it clicked. Like, what I'm doing, clearly, Like, I found a spot that on the map seem like a good spot to me now. Having the knowledge of what to use for bait and how to bait from my buddy in Alaska and going up there and doing it with them and being successful, like, now I'm using, like, the topography and the. My knowledge of bear movement to really pinpoint those spots. And sure enough, here's a place where probably many bears have been taken over the years. Okay, well, I'm not gonna obviously use that spot, but it, like, it was a sign to me that, dude, you're. You're actually kind of in the right mindset. Okay. So, I mean, that bait was from E. Scouting at home. Not even ever setting foot in that unit. I. My pin was on where that guy's productive bear bait was. Okay. Okay, I'm gonna go check off the next one off. Listen. And it's like, I don't know, eight. Eight miles away, five miles, whatever. It's a ways away. Like, they're. They're apart. And I go in, and within a hundred yards of this particular pin that I dropped the exact same thing. Now, do I think that these guys have, like, baits everywhere? I mean, they have them in places, right? But they don't have that many of them. And I go somehow, completely randomly from E. Scouting, I've pinpointed two successful places for this guy. Like, there was a tree stand that I could tell had been there and used for years. And I'm like, okay. There was just something about this spot that was clearly successful for these guys, they'd used it over the years and it was clearly successful. The third spot, I'm like, all right, third spot. I go to the third spot and thankfully there was nothing there. Right. And I'm like, okay. My other two assumptions using the topography were correct. And now I'm going to. I found this other one. I think this is a good spot. I'm going to set up and do this. And I. And I. So for the bait process, like, you know what my buddy in Alaska used to use, like essentially dog food or three way, like horse feed. Mix it in with something else, sweet molasses and other stuff. Cover it up or bury it. Don't use a ton of it. You know, enough to where they can find it, cover it or whatever with so the birds can't get it. Or you can put in something small, do like a burn and then something else that has scent. So I did that. I created like a log jam essentially there and then covered it with sticks and logs and everything. And then I did like the Cam Haynes bear, whatever they called it, bear bomb, bear crack burn kind of thing with some bacon grease and some whatever, something sweet. Put that on some trees around and then I have like some. Was it like vanilla? Like a rag with vanilla extract. And put that up in a tree high enough to just disperse the scent. Set up a trail, camera left. Okay. Within. Within. I don't know. I went that spot and then set up another. Then I. So I went back, like, identified a couple more places that I could do one more. I think one other place did the same thing there, set up bait, whatever. And this other place was like, it was more just like a last ditch effort. Like, I'm over here, let's see what happens. It was not, not what I would say was an ideal spot because when I got over there, there's just so much deadfall getting in and so much deadfall around the place that I'm like, man, it'd be hard for a bear to move through this. I thought I had the right topography, but I just was like the, the channel and funnels broken now. It was like everything. I mean, just massive windstorm, trees downed everywhere. And it just wasn't right. But I was like, well, I'm here, let's just try it because I don't know, we'll see. And then, and then I'll check the other spot and figure it, see if this works. So, I mean, probably the. I guess it would be in the next day. I went out to go check midday and that first spot that I put out of the bait had been hit within less than 24 hours and by multiple bears. So there was something to this topography and having the right. The right kind of combination. Everything was right with the topography. It was a pinch point. It was like a choke point between two canyons. It's an easy place for them to go over. That scent would go down into each canyon. There's waterways on both sides. It kind of had a flat area. It was ideally set up for what I was looking for. And then I used the right combination of, you know, food as far as, like, sweet attractant things attracted the bears. So I covered it back up, rebated it, left the camera and set up. I think I still didn't own a tree stand. Should have got a tree stand, set up a ground blind, thinking, okay, in case I want to hunt it. Really, my objective on this particular hunt was to just actually be successful and kind of crack the code on bear baiting and see what comes in. And so over the course of doing this, I really. It was more for me really wanting to just learn about the behaviors of what these bears are doing. And what I started to find was it was kind of later in the season, too. So, you know, I'd see, like, okay, a sow would come through, and then a big boar would come through, and then an even bigger boar would come through and then claim it. And I'm like, okay, there's already right in here. How many bears. And in the other time that I tried within 30 days, that pretty much successfully, you know, not successfully baited, or at least not consistently baited in any bears. And just by adjusting the tactic of what I was using for the bait and the location, I was able to draw bears to that location. Now, the other spot as well, that I had pinpointed, put out some. So I did. There's. I kind of wanted to now, like, see, okay, is this a thing where maybe I'm just in a