kakko

What I use is a 45 gal plastic drum with a lid that is held on with a band clamp, I put about 6 feet of 1/4" cable attached to the drum, the other end I use a screw eye to to mount into a tree or stump.

In the barrel i cut 3 4x4 inch holes at about the half way mark in the barrel, I also use a a tie wrap or heavy peice of wire to lock the band clamp.

I put my bait in the barrel (popcorn) and pour over the popcorn with something sweet and stickey, mollasas, corn syrup, also have used sugar water, or koolaid
anything that makes the popcorn stick together.

when a bear comes to the bait they have to work at it to get food out, they chew on it , slap it around, try to get the lid off, but the bait only comes out in bits and peices.
I have watched them for over a hour beat up the drum then lay down beside it have a snooze then start all over
its a good system that works for me.

Pioneer2

Hi, I'm in Alberta Canada .I cut the top of a 45gal steel drum 3/4 of the way around and punch a 2" hole in the lip and another in the side so after i refill them i take a short chain and a threaded quick link to tie it shut.I punch another hole round back and chain it around and to the tree with a 6" lag screw and big washer through the links.Don't cut a hole in the side to feed the bears unless you like carrying lots of bait all season.Cut a 6" circular or square hole in the centre of the lid so he has to stand up and fish contents out one at a time.This way the bears can only empty half the barrel .Pour molassas all over the lid and ground as any bears mucking in this leave a nice scent trail for others to follow back to your site.We keep bacon grease and fish parts in a freezer in the garage year round for next years use...Hope this helps......Harold

rankbull

this is a lot of good info, any good start up videos out to help?

WARedBear

When we could bait in Washington....we used to go dumpster diving behind the grocery store and get all of their old pasteries, cakes, cookies...anything sweet. They put in one of those trash compactors so we started going to the day old bakery and bought baskets of breads for just a few dollars. Problem with this is they are not sweet so you have to sweeten then up. We tried different mixtures until we found one the bears liked. We had to move from one mountain south of town to one north and the bears had a different taste for what was good. So we had to start over and find what they liked. We used to take honey and mix it with HOT water and spray it around the stand or drop honey around the site to get the sweet smell out. We also took anise oil and mixed it with HOT water and sprayed it around the whole area and especially around the limbs around the stand to hide our scent.

We took a plastic 55 gallon drum and cut it in half and placed a piece of plywood over it to keep the rain out. I had a bear sit down and belly up to the barrel and grab one doughnut at a time, sit down, eat it, and then bite another one. Made for a BAD shot though....hit that thick shoulder bone. You want to make a large "V" that will funnel the bears into the perfect shot stance. We placed limbs and old tree trunks down in order to get the bear quartering away from us. Another thing we did that I didn't see mentioned was honey burns. We used sterno with honey in a peanut can. You just have to be very very careful in how you handle it. We had a tree stand that would hold three LARGE guys built between two trees so we had the floor space.

Happy Hunting
Reid