Ep. 139: Bear Baiting with Mark Livesay

With a few minutes left on the time clock in some states this spring to bear hunt, Dirks talks baiting statagies with Mark Livesay from Treeline Academy. They touch on escouting and dig in deep on Mark's favorite baiting tricks. If you have a little time left to hunt and were pondering if it's worth setting up a bait this late in the game, give this a listen and head out with bait in hand!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distant podcast.
I'm Dirk Durham and today this week's guest is an
absolute e scouting guru. I thought I knew a thing
or two about the scouting until I met this guy,
and he's next level. Not only does he know his
way around mapping software, he's also an accomplished hunter, whether

(00:34):
we're talking bears or elk. Welcome to the podcast, Mark Livesay.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Thanks Derek, it's been a while. I mean, you know,
we got to tour around the country together when we
were doing those OLK shape cams and you had to
you were just like forced to listen to my presentation
over and over again. So I feel like I know
all of your calling, presentation, tactics, the midday mad and
that's which I talk about all the time, and all

(01:00):
the things that you do. So when we traveled around
it was fun. I enjoyed that. I kind of missed
the camaraderie of that.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Actually, yeah, that was really fun. I miss all the guys.
I actually had record a podcast yesterday with with Jimmy
Gruenwaal Jimmy Kits remember him, and I don't know if
he was doing those backcountry safety clinics when with us
when we were doing our stuff. But man, that guy

(01:29):
is really good too. I haven't talked to him.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Forever, and it was really good to catch up.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
It's like you make all these buddies that you just
don't get to see anymore because you're not doing that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Well, it's funny like in this business too. We meet
each other at shows, and we meet at these different
events and then we go our separate ways and we
talk on Instagram and chat and text and we don't
give chands to hang out all that much, right, right,
and so those you know what I mean, Dan State
would put us all in the same house. I'm surprised

(01:58):
we didn't up share bed. I'm trying to I know
a right think. The only thing I'm grateful for is
that he put Joel Turner in separate room.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, I had to share a room with him.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
And he said, I remember that one time you did,
didn't you.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, He's like, oh, you're sleep talking, sleep walk I'm
like what, and he's like, yeah, you you you set
straight up out of bed and start talking. You got
up and walked around the room in your underwear and
then you laid back down. And you went and then
you were silent, like I don't remember that at all.
He's like, yeah, that's because you were sleep talking.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Oh yeah, yeah that was good.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
So Mark has a has a has a business or
has a uh an education company called tree Line Academy,
and man, tell us all about that. I mean I could,
I could explain it, but I'm gonna I'm gonna screw
it all up. Mark tell teller listeners about.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
It anyway, dirt. So you're probably a little bit in
the same campus me. I'm a lot older than you, unfortunately.
But so I started. This is gonna be my thirty
fifth year elk hunting, I think, And you know, in
my twenties and thirties when I was I wouldn't have
shared any dude, There's no way I would have not
shared one single waypoint. I would have never shared one

(03:12):
single thing I was doing. There's no way. I mean,
I was just so anti like helping other people become
better hunters. Yeah yeah, And it wasn't like I purposely
was about doing it. And I'm just like I to
be honest, I was selfish. I wanted to save it
all for me and I wanted to like I thought
if I if I did anything, I would create more

(03:35):
hunters and it be less elk and all the things
right and with the reality. But the reality I assume
not soon, but later in my life, I started figuring
out that you know what, we're on the Vergil losing
our hunting privileges. Like seems like every day in the news,
every states rotate around, always try to take something away, right,
And I'm like, you know what, there's a lot of
guys like me that learned I would. I just felt

(03:58):
like I needed to give something back to this sport
that I just loved, and I just wanted to do
a little more than what I had done. So to
be honest, I had no idea how I got in
this business or even thought about. But anyway, Brian, I
met Ryan Lambers pretty quick after I moved to Montana.
I met him at the back Huntry Hunters and Anglers

(04:20):
rendezvous here in Missoula, and I met him and Brian
called about the same time, and they came to my
house and did a podcast, and Ryan and I got
to talking about hunting. You know, typicult, Brian, I mean,
that's all Ryan talks about. And so we got to
talking about this hunt he was going on, and I
said something about this, and he goes really and we

(04:42):
got to talk about East County and I started giving
him some theories and what I thought and what I thought,
and he's justes man that so I kind of looked
at a hunting spot that he was going to and
all of a sudden, you know, he's like, man, you
know what I'm going to do these Western hunting summits.
You know, you should come and do a presentation. And

(05:03):
I'm like, well, okay, I thought, Dirk, I thought everybody
did what I did. I thought that was just everybody did.
I thought everybody used Googler. I thought everybody did all
the things. And when I did it for the first
couple of times I presented some like public to the public,
I was shocked that almost nobody did any of this right.

(05:25):
And they just kind of would open up on acts
and they do whatever they do, and there was really
not a lot of methodology to what they were doing.
And so anyway, it was kind of a hit. And
I did it for a couple of years, and then
I started doing Elk Shape and I got invited. Day
I met Dan, I did a pocket dance. I was like, man,
I gotta have you present at elkshape. So I kind

(05:46):
of started that angle. And before I knew it, I
had been on a couple of podcasts and any so, anyway,
COVID hit. And when COVID hit, I own an event
company back in Missouri. We produce events. Well, we went
from one hundred and fifty events a year to zero,
like in one day. Right, yeah. Well, I'm like, this
is a I wan't to always want. So I'm like,

(06:08):
I'm going to build an online class. Well, so I
spent a year putting this class together, and I look
back at my my editing skills and I'm like, holy cow,
I got to do a little better job than that.
But the content was pretty good, I thought, And it
was a hit, I mean, and that's how I started.

(06:28):
So I built that first little platform when covid happened.
And since then, you know, I've been on a few podcasts,
I've been at a few events, I speak at random
things and so and then I spanned it into bears.
So I bear hunted my the whole time I've been
elk cutting. Obviously, I would buy bear tags and I

(06:51):
would go olk cunting, and I'd killed a lot of bears,
and bears come by, I shoot him, but I never
really hunted bears. It was always a byproduct of an
elk hunt right right. But when I moved to Montana,
I got super addicted to bear hunting. I just like
it was like it was my jam and I almost
like it as much as elk hunting, which is hard
to say, but so I got immerged in bear hunting.

(07:13):
And then I started figuring out some of the same
concepts that I was teaching and promoting with bears. With elk,
I mean really applied to bears, but they were exactly opposite.
Slope angles, slope steepness, orientations of slopes, snow all the
snow levels for late season elk, some of these same
things I was some of the same tools I started

(07:35):
using for bears. And so ten years later, I've been
doing a lot of bear hunting now forty days a
year about. And so we just launched a bear course
just a few weeks ago. So I have out of
this bear course, I have my elk course. But one
of my new things was in the elk course, Derek,
I taught people how to set up their Google Earth

(07:56):
using all this data that's available out there, like you
can go get this third party data and bring it
in right right. Well, it's very complicated, it's very time consuming.
And Ryan one day said, Mark, why don't you just
build these toolkits and make them available for anybody wants them.
And I'm like, well, that's a good idea, but I

(08:16):
they would never work because if you've ever used Google
are very much you're gonna know what I'm going to say.
But the more data you pour into Google Earth, the
more it will crash and you'll have problem Google It.
It's just not that it's a great program for what
it does, but it's not great at third party data.
Mean and bringing in these giant For example, if I