good area, or is it, like, the topography and everything lends itself to it. So within that same kind of draw in just a spot similar to what I would have put it in before, like, just on a hillside kind of just a random place. Not great. Whatever. It just seemed like, okay, just a random spot. I did the same thing. So I set up a bait there and put a camera on it. Okay. And this was just like my. I just really wanted to learn, like, what am I doing? How can I do this better? What. What am I not? Like, did I figure out something or Did I get lucky? Right? Was it. Is it just that there's a lot of bears here, or is it like that location lent itself to those bears coming in? So within. Not a far distance from. I mean, way crow flies should. I've got it pinned on my arm. I should have just measured it, but it's probably like a mile and a half the way the crow flies. And I just accessed it from the bottom, went up the hillside, put a bait there, and then had another bait that was in that spot that had the blowdowns. Okay. So the one that was like, seemed like a good location, the blowdowns. I actually was getting bears to come into that as well. It was like. But not very. I got like a couple bears to come in and they were smaller. And I was just like, it was a pain in the butt to get in there. And I already had other. So I just pulled that, like done with that. I'm just going to leave my control one and see if it's the location or if it's like just an area. There's just a lot of bears. And it worked because not as many people are maybe out right now or what have you. And the place that was pretty close to that other one, but just not in an ideal movement per se area never got hit, not once. And yet this other spot, not that far away, maybe. It's probably less than a mile away. The crow flies. Honestly, like, it wasn't. It wasn't that far away. It's just down the mountain on this hillside. But not like great travel route, anything like that. Never touched. Same kind of bait, same kind of everything. Not really touched. Maybe one day a small bear came in toward the end. Because I just kept it going till the end of the season just as like it was just an experiment really for me to just kind of learn a few things about bears. And so the place that. That was good. Continually getting traffic from new bears. Constantly. And so highlighting and keying in on the topography of travel routes and using that knowledge of the way bears travel and then utilizing like, it seems so simple, right? Like, yeah, that's what you would do. When I first started, I didn't know that. I didn't even really know as much about bears. And over the years, hunting bears, kind of targeting bears and really utilizing trail cameras and other things to kind of see how like, what time are they. Like, a lot of these bears would come. The thing that surprised me is like they'd come in at random times. And I think it was maybe because they're like, more interested in, like, moving and rutting. And then a bigger bear would take it over and kind of establish dominance and then move them off. And I just utilize that bait site to just essentially study bears. I ended up taking a bear with my bow and a good one. There was actually bigger ones coming in after I took mine, you know, just to kind of know, like, okay. I think that there was more to it than I'd really observed at first. My initial reaction with, like, baiting bears was, oh, you just put food out, bears will come, and you can take a bear. I didn't really understand the gamesmanship of, okay, there's some strategy involved of what to use, which ended up being, in the springtime, sweeter stuff, you know, more. And not necessarily, like, it didn't necessarily have to be a big volume thing, but just something to regularly keep them coming back. My buddy in Alaska was like, you know, you can use all your money and resources feeding a lot of bears, or you can kind of put out a little bit, get them interested in it and keep them coming back and checking more often, which might get them out in the daylight more often because they're trying to get there first before the other bears get to it, which made a ton of sense. So, you know, utilizing that strategy of not a ton of stuff out, just enough to kind of draw the bear in, attract them with whatever scent, and then having it in an area where bears should want to travel. And that just came from understanding more bear habit and habitat over the years. And honestly, you know, I, like, I'm not doing this podcast to say, like, here's the exact formula for baiting bears, because I've baited in a billion. Like, there's people out there that this is. That's their preferred method of hunting. They're absolute masters at it. And that's the one thing that I learned doing it was like, there's people that are good at it. And the reason that they're good at it is they understand the location thing, they know what to use, and they have a way of, like, attracting them and enticing them in to those daylight hours. Because you could put out bait, you could put out whatever, and it could get hit only at night, which does you no good if you're trying to harvest a bear. They come in after dark or when it's too dark to shoot or anything like that, right? Or hit it sporadically or what have you. So I think a lot of the strategy involved for me and what I learned was that bear corridor thing, like, where's a good place for bear movement, and where's a good potential spot that that might be successful? And so I ended up utilizing that strategy and scouting other places like that. And sure enough, I went to those other places intentionally, initially thinking, like, oh, maybe I'll mate here in the