Well the Wisconsin Bear tag drawing was yesterday, I got my tag for Zone D......my first Bear hunt and I can't wait to kill one with the longbow!!!!!!
Congrats Joe. Are you getting a guide? Public land? Private Land? Doing your own baiting or having someone do that?
Wisconsin has weird baiting laws for bears..... but then.. you can't bait at all in NY. Most bears killed here are the result of a deer drive or something.
Thanks brother, yeah got a guide up in Zone D, Bayfield county. He runs 65 baits to start the baiting season then goes from there. He has been a 100% the past 5 years. If you watched Mathews Outdoors with Dave Watson last week he was the guide that had the folks Father/Daughter team from Mathews Bows. They both shot 300+lb bears! A good buddy has been friends with him for many, many years so I pretty stoked! Biggest Bear was 550+lbs about 8 years ago , average last year was in the area of 212lbs with a few BIG ones that didn't get killed!
Thanks everybody, it took 8 preference points for me to draw a tag in this Zone, its a big bear zone, about 1 mile or so from the shores of Lake Superior! I'm curious as well, hats weird about em??
Where do I start? According to the website for DNR you can't place the bait in plastic or metal containers. It has to be secured so a deer can't possibly get to it. You can set the bait in hollow logs or buried under piles of brush or below ground. I didn't read it all, but those were the things that stood out.
Not sure that is weird buy hey what do I know. Where is Schafer when you need him? Is the rules in Wisconsin weird?
We had to use hollow logs or dig a hole...put the bait in and then put the logs over the holes, which we did. The thing is...one visit by bear and the logs are all thrown around and moved anyway. We had about 10 baits going in the beginning and then narrowed it down to about 5 when season started. Man, it was a lot of work!
I have 3 (going on 4 preference points) and that is something that worries me about DIY bear hunts. The time involved running the bait stations from 3 hours away. We seem to have a lot of bear in the area so that is promising but doing those bait stations is not something I look forward to.
My buddy ran his own baits last season. His daughter, son and himself all had tags for Zone D, between the cost gas and cost of bait he said he didn't want to know how much money he spent on the hunt. Time is also a factor for me. They all took turns going up to bait, said it was a pain in the ***, 2 out of the 3 got bears. With tags every 7 or 8 years this is why I decided to go with a guide, not to expensive and a great guy to learn from!
We are about 3 hours away from our cabin too. You can start baiting pretty early in WI (I think April) so we spent every weekend at the cabin the entire summer. It would take us pretty much an entire day getting all the baits ready and then putting them out. It seemed to be enough because it kept them coming in every week. Then bumped up the frequency right before the season started and luckily paid off during the first week of the season. I love bear meat. I really do prefer it over venison. But, it is a ton of work. Maybe it isn't a bad thing that it usually takes 8 years to draw a tag. But, our cabin is also very close to MN so we are considering drawing a tag for MN. The difference is, you can't bait that early in MN, so it may not be as much work.
I'm actually in zone C but just barely. About 1 mile from the border with zone B. This is good since I hear I can get a permit quicker than in the other zones.
Zone C last year if you had 4 points you got a kill tag. This year they reduced the numbers in C and B. Zone B my buddy didn't get one with 9 points last season!
I'm at least 2 years away from actually applying for a permit just because of time. I just want to make sure I can give it the attention it derserves to do it right. I might even look into paying someone I trust up there to do the baiting for me.
