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Hey everyone just wondering what is the best way to store bear bait (dounuts/sweets) so it will not mold for several months atleast?
thanks for any help
chopperdog

We always air dried our doughnuts on a mesh type rack, then stored them in a covered 55 gallon drum.

I put it in feed sacks and hang them from hooks in the garage. Some times the filled donuts will leak a little, so don't hang them over the wife's car! It dries well, and is easier to carry. Just dump some grease over it when you get to the barrel.

If you stuff them tight into barrels with a lid, and i mean tight, only the top will mold a little so the following year you can scrape off the top and go. When I pack bread in I unwrap 5 or 10 packages and stomp them in the barrel and repeat till full. It also helps with the amount you can fit in 1 barrel

i have several 55 gallon drums plastic and i put the donuts or sweets in plastic trash bags then make them air tight in the bag i place them in barrel and push them in tight i have had bait that stored two years and no mold, no air is the key to no mold!!!! no this said you must try your own methods but for me this has works very well i seem to always have my bait packed 8 to 10 months in advance and never have mold. also the fillings have water content so they tend to mold quicker than plain donuts without the fillings.

I have to agree with the Airtight theory to prevent mold. We usually end up with 20 -25 barrels 55 gal steel drums with removable tops , double lined with large heavy duty trash bags so as to be able to seal the top of the bags . We also had some that lasted 2 years with-out mold . This morning I went to pick-up 2 55 gallon drums of Molasses, 3 50 lb bags of oats and 1 50 lb bag of horse feed. Around June will pick up the equivelent. of 40ft trailer of out dated or expired bakery products . YUM YUM . Usually our 5 guys can knock out the 25 barrels of bear bait in 1 day. we have 2-3 guys swing by to pick up the left overs . I have 1 55 gallon drum I use only for fat and grease. We do not add any to our bait buckets till the day we go out to do the actual baitings . I guess I am too afraid of it turning rancid Although I am sure it would not bother the bears. My son is considering turning it into a commercial endeavor . Anyone buying 55 gallon drums of bait ?: What are you paying for them?

bob, over the past few years i was paying 35.00$ a barrel but it seems even the inflation is hitting everything including the waste industry, i hear that in maine days bear basit is getting 150$ a barrel for sweets and 175$ a barrel for granola if u use your own barrels. i hope that i may still get better deals but have a friend packing some and charging 90$ a barrel for your barrels this year. hope this helps it seems all good things seem to be exploited one way or another i guess it is evolution???

Me Guide : I do not knock anyones business practices ,Yet I expect there is some GREED involved there. As mentioned in prior posts we are NOT commercial outfitters just a bunch of old dubbers having fun. At his rates it would be $3750 for 25 barrels of sweets or $4375 for 25 barrells of Granola Does that include the price of the barrells?

The trailer load of pastries and bread I pay $350 at Conn
I pay $500 to have my buddys son drive it up to brownville he is an owner operator
This year will have 6 of us unloading the truck ,slitting the wrapers,pouring contents in barrels,Though 2 of the older guys want me to hire a couple of HS kids for a day to help out 2 kidsX$75 per kid $150
I paid $165 dollars for 2 55 gal drums of non foode grade molasses delivered from Louisiana to Ky. I still have to haul them up to maine.

So I have about $1200,00 tied up not including my costs or my sons seasonal fuel costs to do the baiting. So the 6 guys will pony up $200.00 each to get the baits in place . Traditionally we always end up rigging 2-3 bear per year from a non baited area .I did not add in the costs from North Maine Woods Assoc because we all pay for our own sites
Well that is the best deal we can come up with for what we are doing . Does that seem in line to you or not ? Would be curious to find out what the commercial guys are paying for there yearly costs .Some have told me they are also buying truck-loads out of PA. .Still a lot of costs and sweat go into loading up the barrels.Still a lot of guys just dumping the breads and pastries with out unwrapping them .YUP lots of SLOBS out there
Forgot to add Last summer the 12 sites we had My son bought 12 pick-up loads of sand and dumped each load out around the immediate bait site to get a better read on what or how many bear were coming into each bait site .Intertesting things we do when bored I guess .Actuallty was very helpfull Amazing what definitive tracks will tell you

well bob you seem to have a good cost effective system that all in all appears to be working just fine and is looking as though your cost are less than those doing this commercially, all in all time is the factor not being calculated in your figure but if the time is available than i would deffinatley try doing this myself, but i must work to afford the whole living or cost of it!!! but i do this commercially but am very small time compared to some. i only have 8 sites i tend on a regular basis. i like the sand idea and may try this myself if you do not mind me trying your idea i use other ideas like putting large logs in my barrels whole that small bears cannot move but tracks would be nice to see? and i spent close to 3500.00 dollars on my sites and stuff not including my travel expenses and time.

Meguide01: As CHER so eloquently put it " IF I COULD TURN BACK TIME " I suppose in our case as you mentioned TIME is the big factor . Fortuneately my son is retired military age 46 His wife still works as a nurse. to cover their living expenses and toys My son still has a couple of Part-time jobs to cover his hunting and fishing needs. That being said he actually enjoys going out daily and putting out the baits for us all.

Typically WE as a group unload the trailer opening the wrappers and pouring them into barrels mixing in the oats, horse feed ,pastries/sweets , some molasses as we fill up the barrells . last year 24 barrels took 6 old farts about 6 hours to do it. Again we had time on our side.