(08:38):
brought in all of the road layers for Oregon, there's
over there's three hundred thousand roads in Oregon. Well, that
file is so it's like a gig. It's so big
that it will crash Google Earth every time the minute
you try to open it right right, So I had
to figure out how to get past that. So anyway,
I uh set up an Amazon server long star, but

(09:00):
I set up an Amazon server and I figured out
how to put it on my server, and then my
toolkits only pull the data from the server when you
need it. So that's how my toolkits work. So now
I have ten states and basically what I've been able
to do is I've turned Google Earth Pro into on X.
And everybody's like, well, I already have on X, Why

(09:21):
would you need to do that with Google Earth. Well,
on X is great for in the field. It's great
for a lot of things, but what was missing with
on X is the few things like Google Earth is
not a competitor on X. There's no like you still
got to have on X because it doesn't go in
the field at all. You can't download offline matter, there's
no such thing as that. But what it is good

(09:43):
at is you've got the dates of the images and
you've got the best resolution of image available, So there's
a very there's a big value to using that platform
for e scouting for a lot of reasons and so,
but it would be nice it had all of the
same layers that on X had, but it doesn't right. Well,

(10:05):
my toolkit solve that problem and over the years, now
I've got five different topo mid layers. You can shade slopes,
you can do so many things with these toolkits now.
So anyway, I decided to make once I figured out
that network capability, that's when I linked it up. That's
when I started offering it as a solution for people

(10:27):
to buy. And it's been great, so I continue to. Uh.
The other thing is nice about it, too, Derek, is
when I make an update to when I add this
year's fires. Since it's networked, it just shows up. You
don't have to go get another version. You don't have
to do any updating or stuff like that. Sure, very

(10:47):
similar to on X, except for this is a you know,
like I said, guys, this is strictly pre hunt. This
is a scouting before the hunt. This has got nothing
to do with when you're in the field. That's when
on X that's when you need to have your mobile applications.
But when you when I'm just telling you, when I
use on X side by side on two screens, on

(11:12):
X and Google Earth side by side, it's the best
of both worlds when it comes to east got to
get hunt planning. You go back and forth and you
can look at different image dates, you can look at
different resolutions, and my toolkits have some data that's not
available in on x as well, so when it comes
to hunt planning, it's helpful. And so anyway, that's what

(11:34):
I did, So I've been building these products. So I'm
pretty dedicated now to building some solutions that help Western
hunters get prepared for their hunts. I'm not trying to
teach anybody how to hunt better. That's not the goal
of what I do. My goal is to teach you
how to get your hunts planned. Find places that are
likely to hold elk, get a strategy in place on

(11:55):
how you're going to go about breaking it down before
the hunt. Get a plan. Get a strategy plan all
mapped out so when you hit the ground you've got
backup options and all the things. That's really what I
focus on. I leave the tactics in the training to
you guys how to call elk uh No, I don't
teach any of that, how to how to you know,

(12:17):
tactics and strategy on how to hunt out. Nope, I
don't teach that. It's strictly hunt planning, EA, scouting and
the prep, all the prep that's involved in finding places
that have elk well or bears. You know, as well
as I do, a lot of people that have not
hunted elk. They think they're going to come out here
and there's an elk behind every tree, right, Well, that's
not the case in the West. You know that now

(12:39):
the elk. I read a couple of studies where it's
pretty shocking. Elk only inhabit ten percent of the Western landscape.
That is good for elk, like primo elk habitat elk
only inhabit ten percent of it. That's a pretty shocking number.
So if you're going to consistently find and kill elk,

(12:59):
you've got to put yourself in that ten percent. And
you know as well as I do elk like a
there's very specific things that are attractive to certain benches,
certain slopes. Deepness is certain slope orientations, fire at all,
edge environments, edge and habitats, fire, old fire zones, beetle kills.
You know, pressure is a big deal. How much hunting

(13:22):
pressure and how to analyze hunting pressure. All of these
things combined, which I call them twelve core out fighting features.
All of these features have to be looked at and evaluated.
And what a lot of guys do is they get
stuck on while I hunt elk on I look for
north slopes, I like it hunt elk on north slopes.
I'm like, well, me too, but that's one of twelve. Yeah, right,

(13:45):
If you get tunnel visioned and you're only looking at
north slopes, I feel like you're not going to be
that successful every time. Now, every scrorel finds a nut, right,
But I feel like you've got a stack. I always
call it stacking the odds. So I feel like you
have to stack up multiples of these core finding features,
and when you can find areas that do that, you're

(14:08):
gonna have a great chance of finding out there. And
that's basically what I teach in my courses. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
Well, I really wanted to pick your brain about baiting bears.
I know you and I had some conversations in the
past about baiting bears. Yeah, and I know you you're
your your course. You have a bear course. Now would
that be some is that would that lend itself to
like good information on areas? How How do I pick
an area that's going to be good for baiting and bear?

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Well, so it's interesting you said that because I've baited
about three you know, I want to be a disclaimer
right in front, guys, is my bear baiting experience is
pretty limited. But I'm pretty good with maps, and I'm
pretty good at eastcuting, and I'm pretty good breaking down terrain.
And when I started baiting and I started putting baits
out there, I'm a I'm a I'm a tactical guy.

(15:01):
You know that. I like to look at data. I
like to look at I like it when I get
home from Hants, I like to look at way points
and where I saw elk and bears and what's the commonalities, Like, Okay,
I saw a bunch of elk right here, what features
are present where these elk are? That's basically how I
built my course. Well, same with bears. So when I
started putting in baits, Kirk, you know how bear baiting.

(15:23):
You'll put in a bait and you get nothing. All
that work and you got no bears coming to it, Well,
then you'll put in I put in another bait in
the first we got at twenty one different bears on camera,
Holy cow, And I killed my biggest bear ever, not
bear ever, my second or third biggest bear on a
bait in I know which. Usually getting big bears come

(15:45):
to bait during the daylight is not easy. And so anyway,
but I started figuring out there's a couple of things
that really helped me, and I got lucky to I
was baiting one time and I ran into this man.
This guy's been baiting his whole life. I can't I
wish I remembered his name. And he just kind of

(16:06):
like befriended me. And he was camped in the same
place I was. He was running to baits, and he
just started telling me all the things he did and
asking me what I was doing, which I was doing
none of the things that he said, and I was like, holy,
that just makes sense. So he he really paved the
way for me. And I've had some great success baiting. Now.

(16:28):
My problem has been when I met Brian and Ryan,
they they love spotting stock bears right, So I really
have changed in the last five years to a lot
of spotting stock. So last five or six years, I
haven't done a lot of bathing. But I we talked
about this before we started. But my son's fifteen right now,

(16:49):
and he plays football and runs track and plays rugby,
so his time is just limited. So I'm going to
start doing more bear baiting now again because I can
get him out out there, you know, you don't have
to commit ten days on a hunt. Sure, but a
lot of people understand me how much work here is
on bear baiting as well. But yeah, I so I

(17:10):
wanted to put that out there because I'm not saying
I'm the most experienced bear hunter, but I got lucky.
I ran into well one number two is Jana Waller.
You know Jana Waller?

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Right?

