100% agree on standing together. I'm not a super big fan of the folks shooting stuff at really long distance, but as long as it's legal and they do so ethically I will never tell them they shouldn't.
I know a couple of guys that used to hound hunt, they put in a lot of time and money training their dogs and buying radio collars and such. ALL of them have got out of it now due to wolves and the threat they are to their hounds.
I hear of a lot of folks that are against baiting bears too, they think it somehow guarantees getting a bear. Here's my example of how true that is.
My family has property on Craig Mountain that I have been going to camping and hunting since my first memories. In all of that time I've been going there, I have never seen a bear...driving, hunting, etc. I have seen stumps torn apart and other bear sign quite frequently, just never the bear itself. It is very timbered and has two good sized canyons on each side of the property. Other places I hunt with big clearcuts I have seen bears many times. Tells you a little about how easy it is to see a bear in person in that kind of terrain.
About 7 years ago a friend asked me if he could put a bear bait on our place. He asked if I would also help in keeping it baited and said we could communicate to each other when the other wanted to hunt it. I agreed, and he met me up there. I had zero experience in baiting bears, and couldn't wait to have a freezer full of bear summer sausage. I had a spot in mind for him, and watched as he chained a barrel to a tree. He baited it with bread and used fryer grease. We hung the bait permit and a game camera in a nearby tree. He told me that the bait had to be refilled every 3 days once a bear started hitting it. I think that first year it took about 9 days for a bear to find it. The average now is anywhere from 2 to 5 days. With both of us able to trade off it wasn't too bad to keep it baited, and to stay stocked up on bread. Fryer grease is easy to get from restaurants, as they have to pay someone to take it otherwise. My friend has since had a family and doesn't do much baiting anymore, he just has one main spot he does every year in comparison to when he used to put in several baits. I have kept up baiting on my place every spring since. It is definitely a commitment to get up there every three days to keep the bait full and to stay caught up on having bait. To keep it from being really expensive you have to find places getting rid of expired stuff. The season is one month long. The bait can't be put in until the first day the season opens. I've found that once the bait is found, it normally takes about two weeks before the bigger boars are willing to come in when there is shooting light. If you let the bait run out, well most times that means it will be several days before a bear comes in to it again and it is like starting over. So, a week to basically have the bait discovered, then another two weeks for the bears to get comfortable enough to come in during a bit of shooting light. That leaves one week to actually do some hunting on it. In that week you can only hunt when you have time off work and the wind is right. In the 7 years of doing this, I have shot exactly one bear off of it.
I'm sure there are others that do much better, but for the time I have to put into it, family obligations, work obligations, that's what it has amounted to. I do greatly enjoy the game camera pics I have gotten from it. But, I've found that baiting is much of the slam dunk that most folks who haven't ever done it seem to think it is.
. I know a bunch of these Hound hunter’s around this area, and several of them down as far as St Maries.
