# What is the best bear attractant?



## colorcountrygunner (Oct 6, 2009)

I've been reading up on stinkbaits/call scents/ attractants or whatever you want to call them and there is lots of options. Grease burns, honey burns, dead smelly fish, anise or vanilla extracts, multiple scents from different commercial retailers, and so on and so forth. 

What have you guys found works best around here to get a bear's attention?


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## muleydeermaniac (Jan 17, 2008)

I have always done great with a game bag filled with chicken and pork scraps from a grocery store. I keep them frozen until I head up and put the whole block into the game bag. I've had one bear climb a tree and break off a seven inch round limb to get the bag! My trail camera wasn't fast enough to get the whole fall but I got the bear on the branch and one on his back after he broke it off. It was about a twenty foot fall. I also use liquid smoke after every time I refill the bait. Seams to ring the dinner bell for them. I also have my stations where there seams to be a constant breeze.


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## SwedishCowboy (Sep 25, 2017)

Picnic baskets


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## AF CYN (Mar 19, 2009)

Look into Beaver Castor and I really think the Bear Bomb Sow in Heat worked for me. June-July is the bear rut. 

The best bait for me was bread with molasses drizzled on it.


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## 35whelen (Jul 3, 2012)

I read Utah biologists did a study and anise was the most effective attractant for Utah bears. mix anise extract with vegetable oil and dump it all over bait or put in a spray bottle and spritz the air and ground near bait. what im gonna do if I draw this year


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

This guy knows a lot about bears and he says black:


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

ethyl mercaptan (natural gas odorant)

.


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## johnnycake (Jul 19, 2011)

Honey burns work pretty good. I know a lot of guys like the bear lollipops on a rope as the bears tend to stick around a while trying to lick the thing to death.


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## Kevin D (Sep 15, 2007)

Any strong food type scent will attract a bear to the area, if nothing else to satisfy their own curiosity. But scent alone is not enough, you also need a food bait if you want them to keep coming back. Even the most enticing scent in the world, if a bear doesn't associate it with food and something it wants to eat, will soon ignore it. The real key is your food bait....at least that's been my experience.


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## colorcountrygunner (Oct 6, 2009)

Kevin D said:


> Any strong food type scent will attract a bear to the area, if nothing else to satisfy their own curiosity. But scent alone is not enough, you also need a food bait if you want them to keep coming back. Even the most enticing scent in the world, if a bear doesn't associate it with food and something it wants to eat, will soon ignore it. The real key is your food bait....at least that's been my experience.


Oh yeah, I will definitely have the food part covered, I was just curious about what to get them coming in with in the first place. I've got a couple hook ups already for some outdated pastries, plus I'm picking up bags of cheap dog food here and there until the hunt starts.


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## taxidermist (Sep 11, 2007)

The slowest running individual in the hunting party.


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## colorcountrygunner (Oct 6, 2009)

taxidermist said:


> The slowest running individual in the hunting party.


Hmmm, well if I don't get my arse in gear and start getting in shape like I told myself I was going to that is likely to be me. :shock:


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

wyogoob said:


> ethyl mercaptan (natural gas odorant)
> 
> .


Propane is really good. Uh...propane has no odor so they add mercaptan to it. nevermind

.


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## Kevin D (Sep 15, 2007)

wyogoob said:


> Propane is really good. Uh...propane has no odor so they add mercaptan to it. nevermind
> 
> .


I have a buddy from Idaho that got ahold and tried mercaptan as a scent attractant for bear on a bait NE of Soda Springs. Apparently there's some underground natural gas lines that run through the area and his next trip up the area was saturated with gas company and sheriff department vehicles trying to trace down the leak. :shock:

He did say the stuff worked good after all the emergency vehicles left. 8)


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Kevin D said:


> I have a buddy from Idaho that got ahold and tried mercaptan as a scent attractant for bear on a bait NE of Soda Springs. Apparently there's some underground natural gas lines that run through the area and his next trip up the area was saturated with gas company and sheriff department vehicles trying to trace down the leak. :shock:
> 
> He did say the stuff worked good after all the emergency vehicles left. 8)


Yeah.

Propane was popular for awhile. They'd take a 1 pound bottle, screw a little burner on it and just barely crack the valve open. The Forest Service put a stop to it so we went to mercaptan on a rag. Mercaptan is tough to handle. The odor will go most plastics. Whatever you get it on is ruined. 1 drop in the cab of your truck and you'll be selling it. But boy, does it bring in the bears.

.


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