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Yeah? I ran into her in my bear baiting area
as well, and so I befriended her. That girl, she
knows a lot about bear baiting. I mean a lot,
and they killed some nice bears. So between talking with her,
meeting her and meeting this guy, this older guy that's
been baiting most of his life, I feel like I

(17:41):
got lucky, Like I had some good mentors to help
me get going. But the guy gave me some tips
which I'm willing to share. I've never shared these before,
and but since that you've dark, I'm willing to do
it perfect. So is that what you kind of want
to you want to get into that? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah, because we had this conversation before and I was
like that those that, oh yeah, I hung on your
every word. I was like, all right, you gotta log
this into the into the deep memory. That way, whenever
I go bear baiting, then then I'm gonna be able
to do the same the same stuff.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
Do you are? You do you do? You probably don't
do a whole lot of bears.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
I don't. I had all these intentions of spring, like
I'm gonna go bear baiting, and then you know, Turkey season.
It just competes with baiting bears too much, I know, don't.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
I know, I know people are not on this one.

Speaker 3 (18:31):
I know.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
It's a necessary evil, right, It's part of the part
of the part of the calling business.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
You know.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
I can't say too much. I'm from Missouri. I loved
Turkey in Missouri. Yeah, it's just every year. I couldn't
wait for that. I love calling them. It's so much fun,
just like calling Elk when it happens, it's fun, right, ye, yep.
I'm not bashing Turkey anything. I kind of act like
I do sometimes because I'm a Western, so called Western
on her. But I'm from Missouri, I got I've got

(18:58):
crazy background in Turkey seas so I love it. I
love it, and I just love calling it and I
just like calling it. You know. It's been really tough
for me to start doing more spot in stock elk,
which I'm trying to teach myself because I love to
call so much. Yeah, but I liked the mix, right,
I like to be able to do both. And anyway,

(19:19):
back to the Bears. So when I first started the Bears,
I did a lot what a lot of people do.
I got my barrel, I cut a hole in my barrel,
and I put it out in the woods, and I
threw some cheerios around. Basically, yeah, well that worked. I mean,
I got a few bears to come. But man, when
I did a couple of things that I learned from

(19:41):
those sources, I told you it was a game changer.
After I met this guy, the next year, I put
my baits in this very next year, I put the
bait barrel in the same spot that I was the
year before, and I had some success. But when I
did the things that I'm going to go through this
bait now again, well, well, let's me don't get ahead

(20:03):
of myself. I had in the first I thought it
was in the first ten or fifteen. It's been a
few years, so let's just call it two weeks. Just
to be safe. I had on my trail camp. At
least I thought I had twenty one unique bears hitting
this bait, and we killed seven bears off of this
bait side saying baitside with my buddies and friends were

(20:26):
coming in and with the two it was in a
two bear zone. So it was just and I mean
good bears too, not not not small bears, and it
just was fantastic and a couple of things. So the one,
the number one thing that he taught me was the barrel.
He said, dude, you're wasting your time with the cutting

(20:47):
a square hole in that barrel. I'm like, because they
just wipe it out too fast, and they can eat
so much that they'll only hit it at night. I'm like, really,
He goes, Yeah, when a bear can go to a
barrel and he can scoop out a large amount of
food and be done, because remember there's human center around there,
there's no way to get around it. He knows you're hit.

(21:10):
He knows it's it. I mean, let's be honest, don't
its just don't appear in the wilderness, right, So it's
a it's a love hate relationship. I guess with these bears, right,
they know that there's bait there. They know they can
smell there's human activity there, but they love those donuts,
right or whatever you're using. What you're using isn't that important.

(21:31):
And that's what I also learned. But anyway, he told
me to take this barrel and he goes, cut silver
dollar size and maybe slightly smaller, but not I mean bigger,
but not much bigger than a silver dollar hole four
of them in the bottom of the barrel. That's the
only access to the barrel. And you want to hang

(21:52):
the barrel three feet off the ground with a free
hanging chain. I'm like, well, that's not easy to do
either with a foot barrel. It's pretty heavy. So but anyway,
I took a little pulley system in and and I
did it. I hunted up where it was free hanging.
Now I'm when I say free hanging, I mean a
couple of feet from the tree, right, not not far out,
just a little ways away from the tree.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
Sure, And he goes.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
What they'll do is they'll lay there on the ground
and they'll just use their claws and they'll pick pieces
of food out and they'll be there for hours, he goes,
And they'll they'll they'll also be they'll come during the
daylight a lot more on that system, dude. He was right.
I had trike and footage of Bear's laying there for
literally hours picking popcorn or candy coated popcorn out of

(22:40):
that hole. And the reason you want to put you know,
they can't clog those holes. So that's why another reason
you put four holes in. Right. The other main reason
that I that he didn't really say anything about it,
But what I noticed was the year before I'd literally
fill this barrel up, Dirk and come back in six
days and they'd be that barrel'll be empty. Sure, they

(23:01):
would just wipe it out.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
And I'd look at my trail cam and they were. Man,
they were hitting that thing at night, like just so
much after shooting hours. So you put that can in
like with that structure, and dude, they were hitting it.
And I now, I did pull quite a bit of
bait outside the barrel to get started, to get him

(23:25):
coming right, to get him coming, and so that was
that was That was tip number one. Sure, So the
free hanging barrel with the smaller holes in the bottom
was a winner when and it one, it made my
bait last longer. Number two, it kept him interested three,
It kept him there during shooting hours a lot of

(23:47):
the time. But what the side benefit, what I noticed
is the big bears, this big giant bear that I
ended up killing off off of that bait, was that
the male the bigger bears would be very defensive of
that barrel because they couldn't get the food out as
quick as they'd like to, so they'd start guarding that thing.

(24:07):
They would literally lay there and guard the thing. I
can't tell you how many times I walked into that
bait side and bears were there. They were already this thing.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
Oh geez.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
And they weren't really eating. They'd eaten enough. They were
kind of full or whatever. I don't know I mean,
but they were. They became real territorial about this sparrow.
So one of the bears I killed was a small

(24:41):
bear came in to the barrel. And this bear I
didn't even see him, I didn't even know he was there.
I snuck in, got in my tree stand. I was
using climbing tree stands it's time, climbed up in my stand,
got up, and this little bear came in and he
literally barely got to the barrel, and this big bear
charged down out of the brush, ran him off, and

(25:01):
then he started picking a little bit of food out,
and then I shot him. I got an arrow inning
and I didn't see that kind of activity on my
cant I didn't see that with the big hole where
they could just scoop the food out. I just didn't
never saw that behavior. So that was one I don't
want to I don't want to beat that to death.
But that was a great tip. I thought, It's worked
great for me. That's really the only way I bait

(25:22):
now with that small whole barrel. So that was number one.
Number two he takes. He told me to take powdered
sugar and get in a rotten log and just impregnate
this rotten log with this powdered sugar. So that was
another tip, and that was they literally annihilated those logs.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
So letting powdered sugar get down in the cracks of
a of an older log, if you've got one nearby
your bait man, it just creates a frenzy form, you know.
And then the second, the third tip that he gave
me was and I was doing this to some degree,
but you know, the bait balls the scent balls that

(26:00):
go that you want to put up. Oh yeah, you know,
they sell some. You've heard of beaver carcasses. If you
can get a hold of beaver carcasses, that's one of
the best. There's something about this this oil and beaver's
and once they become rancid, it's so potent. But what
I started doing was he told me about two products,

(26:20):
and you guys, I'm going to try to remember this.
I've got it downstairs. But if I mess this up,
don't hold me to this. You're going to be able
to figure this out. But I went to a trapping
supply place, so trap. He told me to go to
this trapping place and get this rancid salmon oil that
they use for trapping. It's a bottle, right, squirt a bottle.

(26:42):
And then this stuff called green Death. So dude, I'm
going to warn you right now there's a reason when
they ship it to you. It comes like in four
zip lock bags and inside a wax box. And even
with that kind of packaging, you can still smell it
in your mailbox. Oh my god, it is so intense.

