gleninAZ

You can use dogs in Idaho and it works. Try to find someone who loves to dog hunt and ask if you can be camp helper. Better get in shape cause they will run you to death. Good hunting.

Idaho hunter 58

how do you do bait hunting? Set up a pile of extreme smelling meat or something? Then sit on a hill and wait?

sawbill

Baiting for bears is the simplest thing on earth. First you have to let them know where your bait is so start about a month and a half ahead of your hunt. Do this by using meat scraps or fish. Set out at least 20 lbs or so and leave it til it rots. Give it a week or 10 days then check to see if the site has been visited. If it has, you've already got him hooked. Nothing travels on the wind like rotting meat so if theres bears in the neighborhood they'll find it. Cover your meat so that skunks, ravens or the like won't clean it up on you first. Hanging it from a tree works great for this purpose. Its easy to determine if its bears hitting your site as they'll create trails and spread some of the scraps like paper, plastic etc all along their trails. They'll also mark trees close to the bait site, especially soft barked trees like balsam. Once they start visiting the site, up your baiting frequency to once a week, then as your hunt nears, go twice a week. After they start hitting the site, you can change your baits from meat to sweets (donuts, pastries,). I like to alternate as this varies the smells around the site and gets them used to odor changes. I drive my ATV right to the site as well to get them used to people smells and noises. Using things like anice, molasses, grease and honey burns are all gimmicks, but they do work. I really don't think they're necessary once the bears find your site. If you smoke, toss a few butts near your baits as well to get them used to that. One last thing, be prepared to lose a few timers as bears have a nasty habit of tearing a strip off 'em.

Idaho hunter 58

What do you mean by timers? And how much do you spend on all the bait?

thanks for all the help everyone... hopefully i can try and get one this spring.

Idaho hunter 58

what gun should i take? .243, .308, or the .300 mag w/boss?

noway

Your .308 or .300 are fine for bears.
Baiting can require quite an investment in time. Driving back and forth and gathering the bait and setting the bait. You also need a baiting permit in Idaho.

Unless that really sounds like fun to you, just get out and glass. You shouldn't have any trouble finding a bear if you glass the right areas for a couple days.

Having said that I shot my first bear by buying some cans of mackerel at the grocery store. Took it to an area I knew held bears and spread it out in the bushes. Next morning when I checked it out there were three sets of bear tracks on that road and I shot a bear coming out of those bushes at 40 yards on the road.
That wasn't offically baiting, I was going by there anyway to the point that I was going to glass from and figured what the heck.

Good luck!

sawbill

By timers I mean Trail Timers. They tell you at what times the animals are visiting your baits. String timers are a lot cheaper than multiple counters but they only record one hit. Don't worry about timers if you don't have one. Bears are active at all hours of the day from before dawn til well after dark, but the peak time is late afternoon til dark.
As for baits, if you can pick up day old pastries, that works fine. As well, hit your local butcher shops or meat markets. Scrap meat usually goes about 10 cents a pound. My own costs are a heck of a lot higher than that as I'm baitng for my hunters so I'm using an awful pile of the stuff. As you up the frequency of baiting, you also cut back on the amount of bait set out. For example, the week before you hunt, you can cut the amount of bait to just 5 lbs--just enough to keep them coming. However, if you have a large number of bears visiting your site, then more bait will certainly help keep them there. Of course, the distance you will have to travel to your baits can determine how often you bait and that of course increases your costs. I'm fortunate as I run my baits anywhere from 1 mile up to 20 miles from my home or camp. With this I can afford to bait heavily.

Shotgunman20

To me all you would need is a slug gun that is all i used and have u seen the size of holes they leave.

bkkeys

if you decide not to bait, then find an area that has a good amount of bears in it and call, i use a primos hyper hot single reed cow call, i can do a high pitch call useing my front tooth, i usually just slowly hunt around and call, last year i came across 7 bears doing this during elk season, and took my first bear this way, he grunted at me , and as i called back to him , he let me get with in 20 yards for a double lung shot, lol might not always be that easy but i have seen hunts on video where they use a cow call to bring them in. good luck and be careful