What time do you go out to your stand?

[Lipriper84]

Just curious about what time you head out to your stand. We usually only go out for the night hunt.

[archeral566]

i only hunt the nights as well, i was ussually getting to the site around 3:30

[Lipriper84]

Thats about what we do. Last year I got my first bear On the first night I went out. Got out at 5. bear came in at 7 and boom it was over. Thought wow this bear hunting is pretty sweet. This year bears were hitting stations hard and we had 5 guys hunting out property and none of the stations were hit all weekend, even at night. Thought that was weird, not to many Oaks or Hazzlenut trees around our area.

[lakeshoremunster]

opening day I was in my tree at 545am, camera said my bait was getting hit at 630am so I thought I'd give an am hunt a try this year, also helped that my brothers was getting hit at 615 am too.

[mrklean]

went out at 3 even though we knew the bears were hitting the bait right before dark got mine just before 8

[charliepete]

I head out at 2:00. See most bears from 5 on. 2 I saw last week were around 7:30 both nights.

[InTheNorthwoods]

Thats about what we do. Last year I got my first bear On the first night I went out. Got out at 5. bear came in at 7 and boom it was over. Thought wow this bear hunting is pretty sweet. This year bears were hitting stations hard and we had 5 guys hunting out property and none of the stations were hit all weekend, even at night. Thought that was weird, not to many Oaks or Hazzlenut trees around our area.

May not have been a food issue, but instead sounds like it could have been a pressure issue depending on how big your property is and how close you are to one another. Doesn't take much to change the habits of a wary critter.

[Boar]

I head to stand the same time I bait. Boar

[Lipriper84]

InTheNortwoods,

We have 240 acres. But I do know the guys to the north of us also hunt bears. Not sure if they are this year.

We are pretty spread out, I wonder if we should be closer together?

[JeffB]

The last time I bear hunted we baited the stands on opening morning and I showed up at 3:00 to hunt. I was disappointed to see the logs were spread all over the place and a good share of the bait was gone. I climbed up my bear stand and hung my rifle up above me so I could get situated. Before I knew it I had a bear at the base of my tree sniffing me and staring. The gun was still unloaded from climbing up. The bear stretched out as high on the tree to smell me. I sat perfectly still till his nose was about 2.5 feet from my boot. He kept sniffing for a couple minutes and didn't back away till my boot heel started clicking against the stand from nerves. He went back in the trees towards the bait pile. I slowly slid one in the chamber. By 3:15 he was back on the bait pile eating jelly out of an ice cream bucket. And boom. I guess I scared him off the bait pile on my way into the stand. By 4:30 two out of four of us were back at the cabin with our bear. There weren't many berries that year so the bear were really competitive about getting to the bait early.