(27:03):
And you better, you better have rubber made gloves on
to the elbow. When you're handling this stuff. If you
get it on you, you're never going to be close
to your wife again. I'm not kidding, dude. This stuff
is so it's oil based, so it's very sticky and
it's very very potent. So anyway, he told me to

(27:26):
take that and put it on rags and put that
in my so I use a milk crate. He told
me to use a milk create with the holes you
know all in ohta. So I had a milk crate.
I put my beat. I did have a beaver garget,
so I threw my beaver cargets in there, and I
put this green death and this sam Rantid salmon oil
on some rags and put them in my crate. Pull

(27:47):
the crate up with a rope where the bears can't
get to it, right right, And dude, when that I
could smell my bait from my truck. I'm not kidding
a mile away.

Speaker 3 (27:55):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
So one of the things that he told me says bears.
He goes, you got to make it where they can
find it, so once they find it, then you're good.
And the second thing that he's said, well, well, I
don't know what we're on here. Third or fourth thing
is this is pretty common. A lot of people know.

Speaker 4 (28:12):
This is to take you know, either used oil, use
cooking cooking oil, or take new cooking oil and treat
it with the with a scent like I used boar Masters,
but I don't want to be known to you know,
promote one product of fat them three oh seven bore

(28:32):
masters whatever.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Right, They make an oil treatment, and basically what it is,
it's a it's a smell. It's just like this salmon,
except it's not as potent, but it's pretty botent, bacon
flavored whatever. You pour it in a gallon or two gallon,
whatever it is of the oil. Pour the oil around
your bait barrel so when the bears come, they track
that oil away. The whole point is is for them

(28:57):
to lay a cent trail for you, so they're advertising
your bait for you, right right, dude, between the barrel
at bait ball with the three things I told you
and doing the oil. And then the last thing I did,
which a lot of people do, was I took samp
where it took sardines and honey and molasses, and I

(29:20):
put it in a like a throwaway type pan and
took my jip boil in there and I boiled it
black and just smoke. Let the smoke just roil down
the drainage when I first put the bait in. So
the day we packed in, my wife and my kids
went in with me. We took my lamas. We packed
in five hundred pounds of bait. We go in with

(29:41):
the lamas, We set it all up. We did this
cook or this whatever they call it. At the end
when we're all done, we did this honey, this molasses, bacon,
honey boil. Basically you're burning it, and the smoke was
just oiling down the drainage wherever the wind was going. Dude,

(30:02):
I had bears on my trailcram within two hours leaving
that bait site.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
And then once they were there, they just were hooked
and so. And then the other key was that bait
barrel allowed me to never run out of bait because
they couldn't get it out quick enough. So that's one
of the worst things that happened to me, is when
I was baiting, is when you run out of bait,
they lose interest and they move on to another bait
or they whatever that happens to him. Sure, it's hard

(30:28):
to get him to come back, at least it was
for me, So keeping them interested and engaged was important.
So those are kind of like four or five things
that I learned from that guy. And then the last one, Oh,
this is great. He told me to go get a
highway flesher that had a magnet, you know, the ones

(30:51):
that are magnet that stick on barrels and stick on
metal ad kades or where they run. They have a
battery and they're they gotta like sensor. So when it
gets dark they start flashing for the cars, but during
when it gets light in the morning, they go off.
So he says, you snap that baby to the top
of the barrel so that light clicks on it dark.

(31:12):
It'll keep those bears that they'll get used to it
over time. But in the beginning they will not hit
that summer bitch at night. They will not. They do
not like that flashing light really, And so dude, you
slap that light. Now, you got to be a little
careful whether people can find your baits easier like that.
But but people aren't roaming around the with the night
all that much anyway, so I never you know, it's
not really a big deal. But that was such a

(31:34):
cool tip. And you know, I don't have a lot
of research on it, but man, I think it works.
I think it works. And so yeah, he just snapped
the light and sometimes the bears knock it off, and
big deal, put it back up. Right. It's just a
magnetic yellow flashing light and it's sensitive to the light

(31:55):
when the light sun goes down, turns on, when the
sun comes up, turns off. And I thought those were
amazing tips. And so hopefully some of your people kind
of like, oh you some of those are like them.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yeah, those are those are really out of the box
type of tips, you know. And I and honestly, I
think anytime hunting any species, if you can if you
can set yourself apart with different, different tactics that animals
aren't used to seeing or being experiencing, I think I

(32:29):
think it's a it's a good thing. I know when
as a kid, you know, you know, my you know,
I'd hunted for years, you know, with my dad and stuff,
but but then it was just time for me to
just go on my own and and I'm just like,
what if I did this, what if I did that?
You know, just like you know, I'm just gonna experiment,
just a dumb kid man. I did all sorts of

(32:49):
weird things that nobody else was doing and that and
it worked. So so yeah, I can see where those
those ideas and those tips would definitely work.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
Well. What's interest thinking about those tips too, is when
you think about them, they make sense to It's not
just that, oh, that's interesting, but when you start to
think about it. One of the biggest problems I had,
or that I hear a lot of people have with
baits is they run out of bait. They they can't
keep it, you know, they just can't keep it freaking stock.

(33:20):
Once the bears start hitting it right and the night
time hitting the hitting it at night, those are two
big problems. And if you can reduce or minimize that,
your chances of success are pretty are pretty big, right
And yeah, so you know and and like you said too, guys,
if you think that you're the only guy out there

(33:42):
baiting bears in your area, you're probably wrong. So what
was interesting about this spot? I'm gonna give you a
little more background on the spot. There's a place that
you can camp, you know, kind of that just attracts people.
They just camp there, so we can't. That's just easy.
So but when I got there, there was probably six

(34:03):
dudes camping, yeah, baiting. Everybody's baiting. Geez. There were baits everywhere.
I didn't even know it. Yeah, And I'm like, holy cow,
I mean there were people. They had boxes of bait.
I mean they were from all over the place. And
my bait was getting hammered. And I was talking to
these guys and they're like, man, I haven't got a

(34:24):
bear in three days. I haven't had this. We're talking
our baits are they can't be a quarter a half
mile apart right right. And I don't know where there
was worse because I wasn't following him. But those guys
were walking from camp right now. Some of them drove
over their ATVs different places and things like that. But
I know on this old logging road that I was

(34:45):
on because I saw the flagging. I saw flagging where
people were marketing, right, and I know there's multiple baits
on this road. And now two things. Was one, I
think I used these different tactics I told you about
I think helped me. But number two was I packed
my bait in with my lamas. So I was about

(35:06):
a mile and a half in not many people were
hiking their bait a mile and a half, right, So
I think I was the furthest bait in I think
that helped me. But I think what really helped me
was my sense the paying the close attention to that
green death that rants and salmon. They just there was

(35:28):
no way a bear was coming in that drainage without
smelling my bait. It was nothing happened. And it was
so bad dirt. When I'm in the stand, it was
making me sick. Like I'd be setting in my trees
and the wind would change, I'd be like, oh my god,
this stuff is so rancid. And I think it was

(35:49):
very helpful and and so back to the bait itself.
So what I started doing was I tried all kinds
of things and buying baits expensive. You can't, yeah, the
free stuff. It's hard to get the free stuff anymore.
Even the oil, you know, with all this recycled you know,
diesel fuel and all the things they're doing with recycled oil.
It's hard to even get that.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
So what I started doing was buying dup food and popcorn.
So I would buy just the cheapest dog food I
could get Old Roy or something Old Roy whatever, and
then I would buy that boor Master. And I'm giving
out all my tips on this one. I would buy
the boor Master Triple Threat powder. It's like cocaine for bears.

