Early on in my bear hunting, I had a mistaken idea of how bears viewed my bait sites. I thought I was doing them a big favor and they should be coming in with enthusiasm and gobbling up all the good stuff I was putting out. That might work for yearlings and some bears in remote parts of Canada where the bears have no experience with hunters, but it sure doesn't work for big mature bears where they get any significant amount of hunting pressure.  

Turns out that big bears aren’t all that enamored with our bait sites and view them in a different light. As soon as I realized that you cannot manipulate bear behavior or force them to do something they do not feel comfortable with, my opportunities to put big bears in front of me during legal shooting hours really increased.  

A mature bear around the bait site, rather than feeling the excitement of free food, has an attitude more in line with this, “This just isn’t right. It isn’t natural and it seems too good to be true. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Once you start to look at bear baiting with that frame of mind, your success rates are going to increase because you now have a more accurate picture of how bears are viewing what you are offering.  

I have written a lot about the importance of location in making a bear feel secure and comfortable enough with your bait to approach it during the daylight, as well as the baiting techniques, timing, etc. that can increase their comfort level, so I won’t go into details about that here. Let’s discuss how a mature adult bear approaches your bait and the extreme caution he uses.  

First of all, it goes without saying that you must put your bait in a location where a bear has security cover to approach the bait, or he’s unlikely to come at all during legal shooting hours. They really do not like to cross open areas while approaching a bait. I have had people discount my fervent convictions on this issue by claiming they have seen bears feeding on open hillsides and even in farm fields during broad daylight. Well, so have I. But when that same bear is approaching a bait site, he is going to be super cautious and aware of his surroundings because he just knows this situation isn’t natural. This is a difference that you must fully understand in order to become successful at killing big bears. A bear may be feeding in an open area (like grazing on acorns during broad daylight) seemingly without a care, but that evening when he is coming to your bait he is using every stitch of cover and his senses are on a razor’s edge.  

We have often heard that bears will circle a bait site. I have watched hundreds of bears approach a site and, frankly, I have never seen a single one do a full circle. I’ve seen some that stay back aways and move back and forth, I even had one do nearly ¾ of a circle. But I believe these bears are trying to determine two things and they don’t need to do a full circle to learn what they want to know. The first thing they are trying to do is get the wind of the bait itself. Here’s a surprise to many of you: unless the bear has had a bad experience with a person in the stand, such as being shot at or being spooked, I do not believe it is very common for a bear to try to get downwind of the stand and see if anyone is in there. They are most commonly trying to just get the wind of the bait because it smells good, and they want to know if any other bears or critters are on the bait. If you can set up your stand in such a way that the bears can sweep downwind of the bait and get a good whiff without getting downwind of the stand you’re sitting in, you’ve got an advantage. Not really a common scenario, but worth considering when setting up your locations.  

The second thing the bear is trying to smell by “circling” before committing to the bait is your entry trail. I have seen this many times where the bear just goes over and smells the trail you came in on when you baited. He has you patterned and he’s just checking to see when you last showed up. He can tell if your ground scent is an hour old or five hours old. He knows. If it’s really fresh, there’s a good chance he’ll be much more cautious in actually committing to the bait itself.  

These big mature bears may be in the immediate area for a half hour or more before they fully commit to the bait. If you sneeze, swat a mosquito, pick up your phone, or make any quick movements, you may actually spook the bear without even knowing he was there. In low light conditions, I am convinced that a cell phone has saved the lives of a lot of bears. Remember, a bear’s eyes can take in about 50 times as much light as ours. You pick up your phone to see that there’s 15 minutes of legal light left, or answer a text message, and your face lights up like a beacon that a bear can see for a long way off.  

Those big bears often use what I call “staging areas” to observe the bait with their senses of smell, sight, and hearing, and they can be very patient. I have seen them just lay down 40 yards from the bait and not move a muscle for 20 minutes at times. I have also found places where they will sit down and wait for dark to come on. Even when they cannot see the bait, they can hear and smell it. They may be 30-50 yards away when you climb down from the stand at dark and you never knew they had been there for half an hour. It’s no wonder that the first time you hunt a bait is the best chance to kill a mature bear. We all have trail cam pics of a bear that walks into the bait 20 minutes after we leave. Chances are that the bear was very close for quite some time while you were there.  

I have also seen bears that have found an opening in thick cover where they can walk to and just look at the bait and the immediate area surrounding the bait. I had a bear up on a hillside poke his head out of the brush and look right at me in the stand. He had found that hole where he could observe, and he used the opportunity every time he came to the bait. When I watched it happen in person for the first time, I knew immediately by the way it happened that this wasn’t the first time he’d done it.  

I have often said that if you hear a bear approaching the bait, it’s because he intended to be heard. They can approach without a sound over almost any terrain. But they often are trying to determine if the bait is a safe place and if there are other bears or critters at the site. I’ve heard many times (and even seen) them step on a branch to make a cracking noise to get a reaction from any other bears that might already be on the bait. I have also heard them pop their teeth and make other chuffing sounds to learn if other bears are in the area.  

Small, young bears give hunters the idea that we just need to feed the right bait in the right places and they’re not that hard to tag. But keep in mind that we’re not doing these bears any favors and the big ones know it. They look at the bait site as something unnatural, even dangerous, and they use caution accordingly. It's no wonder these big bears are so hard to kill. But if we are consistent and provide them with a safe, secure environment at the bait site, they do tend to settle down and relax a little over time. Once they let their guard down even a little, our chances of bagging them start to increase.  

The signs of where a bear comes to your bait—the trails and tracks that show their final commitment (so to speak)---may not be telling the whole story about how that bear spent the last hour before he finally walked in and took a bite. Knowing these things can increase your chances of shooting a big one over a small one.