[Bullbuster]

Well Mother Nature and her bi polar menopausal self had a hot flash this past week and melted a lot of snow. The road was bare dirt in all but one spot but the ATV plowed threw it.
My oldest boy and I went up yesterday and got my main site in as well as his site. That was an easy 6 mile hike on bare dirt, aside from barrels on our backs. My secondary site that’s been in for 2 weeks now was hit by the same small bear 4 times from the 13-17th, all at night. We did find 2 sets of tracks in the mud. Small bear but still signs of life.
It was a great weather day to be in the mountains. I’m going Friday after work until Sunday to do some camping and actually hunt.
I’ll get the bear pics posted once I download them.

 

[Bullbuster]

This is how bad the winter blow down was. Our trail to get to our elk hunting spot is now covered. That will take several saws a few hours to clear up. I doubt the Forrest service will do anything about it.

 

[dennishoddy]

Great photos! You have your work cut out for you on those blow-downs. Our elk hunting areas in New Mexico always had those on the roads. It was a private ranch, so it was all on us.
I think you and I have the same ATV trailer. Think mine came from Tractor Supply.

 

[Bullbuster]

Great photos! You have your work cut out for you on those blow-downs. Our elk hunting areas in New Mexico always had those on the roads. It was a private ranch, so it was all on us.
I think you and I have the same ATV trailer. Think mine came from Tractor Supply.

Thanks. I try and capture the moments when I remember too. Being this is his first bait site and setup I wanted to get a few pics of his adventure.
That’s my son’s trailer and ATV on it. It may be from TC as well. He got it off someone used.
My hand me down ATV is in the bed of my son’s truck. Also the lead one with the barrel on the back in the other photos.
move got a short bed so no pulling trailers with the ATV in the back.

 

[Bullbuster]

On a side not, the area we set his bait is up a road that’s closed to all Motorized traffic from 5/15-6/15 for elk calving. It was only 600y to the west boundary of his zone however it’s set more in the south east area of the zone. As I’ve mentioned before each zone is 1x1 square mile. It was a hike and haul for him/ us nevertheless.

 

[Bullbuster]

Hers a couple pics of the little fella that ate the buffet items I left out.

 

[Bullbuster]

Made a trip Friday and was able to cut new trails into both my sites. That was a lot of wood cut and wood pitched outta the way. Planned to camp out for the weekend and do some hunting. Both my baits had been hit hard so I was optimistic.
Started raining about 10pm Friday and it didn’t let up. My oldest shows up at 0530 and wakes me up. We gear up and hike into check his bait. It was a soggy muddy hike but we were rewarded seeing his bait was also hit.
Got back to camp and loaded up to go set my buddies bait for him. By now it’s a snowy mix and coming down hard. We made the miserable 2 mile ATV ride and got his bait in and set.
It’s snowing hard now and the biggest snow flakes I’ve ever seen! We make it back to camp and I wasn’t having any more of the bi polar weather. My son helped me break down camp and we headed home. The weather wasn’t supposed to let up until 6am Sunday.
Here’s a few pics from the trip and a couple of bears that’s been hitting the baits.

My main and secondary sites

My sons site

My buddies site

Our bi polar weather

 

[Bullbuster]

 

[dennishoddy]

Not huge, but that's a decent bear.
I'm jealous. Always wanted to have a hunting camp deal, but I'm just under an hour away, so never got to set up that tradition.

 

[diggler1833]

Beautiful country up there! I'm glad that you are getting so much interest at your bait sites so quickly. Hopefully you put a good one down this year.

 

[Bullbuster]

Well it’s been awhile since I was last on. Life and work are crazy.

Spring season was a bust. It ended 2 weeks early due to sow quota being met. I camped out one more weekend and had great weather. Made several sits on a couple baits. Didn’t see any bear myself but enjoyed the time afield.

Baits have all been pulled and stored away until August.

I’m 🤞🤞🤞 my fingers all goes well and I’ll have my bait shipment next month and bear bait business up and running. Have one more hurdle to get over this week to make that all happen.

 

[Bullbuster]

Well, I’m pleased to announce that my fundings come through and I’ll get my first load of 55k pounds of bear bait in about 2 weeks.
The Bear Barn Sweets and Treats LLC has gone from a vision to reality.

 

[baby]

Congratulations.

 

[dennishoddy]

Awesome! Hope you sell a lot!

 

[Bullbuster]

Well I’m thrilled to announce that I received my shipment of bait yesterday, a 45k pound semi load. My boys came and helped get the shipment unloaded.
The drivers showed up 10 hours early and didn’t even give me a curtesy call until they were literally pulling into my property. It was 0600 and I didn’t even have the forklift on site. I had to go get it and drive it 3 miles back to my place and then drive it back when done. That was fun for about 5 minutes is all.

 

[dennishoddy]

Awesome job! How many orders do you have to fill yet?

 

[Bullbuster]

Awesome job! How many orders do you have to fill yet?

We’ve already taken a half dozen orders. The closer to Sep. 1st we get, and the start of the fall season the more things will pick up.

 

[Bullbuster]

Well we had a great fall. We had 7 bears taken from our camp this fall. I had 4 bears taken off my sites. 2 from each bait. I’m now up to 13 on my main and 3 (1 elk) off my secondary in the last 5 years.

I finally fulfilled a dream and goal of mine to take a bear with my .54 muzzle loader and I did that. I passed up 2 chocolate and 2 cinnamon coats as they were small during archery and ended up taking a black coat during gun.

Here’s a few bear pics from camp…

Jay Fountain-bow

Harlan DeBoer (not pictured)- x-bow

Bo Bohannon-long bow

David Fountain-bow

Scott Sterling-.270

Me-.54 cal muzzle loader

Dylan Snodgrass (not pictured)-7mm PRC

 

[Bullbuster]

Some of our baits..

My secondary site

Jays lower bait

My sons main site

Jays upper site

My main site

My sons secondary site

We ran a 7th site but I have no pics of it. We didn’t really hunt that one at all.

We plan to add 3-4 more sites for next year.

 

[dennishoddy]

That takes a ton of work and effort!
It looks like you have these bear stations down to an art!