(36:32):
Stuff is ridiculous, and I would sprinkle it I poured.
I'd pour a bunch of dog food in the barrel.
I'd sprinkle a little bit of Triple Threat, pour some
more dog food, and I would layer dog food, Triple
Threat popcorn and the popcorn. What I did was I
started popping it on site instead of at home. The

(36:54):
first couple of times, I first couple of years, I
popp it at home, put in big trash bags, pack
it in with my lamas well, and I'm like, you're
cooking this popcorn and You're like, all this scent is
coming off of it, and I'm like, dude, I need
So I started packing in just bags of popcorn, propane
cooker and a giant pot, and I started popping it

(37:17):
on site so that the scent would help me. Then
what I started doing then I started getting it even more.
Like you said, when you're a kid, you get clever, right.
This was not something the old man told me, I
just thought I would try it. So you remember I
told you board Masters sells this add on scent you
could pour into oil, right right, just bacon stuff, right, Yeah,

(37:40):
it's potent. I said, I wonder what's gonna happen if
I pour some of that into my popcorn? Oh well,
while it's being heated on the bottom. Holy crap. So
I poured some of that in, and the smoke just
started rolling out of it. Let me tell you, while
I was cooking that popcorn, there's no way you could
be on the down wind side. Was so nasty and

(38:01):
so smelly. But I know that helped me. I know,
popping that popcorn on site with that set mixed in
with the bottlen while I was popping it was was creating.
You can just imagine all this stuff just sticking to
all the leaves and and it was just rolling out
of that pot. So and uh so I thought that

(38:24):
popping the popcorn on site was a real improvement for
me as well.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
Oh yeah, did you ever have issues with hound hunters,
or not really hound hunters, but hound dogs, You know,
running bears off your bait or refar enough off the
main road to where I didn't have.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Any there in that spot. I here's the thing. I Oh,
I don't want to get too descriptive, but I was
close enough to a major road that I felt like
the houndhuds were nervous to put their dogs that close
to a high like basically a highway. Yeah, you know
what I mean, because they get hit. So that's another

(39:01):
another tactic that I think a lot of the plate
a lot of potential baiting places. Now you got to
make you gotta follow the rules. You got to be
so many feet and all those things. Make sure you
follow all those rules. But which is not very far,
Let's be.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
Honest, two hundred feet or something whatever, it's easy.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
But I think a lot of people ignore those places.
They just overlook them. It's a lot like Elk. You know,
we talked about this with Elk Dude. People. Sometimes the
most easiest places are overlooked. Yeah, and the little pull
offs on a major freaking road, they're not going to
get hound hunted that much at least my Well, let's
just back up. So in Missouri when I grew up,
when I was younger, I was a pretty poor kid.

(39:40):
And when I grew up, the fur prices were they
were good and I had coon dogs, so we hunted
coons like religion. Man. We were after them every night
almost and we were always nervous. We never really hunted
our dogs next to major roads very much, right, And
I think some of the same will bear. I don't

(40:00):
know if bear guys cared about that. I'm sure they do.
They do.

Speaker 1 (40:04):
I know, I know when we've been on bear hunts,
and we've been we've bears will run right, they will
run a long ways. We've started on one side of
the mountain, then things across the mountain go down and
cross the highway and we're like, oh god, they're heading
towards the highway. And our buddy that's got the hounds,
he will just flat out start flying on his four
wheeler to try to cut them off, at them off, yeah.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
To get his dogs, Like, hey, we got to get
these dogs.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
See, I've never done that. I've never hunted bears with dogs.
I kind of want to, but I never have. And
I was just assuming it, very similar to coonhut. I
was just making assumptions. So I think one of the
reasons that I didn't have problems with hounds was I
was bathing close to it road that would be detrimental
to outs. Yeah, yeah, it's another it's another good idea.
And you know that's when it comes to the East County.

(40:49):
You asked me about that. So what I look for
is I don't put my baits in open areas, but
I look for open feeding zones reasonably close, like let's
say half mile to a mile away from my baits.
I want to open some open slope country within reasonable distance.

(41:09):
I like old logouts, old something so that the bear's
natural feeding, that there's a good chance that the bears
are in the area naturally feeding, like a whole network
of roads where they're feeding on the roads. You know,
that's a tactic. A lot of guys use same type
of thing. Just I always try to make sure I
put my baits in places I feel like bears want
to be anyway, not just because it's in the middle

(41:31):
of the woods, if that makes sense. I know that
seems cliche. But the second thing is I always put
my baits one of two places. I never put them
on a side slope, not usually. I always put them
on the top of a ridge or a spine so
that the maximum windy right or in the bottom along

(41:53):
a water a creek that's actually running when you get
the downdraft where you can get the thermals off of that.
So just think about this. Anywhere you put this bait,
you wanted to make sure the scent is getting maximum dispersement.
If you put it in a big hole or down
in like a in the back of some spoon basin

(42:15):
and there's no you know, there's just not a lot
of you're going to be low. The bear is going
to have to cross the path of the bait, right.
I want to bring the bears to the bait. I
don't want them just to get it kind of hap
stumble onto it. So being on slopes, you know, I

(42:35):
like to be on the slopes as well. I'm sorry,
on the spine ridges on the ridgelines right at the top,
not big ones. They don't have to be giant. But
what I've noticed is when I started cooking this spot
I told you where I cooked the popcorn. At a
couple of spots I did with that, I could watch
the smoke off that popcorn just roll down for a

(42:56):
half a mile and like, that's what I want right there.
But when it just stays in the area, like, oh,
that's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking to where
that wind and the thermals and the prevailing winds will
just help me tell me as much as possible.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
Right, right, So I'm envisioning places like, let's say you
have a big drainage, or not a giant drainage, but
a decent crick drainage, you know, and you have big
ridges in between each little drainage, and then right at
like the head end where where the slope of the
ridge comes off of maybe a great big ridge, and

(43:34):
then yeah, and then it goes down into a crick drainage,
and you have you probably want to put it up
on the head end of that, not down towards the bottom,
towards you know, the bottom end. You want to do
up in the hoards the head end that way, since
you can get right, yeah, that way, that error that
scent will travel in the afternoons, will go up on
the hillside, or it'll get sucked all the way down there.
And I would imagine like in the daytime when it

(43:55):
gets hot in the in the heat of the day,
when bears are kind of laid up, they're probably going
to be down those cool draws anyway, right, No, I.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
I, you're right, I didn't probably say it very well.
But on the ridges, any ridges, you want to be
more towards the top. Let's just put it this way.
I would treat it very similar to what I look
for with benches, for elk, I'm like halfway to three
quarters of the way up a spine. I would not
want to slip below it. You know, you know, sometimes
you got to put your bait in the best spot,

(44:24):
whatever it is, right yep. And also where you can
pack the bait too. Let's be honest, packing this stuff
is not easy, right, right, I would rather be honest.
I'm just gonna I would rather see you put the
bait in a place that you can keep it stocked
well and consistently, then going in super deep and being

(44:45):
in a better place, but then run out of bait, right,
I'd rather see you put the bait in a place
where you can keep it really operating, versus maybe a
better spot, at least a better looking spot, but you're
gonna you're gonna fail keeping it going. And so the

