Tactics/Knowledge
By Bernie Barringer
The use of trail mix as bait has exploded in the past decade. This has diven the demand and, of course, the price, way up. Everywhere I go, I get blamed for it and I suppose I deserve it. I have promoted the use of trail mix in books, videos, YouTube and of course this magazine. It really brings in the bears and keeps them close to the bait. It competes with natural foods better than anything I have ever used. Give the bears quality food that meets their nutritional needs and they’ll be at your mercy. The combination of pastries with trail mix has revolutionized my success rates.
Bear bait suppliers at times struggle to get enough trail mix due to the high demand. I have seen many bait suppliers using the term “Trail Mix” to describe all kinds of mixtures of baits, some of which approximate the right stuff and some of which does not. When I talk about the right trail mix that works the best, I’m talking about the stuff you would by in a bag in the local grocery store or Walmart. It has mixed nuts, peanuts, M&M’s or chocolate chips, along with some raisins and sometimes dried fruits. This is the premium stuff and commands a premium price from bait suppliers.
Because of the price to acquire it and the availability issues, some bait suppliers are labeling other mixtures as trail mix. Some of this stuff is pretty good, some of it not so much. Look at it this way. A barrel of good trail mix is running around $150 across the US at this time. You can buy things like pretzels, marshmallows, bits of chocolate candy and other things for quite a bit less than that. So when you see those things in a barrel or a bucket, you know the seller is trying to increase the profit margin by making the trail mix go farther.
Here are some bullet points to help you in buying the right trail mix at the right price:
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When buying by the barrel, make note of how big the barrel is. I’ve seen barrels of various sizes sold at the same price. One supplier uses 50-gallon barrels which most people can’t distinguish from the typical 55-gallon steel or poly barrels.
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Is the product all the way to the top of the barrel? Open the barrels and make sure you are getting what you pay for.
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Better yet, by trail mix by the pound. I buy it in super sacks by the pound then transfer it into barrels.
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Purchase it in ways that are easy and efficient to handle. Not everyone can muscle around a 300-pound barrel. What if you were to purchase it by the barrel, then bring buckets and a scoop to the retailer and fill the buckets yourself? Something to think about.
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Buy more than you think you will need. It stinks to run out, and trail mix will keep well from year to year.
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Avoid chocolate in any significant quantities. Bears can become sick from too much chocolate and in some extreme cases have died from it. Small bits of chocolate are fine but be careful.
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Watch out for cheap fillers. Make sure you get what you pay for. Most suppliers are not intentionally trying to cheat you, but there are cases of suppliers who are taking advantage of hunters who don’t really know what to look for.
One of the best things about trail mix is that it’s easy to handle and dispense to the bears. When running a lot of baits as I do, it means a lot to be efficient. Looking for a stick to scrape gooey bait out of a bucket takes time. Handling boxes or plastic bags is inefficient and time consuming. I scoop trail mix into a bucket and then dump the buckets at the bait sites. The empty buckets go back for more. No boxes or bags to deal with and no sticky stuff.
We are beginning to see the benefits of using trail mix in other ways. We’ve been putting all this high-quality food in front of bears for quite some time now, and the bear population is showing the results. Bears are healthier and fecundity is increasing. I had 17 sow bears with cubs on my 21 bait sites this fall, and of those, one had four cubs, three had two cubs and the other 13 had three cubs each. I believe this increase is a direct result of the availability of high-quality food in the form of trail mix and pastries/bread that I have been using.
I use many of the same bait sites from year to year and the bears are eagerly looking forward to the time in August when the good food shows up. As an experiment this summer, I put some trail cameras on a few of my sites about 10 days prior to baiting. All of those sites had bears visiting them even before the bait was put out. They were checking back often because they had a good experience with food at those locations in the past.
Quality bait not only makes a huge difference in hunting success, but it’s good for the bears individually and the bear population as a whole, wherever it is used. I hear a lot of hunters complaining about the cost of trail mix, in fact I have heard myself complaining about it. But I can tell you this for sure: If you are not putting quality bait in front of your bears, and other baiters are, then the bears will have no interest in your bait. With all this trail mix in the woods, the days of baiting with popcorn and table scraps are over.
You can complain, or you can spend the money on quality bait and increase your success rates as well as benefit the bear population as a whole.