future or whatever and would find bear sign. And I'm like, oh, cool, okay. I actually found some good hunting spots that I ended up just saying, like, all right, it is a pain to gather the stuff, carry it in, maintain it. Like, you just kind of have to commit to that. But there was places that I found in timbered pockets where I go. These are bare travel corridors. And whether I'm baiting it or not, this is a place that bears like and utilize and move through. I've got tracks here, I've got sign here, what have you. And so that, like, to me taught me so much about bear movement behavior. And this is clearly like strategy in the mountains. But I think that the same thing could be used wherever you're at, like, if you're in some terrain that's flatter or whatever. The same thing can be is utilized by white tail stand hunters. And I think that that's kind of a cool thing that you can learn from other forms of hunting is utilizing those travel corridors of pinch points and things where it kind of narrows down a lot of country into a smaller funnel that increases the chance of something going by what you have, like I said, within a smaller area. I put out another bait that didn't have that same travel corridor effect and never got hit. And yet something fairly close to it in an ideal location was hit by multiple bears, like probably over the course of a couple weeks, maybe seven different bears or more. Which is crazy to me when, you know, utilizing just the. The fact of the location making so much of a difference in the success of that particular area. Well, I hope some of you guys enjoyed that podcast. If you're like me and you're wherever you stand on baiting bears. Right. I think that I've said this multiple times, but for me, it's almost easier to spot and stock them, to be 100 honest. But I'll continue. You know, I still enjoy, like, setting baits for bears and what I learned from bear behavior and, you know, kind of the, the terrain and the way that they move just makes me overall more knowledgeable about bears and, and the way that they function. They. They have always been this species for me that I. I continually learn stuff on. And I always like taking kind of a challenge of Trying different hunting methods and tactics and seeing what I learned. The other thing is, you know, tactically we didn't talk about hunting bears with, with hounds. And you know, one of the things that you do learn while doing that as well, which I haven't had a lot of experience getting to do that I would, I would love to get on more hunts like that is just understanding like their escape routes and their behaviors, right? Like where are they hiding, where are they moving and what are they doing? What is their day to day kind of thing do. I just, I love that about hunting. And learning anything new is like diving in deep. And I think that no matter what you're hunting, understanding the species is the best, some of the best tactics you can have. So guys that are consistently successful are consistently successful because they really understand what they're hunting, whether it be elk, mule deer, pronghorn, bears. And if you can just be kind of a student of the wild, let nature teach you what it can, you're gonna be overall more successful as a hunter. And it, it's involves sometimes trying other forms of hunting outside of what you normally do. Like what I've learned while, you know, since then I, you know, I've continued to be successful bringing bears in that way. And honestly, like what I've learned doing that has made me better spot and stock bear hunting as well, or any kind of bear hunting. Just understanding how bears move. For me now it's so much easier to just go out and be like, like, okay, I can go check these spots, whatever the terrain, wherever I'm at, new place, place that I've hunted before, really like pinpoint where bears are going to be. And I can do it with extreme accuracy now. And, and it's really helped me like, develop as well. Going in, I like to, in the spring, I just like to explore. Like, I use spring bear hunting not just to chase bears, but really just to explore. So I go into areas that most of the time I've never hunted. And I can get on my onyx maps and I can just like hammer out some e scouting based on like, this looks like a good spot from satellite imagery. This looks like a good spot for where bears would move. This looks like a good spot for glassing. This looks like a good spot for feeding. This looks like a good funnel. And I can just start highlighting these areas and go into an area and really be super successful in finding something that can be hard to find just by knowing them so well. And so I think that like, just the act of doing that, you learn so much, which is really fun. So I think it's just something for you guys to think about. Oh, also, I mentioned, you know, if you guys don't have some form of mapping software, you're working in the Stone Ages. Like, it's like I was when I first started out and didn't exist, but now, I mean, with programs like Onyx, you can just, you can really do so much while in the field and from home that it's probably one of the most beneficial tools you can have. As always, you guys can use code LIVEWILD, you'll get. Get, I think, 20% off on a membership. So if you don't already have one or you're going to upgrade, you can do that. And then another awesome company supporter of this podcast, Stone Glacier. One of the things that I think about when it comes to springtime is often there's good weather and there's kind of that rainy, inclement weather. But it's a real fun time to get out and maybe even just get into the backcountry. Do some camping, get your kind of fall kit