(45:05):
other thing about the the trickle barrel, and I called it,
this guy called it the trickle barrel. That oh, I
didn't say, the term did I so with drilling the
holes in the bottom is if you set a camera
up right. This is another tip. Now he didn't tell
me this, but I figured this out. Is I usually
set two cameras up. I set one camera to kind
of catch the whole area the best I could, but

(45:27):
then I would set a second camera at the where
it's looking right at the base of that barrel. So
that now this is really for areas that have said
that you with the new sim card cameras, but you
can see if there's bait still in the barrel or
not if you set it right. Oh, since the holes
at the bottom so, or if there's a little bit
on the ground still or whatever. So you can really

(45:48):
kind of almost monitor your barrel. Now, again that only
works if you're in the right spot that has cell service,
et cetera, et cetera. But these new cell cameras are
really remarkable. I mean, and the certain the way the
transmission is it's pretty dang good. And where it's legal
and in places where it's legal, yeah, and uh, I

(46:10):
got a feeling that that legality is gonna be less
and less as we keep going. There's a lot of
talk about it, right, Yeah, I hope. I don't know that.
I don't support it, to be totally honest, We're getting
kind of out there with this. The technology is out
pacing our I don't know. It's a fine line. You know.
I'm a freedom loving guy. I don't like people telling
me what to do and not do, you know. But

(46:32):
at the same time, I understand the thermals issue, and
I understand the cell phone. I understand these issues too. Yeah,
so it's a it's a tough one, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
Well you always I always like to say, you know,
I like to advocate for the animals. You know, let's
give them, you know, let's err on their side a
little bit, you know, if we can. The cameras, right,
I don't know how they're they're they're they're pretty pretty
cool though, I don't know, like we our buddy Randy

(47:03):
in in Kansas has has cameras all over his property,
you know, for deer and turkeys, and and what I've found,
like turkeys especially is uh it's like, oh, yeah, the
turkeys are over on this this camera. All right, Well
we'll go over there and hunt and set up. We
won't even see a freaking turkey it's almost like you're
you're hunting cameras or you're hunting you know, at that point,

(47:25):
and then pretty soon like the turkeys are always a
step ahead, and it seems like it's kind of the
same thing with the deer. It's like, you know, oh yeah,
there's been a big buck hit in that bami show
up there and you start hunting that stand and you
never see that deer again. And it's so I feel
like there's always that uncanny thing for the animal to win.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
But but I agree to we we gotta kind of
draw a line in the sand.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
On well like this like the southwestern states where the
water is so limited, and uh yeah, you go to
New Mexico and you find a good water hole kind
of remote, there's nine camera is on the dang thing.
And yeah, they can just monitor these elk and these
deer like they just can pattern them to a point
where it's almost it's hard for them to survive, right,

(48:11):
And but when you got to walk your ass out
there and check your cameras and you know, and put
in some work and leave some human scent, the animals
have a better chance of like you said on the air,
on the side of the animals. But I don't want
to get in too much a debate about that. I
leave that to the people that are experts. But I
do feel like the drone technology, the cell cams, these thermals, now,

(48:32):
these these thermals are so ridiculously good. Cameras and binoculars
and spotting skill, not spices, but these monoculars and and
these thermal binoculars. It's a it's a it's something that's
got to be dealt with. You can't. We can't just
be a free for all. But I will say I'm
old enough. I'm pretty old dirt that I remember when people,

(48:54):
when on X came out with their app I remember
people telling me to my face, well, they elk will
be gone now. They all have no way to get
it away from people. You know, back when you had
a compass, you kind of figure they're like, the elk
are going to be gone. Well, let me tell you something.
You've got the best navigation tools on planet Earth right now,
and the elk success rate is lower than it was

(49:16):
back before on X. Right, so the animals have adapted.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
Yeah, well, the turn gear, yeah, the hunting gear, boots, pants, Look,
we can shoot bows, rangefinders, like when I start when
I started out, I mean, the only thing that was
of range fighter. Remember those things that looked like like
a little Kodak camera that.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
You the focus.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Yeah, you had to fit, twist and focus. And it's like,
all right, I didn't even have one of those, but but.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
I had one of those. They're terrible, they were not
very accurate, but.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
They were And honestly, I think rangefinders have been like
one of the largest technic technological advances in archery for
to increase success. And if you look at harvest results, yeah,
haven't really I haven't mind you. It hasn't it hasn't
really moved it. So I don't know, but yeah, I
do definitely agree. We got to limit technology.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Uh, reasonable, guys. Reasonable, And I know we'll probably get
some mate on that. But now, let's be honest. There's
nothing cooler and watching a bunch of animals on your
phone coming into a spot. I get it. I totally
get it. Missouri. We we can use them still in
Missouri and I we going back for white tail honey.
And and it's nice to be able to say, Okay,

(50:28):
we got nine camp, where are we gonna hunt today?
Like what's going on and you can just turn your
phone on. It's kind of see And but like you said,
just just because you saw the bug a mean he's
gonna be there. So uh, you know, it's funny. I

(50:51):
just got back from this wolf hunt and where I
hurt myself and where Brian call ran me over in
the snow bill. Uh. But I just got back from
this wolf on and I learned so much up there
from these outfitters that we went on this outfitter and
these wolves were hitting these baits. They were baited. They
bade up there, okay, and they put trail cams out right.

(51:15):
They cannot put the trail camera by the bait. The
wolves will pick it up.

Speaker 3 (51:21):
Oh they know.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
It's a camera. They pick it up and they just
like will not come to it. How crazy is that?
Like they are totally aware. I have a new appreciation
for wolves. Like I've done a couple of my shows.
I have this new show I've been doing, and I've
been talking about wolves quite a bit because I've been
studying it. And that was ever since this Canadian wolf on,
I've got this fascination with the intelligence of these wolves.

(51:45):
I was blown. It blew me away. How you could
go dump two thousand pounds of pickparts in the middle
of the lake, and those wolves will not hit it
until they've tested it. They will circle that lake for days,
they say, the ophics, you're telling us. They'll circle and
circle and circle, even though the ravens are pounding it, right,

(52:08):
the coyotes are pounding it, but they know that that's
not supposed to be there. Yeah, and they will and
once they've figured out there's no human presence, they'll start
hitting it. So those guys, the tactic there is they
put the bait, let the wolves get comfortable. Then they'll
start having a trail. They'll build trails that they're comfortable
coming into the bait, and then and only then can

(52:31):
they start hunting it. Okay, because they quit circling two
different days when we were there, Derek, we got out
of it. We didn't see it. Well, we heard them
Howland Hall and Holland, but never showed themselves. And on
the way back to the snowmobile across fresh ed of
wolf tracks, they circled us and got our sent holy
cow two different days. Because we got we started hunting

(52:53):
that bait a little too early, I think right after
it got put out they were still in the circle
mote and we didn't get a bit, We didn't get
a wolf there because that they were they and once
they know you're there, you're host. It was crazy, you know,
you would think, like you just dump it out there,
they'll come right. So two things won that and then
the trail camera. The guy was telling me, oh, they

(53:14):
picked those trail cameras up, like we have to be clever,
we have we disguise them. We do this, we do that.
I couldn't believe the steps they go through to put
a camera on this bait so the wolves won't detect
the camera. That's crazy and it's crazy. So you know,
bears guys the same way. If you think a bear
can't smell, you're an idiot. And the way you go

(53:35):
into your bait, the way you go out of your bait,
the days you hunt the bait, the days you don't
hunt the bait, if the weather, if the wind is wrong,
you don't do it right because if they once they
know you're there, it's over.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
And well I was going to ask you about that
about Okay, So when you go in and you bait
and then you go and set do you after you bait.
Do you walk all the way out and then walk
in aletely different.