We do NOT haul the barrels out to the bait sites . Again because he has time and enjoys it ,he has gone to each bait site and made 12 V shaped stack of logs about 6 ft long ,puts the crotch of the V up against the tree and spikes them together with 12 inch spikes. The logs are stacked to about 3-4 feet high. He builds them out of downed trees as it is illegal for us to chop down any new growth on Paper Company property.

Another trick we have learned over the years is to use nylon sand bags filled with molasses they seem to drip out like an IV tube . He usually hangs them so bottom of bag is at least 7-8 ft off the ground. Very important to do the first week of bear baiting prior to the season opening up.to get the bears to start coming into the baits .Does it work? I would say yes .10 of the 12 baits last year were being visited daily after the 3rd day of doing that . One bait site took a week to develop ,1 bait site never took at all. Never could figure out why. Some of the bigger bear my son has observed will start immediately on the bag of molasses either pawing if they can reach or even pulling themselves up the tree to bite the bag and tear it off . Even if there is a fresh dumped 5 gallon pail of our FINE mixture laying on the ground in front of them. After about 10 days you can almost tell which bears if more than 1 visiting are eating a lot of molasses because although they do love it. They do get the shits from eating it .

bob thanks for the info on the mollasses trick and i also use molasses some but find it calls the bees ands well i worry about allergies to bees from my clients so i have been using rotting fish in buckets with fry oil to cover them and the stink boils out the wholes in the side at top and cover keeps out the rain and the bugs do not like the oil. it is very obvious this works well and has for more than 10 years for me. i hope to have time to put my own bait together once i also retire but for now i do help spent 8 plus hours with a friend recently and only packed up six 55 gal. drums. Thanks Randy

Me Guide: Probably a foolish question ,but what kind of fish are you using ? About a year ago my son tried the fish deal . He had an old freezer out in the shop put a 5 gallon plastic pail with fish and fish parts in the pail . After about 2 months had it full. He was also adding some fish oil to it . well they went on vacation for a week. Some how the switch to the freezer got shut off . Upon arrival back to the house ,when they got out of the truck they knew SOMETHING was wrong . The most wickedest smell you ever encountered . Lets just say fish and parts do not do well in 80 degree temps for a week
Tried to salvage the baits actually took them to some of our bait sites It was like 2 days before legally able to put them out.It was either that or his wife threatening drastic action He did check those bait sites before putting down our usual concoctions , but the only thing to have hit it were coyotes no bear tracks around.That actually surprised me
He tried and tried to get rid of that smell off the freezer could not do it . Finally gave it to a trapper friend of his that put it in his fur shed for storing his baits in.

i have used many types but currently using pogie a sea fish which is caught for bait for lobstermen here locally. i think the best that i have used was smelts from saltwater here in maine rivers from the winter i bag a dozen or so in sandwich bag and then a week or so before baiting i put them in a sealed black bucket and let them firment in the baggies and then at bait start i hang this in a tree about ten feet up and just bait as usuall and then i put some in bucket small one gallon with fry oil used just to cover them the bucket is covered and has wholes in the side close to top the smell comes out and water does not over fill as cover holds it out has worked great for me and once bears at site he forgets the smell and concentrates on the bait in barrel sweets once found will return faithfully the worse the smell the more bears frequent the site . have actually had a client see seven different bears in one afternoon hunt amazing but have photos that say this is so. hope this help u as it is good to swap ideas with you hope you can show me some interesting photos from this years expierements. Randy

Me Guide 01 : I guess we are doing the same thing with the SMELL ATTRACTENT you are using the Smelts we are using the molasses. One of our hound guys has a camp/house on the songa river in Casco about a mile or so north of Sebago lake .Back in the 80's very common to go out dipping smelts . I do not recall but around the mid 90's the smelt were drastically reduced to the point that he does not do it any more. We do have some friends that are lobstering ,I will have my son try to latch on to some of those pogies and give it a shot.
Some of the guys on the North East Predators forum have a whole variety of stuff they use for making coyote baits real rancid stuff .Last year I was considering using that as an attractent but decided against it .Seems the coyotes will eventually find there way to a bear bait pile . No sense feeding those bastards un necessarily . Are you hunting coyotes this time of year with that concoction?
Must be more bears in your area than ours . Due to the sand trick the most we have had was 4 bear coming to 1 site . typically it turns out to be 2 or 3 including sow with cubs. I do not know the reason but the bigger bear that we have chased always tend to be those that were chased off a bait site that only had 1 set of tracks surrounding it. Perhaps it was Dominant bear issues?
Last issue for tonight you mentioned you FERMENT your baits in BLACK plastic pails with lids on them ,My son has been using the WHITE 5 gallon? taping sheetrock compound pails he gets at one of his part time jobs . He probably has 30 of them he uses in the bear baiting deal .Do you feel as reguards the fermenting that the black pails are better than the white ones?
Thanks for sharing your information always interesting to try new ideas THANKS Bob Baldwin

i just painted my buckets black so as to help them draw in the sunlight and heat up more same buckets. i just seal them to keep smell contained as many of my friends will vomit if they smell this before i hang it out. i must ensure to tell you this is stink and nothing more and kept high so that coons or any predator cannot reach it i use rope and hang this very high twenty feet if i can this is the stuff to get animals to the area the more activity the more action from bears they are very timid until they take over an area. and yes i also expierience the dominance factor and do have some baits that the large guys fend off all others. good luck keep me posted as to your successes this year Randy