figured out. I talk about this a lot where it's like, hey, I want to go on a backpack hunt for whatever. Maybe it's guys that are doing it for the first time. Start getting familiar with your stuff before you get way into the backcountry. Whether it's a car camping hunt, utilize what you might use on your backcountry hunts, or maybe you're going to foyer into backcountry hunting. Springtime's a perfect time to do that because you know, there's fewer people out, there's nicer weather generally, like, it can be. Spring can be tumultuous, but it's like kind of consistently, it's like you'll get some storm, you'll get some nice days. It's kind of up and down, really, whereas sometimes the fall and whatever is just all down or all up. It depends on the year. But it's a good time to kind of test out some new stuff or get into the field and enjoy some awesome country. One of the pieces from Stone Glacier that I think is awesome is the sky air Ult. So it's the ultralight tent. It's like a tarp that you utilize your trekking poles with. So last week I talked about I carry trekking poles. You know, this is a really good system because there's no poles for your tent. You can always cut. Sometimes I just want to use my trekking poles and I'll take My tent down. So I just cut them with a stick, use my little saw, cut some branches down, set up the tent that way or use my trekking poles. And then I would suggest for the springtime the Sky Air Ult mesh insert. So that makes it like a fully enclosed kind of thing because there is a lot of bugs and other things during the springtime. I don't think I would. I guess I would, but I don't know. For me I like having that security of just being able to keep the bugs off at night. Having that ult tent shelter that's like rainproof everything. You can throw the vestibule on it. I got mine set up with the, the ult with the vestibule and the mesh insert. And it's just a super light weight way to go for like a little one person tent. Super comfortable. And then you know that time of year I'm just using like their chill cute 15 degree bag and a sleeping pad, lightweight sleeping pad. I still use that Neo Air Thermarest kind of one. It has like a lot of insulation and like pad. It blows up pretty nice. Super, super comfortable. And that's the system that I run. So if you guys are looking for something like that, you guys can find that. Stoneglacier.com I also sell a lot of that stuff on my website if you guys are interested. Remywarren.com and remember, as always on Stone glaciers you guys can use code livewild and get free shipping on that stuff. So a little bit of way to give back. I just thank you guys so much for all the support over the years and through the podcast. And yeah, feel free to reach out if you guys have things you're like, hey man, I want to know more about this particular topic or that one of the things we got a lot of is spring bear topics. I'm like, let's, because of the comments and the messages I got, I'm like, I'm going to, let's dedicate some more time to that and build that out. And there's also, you know, a library of stuff that we've talked about in the past. I try to kind of keep the topics new and all that, but I mean even as the guy that's even doing the podcast, I forget what I talk about. I can't remember. I mean there's probably people that remember what I talk about more than I remember talking about it. Maybe I just need to get better sleep at night and have better memory. But you know, I think like over the course of time we Just start to forget some of those things. So. Or maybe, you know, it's something you're like, I wasn't interested in that two years ago and. And now I am. So, you know, it's always good to. Maybe I'll even do some more of the rehash. Some of the other good spring bear tactics when it comes to food, what they're looking for, glassing that kind of stuff. But we've got a good library of good spring bear hunting stuff. So if that's. If you're interested in it, you guys can seek that out. I'll put some more stuff on the website as well for more information and things maybe build out. I'm going to build out a little spring bear hunt gear list on the website too. So if there's. I'll try to put some of the stuff that you just don't think about spring bear season. Like, you know what I'm going to try to get back in the store. These little pack rafts from uncharted supply company. I throw that in my backpack when I'm going back. Like spring bear hunting. And it's not necessarily for crossing the streams because some of those streams are just ripping. Like it'd be way too dangerous to cross with the raft. But what I use it for is in the little lakes and I bring like a packable fly rod and I just, you know, like in. In some downtime or whatever, catch some fish, cook up some fish. Sometimes you just need that like, mental break and relaxation of like, it's nice weather, the sun's out. Getting that little raft, you can just like, it blows itself up the bottom, gets a, you know, you just get in your knees, paddle out there with your hands because you can get away from the shore on some of those a little bit. And man, I've had some awesome. Just like some awesome spring mountain lake cutthroat fishing in those things. So I think I'll throw that. I think I've got some in the store. I'll actually should have checked before I talk about it. I like to talk about things and then. And then check on them later. But I'll make sure those are in the store and some other just random spring stuff that you might not think about. So thank you guys so much. And until next week, I'm gonna say feed the bears. Catch you guys later. Don't feed them yourself. All right. Feed them donuts.