Speaker 3 (54:00):
Path to your spot to this place?

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Same?

Speaker 3 (54:03):
No, you've walked the same.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
You've got to give up something, right, you got to
give up something. And here's what I will say is,
I'm a Missouri white tail guy, right, I am not
a fan of lock on our permanent stands. I I'm
not saying I'm the giant, the best white tail hunt
in the world, but I've got a lot of super
nice white tails on my wall here in Montana, and

(54:25):
all of my biggest white tails, every one of my
one to eighty plus white tails, every one of them,
it's killed out of a portable stand. Okay, Because if
you think bucks in Missouri are not looking up, you're
also wrong. Oh yeah, they look up more than they
look down. In Missouri. You're better off to be at
a block in some cases. Yeah, Now that's not completely true,

(54:47):
but so I try. I had these climbing stands, and
so I've decided that with bears. A couple of things
is when is the deal with the bears? And if
you have a permanent you put a lock on stand,
meaning you put steps and you have a stand that
straps on the tree right well, that stand is there.

(55:11):
So another tick that I do is I prep three
or four trees around my baits because one great thing
about having in the West is most of the limbs
are pretty are dead on lower pine trees right right.
You know, once the tree gets a certain height, the
lower limbs die, so there's not very many, and they're
easy to break off and clear up, so and you're

(55:32):
not hurting the tree. And I don't even know. Maybe
steps are legal. Maybe I don't know. I think they're legal. Whatever,
I don't use them, so it doesn't matter. But I
use climbing stands, you know what I'm talking about, the
two piece climbers yep. For a couple of different reasons.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
You worm your way up to the tree.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
That's right. Once you're good at that night, you can
go up so quiet. And not only that, you can
go up so quickly. I can get in a climbing
stand and go up quick. Then most people can go
up a permanent stand with steps. Now that's not completely true,
but it's pretty close. One of the reasons I like
to use climbing stands for bears is because a couple

(56:12):
of reasons. Number one is I want to I wanted
the flexibility to move that stand if I have a
bad wind and I can still hunt that bait potentially,
or not a bad wind, but a wind that kind
of you know. And again, if you're gonna set all
day at a spot, let's say you're gonna go and
you're gonna set all day, which is not a bad
tactic for bears, to be honest, In the morning, I

(56:32):
want to set below that bait right downhill. But in
the afternoon, I want to be above that bait. I
climb down out of my bait, out of my stand
in my rubber boots, and I move the stand. I
do it all the time. I didn't whitetail. I do
it with whitetail as well. And I spray. I use

(56:53):
I use rubber boots, rubber bottom boots, and I.

Speaker 5 (56:55):
Put the sense that I'm using for the bait, say
oil based scent, so that it smells very similar to
what I've already been using.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
Now it's hard to mask human sand, I get it,
but it does help. So I move the stand by
according to the wind. Well, if you got a but pertinent,
if you got a lock on stand, whatever that stand
is your host, right, that's what you got. The second
thing is comfort and safety. So here's the thing. On
a climbing stand that has just a seat, guys, and

(57:27):
you got your seatbolt. You always have your seatbelt on,
of course, right, absolutely every time. Sure, but those climbing stands,
especially those two piece I like the summit. I have
no guys that have no affiliation with these guys. There's
several good ones out there, but they've got the bar
that kind of goes around the seat part. Yeah, dude,
those are so comfortable, so saved. You said, they're all

(57:48):
dayg day. Got your bow laying there? You got very
little movements. So here's the other thing about it. Just
like with white tails, the more you can minimize your movement,
the better success you have, right, And the more comfortable
your stand is, and the more you don't have a
reason to move, the better the chance you got to

(58:08):
killing a big buck. So same with bears. The bears
don't see well at all, and they certainly don't look
up very much, so you don't have to be ulter
ultra high. But I have found that getting pretty high
helps you with set one and two. You can get
away with a lot of movement when you're high. Obviously, bud.

(58:29):
You got to remember, guys, bears are not easy to
kill the bow. You got to make good shots on
bear right. They don't bleed well, they don't bleed out
on the ground. They're not very trackable with that fur.
That's the problem. So the higher you get, the steeper
that shot angle, which makes the execution of the shot,

(58:49):
you know, more difficult. Just keep all that in mind.
So there's a happy medium, you know, let's call it
fifteen to twenty feet, depending on if you'r uphill of
the bait or downhill of the bait, or if there's
any slope, maybe it's flat, whatever the case is. But
the point is I like to prep two or three
trees in a spot so that when I go in,

(59:10):
I can make an adjustment. So the other thing that
I started doing Dirk is not leaving my stand strapped
to the tree. So when I climb down every evening
or whenever I get down, I take my stand with
me because it literally takes no time to do it.
There's a couple of reasons for this. And then on

(59:31):
the way out, I'll drop my stand at a place
i'll hide it. I'll Basically, I'll hide it maybe four
hundred yards from the bait, so I can pick it
up on my way in the next time. I don't
carry it in and out every time, but I definitely
take it down because what I don't want to do
in a bad wind is to have to walk over

(59:52):
to that tree, take it off, touch the tree, do
any type of leave any scent, and then move it.
By leaving a little distance from the from the bait,
I can put it in different places based on what
the wind is doing. And you know, you're walking in Derek,
wind's doing one thing, but when you get to your
bait it could be doing something radically different, and so

(01:00:14):
you can make such a quick adjustment, and it always is.
I love that tactic is to being able to take
that stand in and make adjustments. So that's number one reason.
The second reason is, here's what happened to me. You
can't you take some extra bait in, You take some
extra scent in right, right, and you spruce up your bait,

(01:00:36):
You add a few more cent, you take the spray bottle.
What happened to me was I took some board Masters,
triple thread or whatever spray and I started spraying some
leaves and stuff on my way in. Well, I got
some on my stand from my hands or the bears
literally annihilated my seat. Oh yeah, they ate the seed

(01:00:57):
out of my stand. So it was like okay, So
that was another reason I started leaving my stand a
little bit away from the bait. Now, not that they
couldn't find it and tear it up, but there's usually
not enough sent there to draw them to the stand. Yeah,
but if you have your stand setting right there at
your bait, there's a good chance they're going to find it,

(01:01:18):
and there's a good chance they're gonna mess with it.
Oh yeah, just like trail cameras, guys put a new
set of gloves on. That's another tip. I made this mistake.
You always want to hang your trail cameras before you
start putting your bait in, not at the end, which
is counterproductive. Everybody likes to do it at the end. Well,
if you do it at the end, when you got
sent all over your hands and everything else, you leave

(01:01:40):
any sent on that trail camera, they're gonna eat that thing.
Oh yeah, and I've had that. I've had that happen
a couple of times because I made a mistake. I
went to check my sim card or whatever, and I
opened the thing up and I had some scent on
my hand. I forgot to wear gloves or whatever. Even
wearing gloves, sometimes they can it's still a problem. And

(01:02:01):
bears are just curious. Sometimes they see it, they mess
with it. So I always wear I always take those
latex gloves when I'm dealing with my cameras, and I
like to put my cameras up before I start messing
with the bait. Yeah, so I don't know, that's probably
tips everybody already knows, but those are good tips for people.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Yeah. Well, one last question is, so if you know,
right now we're getting pretty far to the tail end
of bear season in a lot of places. But if
let's say you have to have an area and you
have a week or two left a season, and you
finally had some time to go hunting, what would you

(01:02:40):
put out a bait and what would you do like
for a hail Mary bait.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
Okay, I'm glad you asked that question because this is
where I think a lot of guys missed the boat.
And again this is my own personal opinion. You can
hate it, you can whatever I'm just telling you what
I think. And because here's what happened to me, I'd
like I told you I really got into spot instck right,
because it's just what we do with film hunts. We've

(01:03:06):
been doing a lot of bear films. We don't film
any baiting hunts, well at least we haven't. And so
what has happened to me the last two years I
baited was we started hunting April fifteenth, and we hammered
it out until middle end of May. Well, bear season
is still open in some of these areas in the

(01:03:27):
Idaho particularly, and so I put bait in. Dude, nobody,
here's the thing, nobody is baiting hardly in June. Everybody's
kind of shot their watt. They've gone home, they're gone there,
and you're not competing. So there's a couple of things.
This is just my opinion. Number One, you're not competing.

