Donuts and coffee

[Hill billy]

Gentlemen I have to apologize for being absent this summer! But it’s been a doozy in the business world. But on with trad hunting. I wanted to share my plans with y’all and hopefully keep you updated. A lifetime friend and myself will be trying to bait bears in the Ozark hills this year. We can legally start this weekend. My dear Daughter who is a senior in high school this year has worked for a donut bakery the last couple years mostly in the summer. Which has given me the opportunity to collect unsold or unsalable donuts over the past several weeks. I also have a friend in the bread distribution business. So you know the rest of that deal. My hunting friend found a 55 gal barrel of grape syrup for sale so we’re throwing that in the mix also. The catch 22 is it’s about a 240 mile round trip to the hunting location. It’s only legal to bait on private ground. We’re both from that area so after a few phone calls we had permission to hunt some different locations. Lots of work already and we’re just getting started. Any advice would be welcome. Or a good bear hunt story would be fun. My step son and I will also attempt a bait on my property. I couldn’t find where one has been tagged in our county but one is spotted occasionally. It’s close enough that he can hunt there after school if we’re fortunate enough to draw one in. Wish us luck!

[Elkman]

Good luck on your hunt Michael. I don’t hunt bear very often and we can't bait at all here in Montana. I am short on bear hunting stories. I have one or two and I will try and share later.

[Carpdaddy]

This could be a sweet and fattening trip! Lol
Kidding ya; best of luck on your adventure! Take plenty of pictures.

[Hill billy]

My employees laugh at me and call my collection dumpster donuts. They smell really good and I tell them I’m really tempted at times to at them. I’m going to buy a fresh batch some morning and walk in eating one. Tell them I just can’t take it anymore lol

[jaydee2trad]

sounds like an awesome plan. the only other bait that you have left out is bacon grease. The great thing about a bear eating stuff like what you are using is that it really affects the taste. so if you manage to harvest one that has been eating your baitpile, it should taste very good. I killed one that had been eating rotten meat and brother you could tell it. I wish you luck on your endeavor, personally we have been having great luck here with our deer feeder and bird seed LOL. But I am not trying to bait a bear. one of my neighbors is though and he is basically doing what you are but with added corn. Living at the foot of Rich Mountain in Polk County, we get a lot of bear activity all the time. When the cat is on the roof, there is a bear around.

[Hill billy]

Jaydee2trad I have only eaten 1 bear and it was a sample of jerky and sausages. Everyone has the same opinion though if there not on a good berry diet etc, they can get distasteful. I’m probably going the long rout to enjoy donuts. Our challenge is hunting and baiting before the acorn drop. They are like deer. It’s hard to compete with fresh acorns. A bear will walk past donuts for good acorns. I really don’t know how acorn fed bear fair on the table .

[Grizzly]

I can just see it now. You get them all used to coming to the donuts and they begin to acquire a taste for them and then that morning when you walk in eating a donut

Good luck. I've never seen a bear in the woods. Years after I left Northern, NJ they began to almost over fun the top of the state because for years and for political, tree hugger reasons, they kept postponing the bear season. I've heard deer hunters say they were seeing more bears than deer.

[jaydee2trad]

Jaydee2trad I have only eaten 1 bear and it was a sample of jerky and sausages. Everyone has the same opinion though if there not on a good berry diet etc, they can get distasteful. I’m probably going the long rout to enjoy donuts. Our challenge is hunting and baiting before the acorn drop. They are like deer. It’s hard to compete with fresh acorns. A bear will walk past donuts for good acorns. I really don’t know how acorn fed bear fair on the table .

bear are omivores like hogs and us. the old timers that let their pigs run free would trap them and then feed them corn for a couple of weeks to get a better tasting meat because they never knew what they had been eating. Bears get mighty hungry and will eat anything, even rencid meat and that will for sure give a bad taste. So it is almost a crap shoot with the bear meat. I have eaten some that was very very good and it was out in the wild with no baiting way up in the mountains. I have only eaten one that was what I woudl call nasty or awful and I know that it was eating rotting meat but it was the last day of the season. bears will still have a sweet tooth and being bears, they like to eat a lot so the odds are still in your favor. I can tell you from experience that they love dog food too, have lost an entire bag of Ole Roy to a big one. Most of the dogs and hogs killed around here by bears are over their food. Dogs get to thinking that they are pretty quick and get too close then die. I usually have bear problems until about now when people begin baiting them. I probably have 6 or 8 people baiting them within a mile of me now, so they go from pile to pile. The guy, Clay Newcome, that has the Bear Hunting Magazine was from here and got his start here. He routinely takes bears from around here and just over into Oklahoma from here. anyways, acorn fed is still better than rotten meat fed. Good luck and hope you have a blast. Jerry

[Hill billy]

I can just see it now. You get them all used to coming to the donuts and they begin to acquire a taste for them and then that morning when you walk in eating a donut

Good luck. I've never seen a bear in the woods. Years after I left Northern, NJ they began to almost over fun the top of the state because for years and for political, tree hugger reasons, they kept postponing the bear season. I've heard deer hunters say they were seeing more bears than deer.

Yea well I will probably empty my pockets of donuts before entering the woods. Or I could put a big fake donut under my stand. lol

[Hill billy]

Jerry I’m with you on acorn fed bears. There are a lot of worse things they could be eating. I think they are kinda hard on corn feeders too. Corn fed bear wouldn’t be bad I bet.