Sitting over a bait pit watching a bear eat maggot infested meat kinda sticks in your minds eye when you are trying to eat the meat.
The one I shot when I was younger was fair chase. He was coming into this wild apple orchard of sorts on the my property and I set up on an incoming trail and was able to shoot it right before dark. I'm quite against the baiting and hunting with dogs methods. They tried outlawing it in Maine a few years ago, but there's too much money in it for guides who cater to the yahoos from NJ and CT (and other more metropolitan areas) who want to shoot a black bear with a bacon grease covered doughnut in its mouth.
I bear hunted once in 1991 up in the Superior National Forest about 16 miles south of the BWCA, I am pretty sure everyone that hunts bear in Minnesota does it over bait. I believe the hunt in Minnesota is designed to keep the bear population down and hunting over bait is the most effective efficient way to do it. If it is allowed by state law and the bears are eligible to be entered into P&Y hunting over bait is considered fair chase.
Nah, I'm not a fan of bear meat and it's kinda fun to watch him do his best to prune my apple trees on camera. Plus they get baited really hard so there aren't a ton of bears in my area.