(01:03:50):
Number Two, you've got bears that are really on the
move now. So the chances of them finding your bait,
even though there may be less bears because they're spreading
out more and maybe they're going to higher elevations and
different things as the snow melts. But the reality is
the bears are on the move more into maje you
because the rut is coming. So the sous and the

(01:04:12):
boys are on the move. So the chances them running
into your bait is pretty good. So don't discount those
early June baits. And I had great success with those,
and and the hides are still pretty good at that point, right,
They're not rubbing too bad. But you've got less people,

(01:04:36):
You've got more bears roaming a bigger country. They're really
on the move. Their noses are to the ground, they
are really looking for souths. They're not going to pass
up some cheerios. Now. The one thing about I will
say is I didn't see a lot of repeats, meaning
I would get a nice, big cinnamon I had this
one big cinnamon bear I was trying to kill. I

(01:04:57):
never did kill this bear, but I was baiting in
June early June, like the Nime versus June, and I
had him on camera a couple and then it'd be
like a week I didn't see him. I know he's
on the move, you know, he was just very sporadically
hitting the bait. So what I'm saying is when you're
baiting later in the season. When the bears are on
the movie, you might get one chance to kill the

(01:05:18):
bear and you better do it. So I typically switched
to rifle in June on baits, and I would set
further away from the bait. So I would set further
away from the bait. I would get the baits in
a little more open spot than normal. And because if
I was archery, I want tight, but if with rifle,

(01:05:39):
I would put him in a little more open and
I would set further away because I feel like the
bears are so much on the movie, you might not
get a whole lot of chances. So that's just one observation.
But the biggest observation is is that the bears are
really mobile, so the chances them picking up your scent
are good, and you got less bait eating pressure, and

(01:06:00):
I think that's a positive as well.

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
Yeah, that's that's good. That's good information.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
Well man, thanks for coming on. Where can people find
you if they want to look up your stuff on
social media?

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
Well, I just redid my website, Derek, I just redid
everything because so many people are having trouble. Like we
were talking before the show, I just started this new thrive.
It's called the Thrive vodcast and it's a weekly show
that I started, and you kind of took my thunder.
I was going to cover some bear baiting, but I'm
probably not maybe not now that I did this podcast,

(01:06:34):
I'll just I think I'll just promote this podcast and
do some snippets in the show. And so anyway, I
started this new Thrive podcast I've been on. Well, just
like this podcast, I have my Lama rentals, I had
my courses, so people were having trouble and I don't
blame him. I was not very good about setting it up.

(01:06:56):
So anyway, long story, I just redid my website. So
Treeline a cat me net. You can get to everything
in one spot. You can see all my episodes of
podcasts of all one hundred and fifty podcasts I've ever
been on are categorized on there. All my Thrive episodes
are on there, All my courses are available there, my
tool kits are available there, My Lama rental stuff is

(01:07:17):
all there. So it's all in one spot. So it's
easy now. So I only really have two ways. It's
tree Line Academy dot net and it's tree Line Pursuits
on Instagram. So that's it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:29):
Gotcha, and you're on TikTok.

Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Now I am very recently. Did you see me there? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
I think I followed you. That's how much I followed.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
You, so you must have got the follow back. So
I'm like, dude, I'm slow to this game. I know.
I told myself I was not going to do TikTok.
I'm not doing it. I'm not doing this Chinese spice whatever. People. Yeah,
I'm not doing it. But the reality is a lot
of people use it, and and it's got some night

(01:08:00):
features and uh, you know, I just feel like if
you want your content to be seen and you want
people to benefit from what you're doing, you gotta I
got it. I had to do it. So I did it.
And now I'm not very far into my TikTok journey.
Maybe I'll start watching some of the years. I'm sure
you're a TikTok.

Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
I'm seeing it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
I'm not good. I'm not good at it. I'm pretty
new too. I feel like I'm not I'm too way
too old for it. But I do like I do
like browsing because on TikTok, because it seems like, man,
I get a lot of news. I get more news
off TikTok than anyway, I.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):
Just I agree with that and the way they their algorithms,
the way they give you content that you're looking at. Yeah,
you know when I look at Instagram, you know, you
look at you spend more than ten seconds on one whatever,
Like lately, I've been watching these I hate to admit this.

(01:08:55):
Oh no, oh my gosh, I know you are. Don't
even tell me you haven't been watching these, dirt because
I know you have been. So you know, on the
Cutting the Distance podcast, we tell the truth, right yep. Okay,
so don't try to deny it. The baby ais my
ass off, THEO what's his name? Oh my gosh, his

(01:09:19):
baby AI are hilariously and but when you watch a
few of them, that's all you see for.

Speaker 1 (01:09:28):
Like I know, yeah, you don't, don't watch one of
them because you're gonna see nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
But oh I know. So I feel like TikTok is
better at that, Like is they don't just bomb bard
you with something you spend a little time on. Yep, anyway,
that's just mine. I don't know. I've just started and literally,
I it's so funny you said that because I literally
just started. Now, I created an account a little while ago,
but I just started putting out some So what I

(01:09:55):
think I'm gonna do with my TikTok is I'm gonna do.
I've got so much baby and lama footage. I'm gonna
do a lot of lama stuff on my TikTok. Oh. Yeah,
So if you're interested in lamas, I just had my
fourth baby this morning.

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
Interesting. So I just had a baby girl this morning.
We were down there about nine o'clock. And so I
have four babies this year. I'm gonna have probably eight
or nine total, and it's all done. So, I mean,
who doesn't love a baby lama?

Speaker 3 (01:10:26):
Seriously?

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
So I'm going to uh and I'm actually gonna be
playing around with the AI. I'm gonna take some of
the stiments of my shows and have my and be
habit with my mamas. It's gonna be funny.

Speaker 3 (01:10:40):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:10:43):
Anyway, I'm uh, I'm just brand new on there, so
I'm I'm kind of learning the ropes. I'm learning the
rope still a little bit in TikTok.

Speaker 3 (01:10:49):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10:50):
Well that's awesome, man.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
Thanks Derek for having me. It's catch it up with
YouTube brother.

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
Yeah, it's been way too long, and yeah, we'll have
to talk talk more. You'll have to uh, you have
to connect after Elk season and you'll have to tell
me all about your your grand adventures.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
Yeah, same with you. I was like, you have more
adventures than me, but you have more crazy stuff with
your adventures than I do. I don't know, it's maybe
it's just the way you put yourself in. You put
yourself in those situations more than I do. I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
Yeah, you never know what may happen, So all right man,
all right, well thanks, we'll catch everybody on the flip flop.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
Okay, thanks sir,