I’m always looking for an edge to make my bear bait and bear-baiting station a little more enticing to the big bears during hunting season. Come on, aren’t we all? Here’s a little trick to sweeten up your bear offering.
Adding molasses to your existing bear baiting recipe can be the right ingredient to send your bear bait to the next level and draw in a wider selection of bears during your hunt. Applying it to your bear bait recipe and rolling it on a couple of trees is the right way to ensure your station is popular.
Cost
You could go to the grocery store, park your cart right up next to the molasses shelf, and then swipe across and knock all the bottles into your cart while leaning your head back and giving your best conquering invader chortle and pose. The only problem with this is that it will show at the checkout. Meaning, better break out the plastic because it’s going to cost you…somewhere around $50/gallon!
Your better bet is to go online and purchase in bulk. You could pick up a gallon, five-gallon, or 55-gallon barrel. More is better, right? Well, maybe start with a gallon jug and go from there, that way you keep your wallet and marriage intact (know what I mean?).
You can buy a gallon of molasses online for under $10. Win!
Applications
You would think that adding as much gooey mess as possible to your bear bait recipe would be your best bet. Well, Nah.
The best thing to do with your molasses is to drizzle it on your bear bait. You don’t need to soak all your bait with it, but you want it to be prevalent enough for the bears to have that “oh-yah” moment when then smell it and then find it. Think of it like putting chocolate syrup on ice cream. Enough molasses to make their eyes roll back in their head, but not so much that they’re eating molasses soup. And if you’re the kind of person that uses a one-to-one ratio of chocolate syrup to your ice cream…you’re disturbed! But you can be my friend, we may be soulmates. But I regress…
Another idea is to smear some molasses on a tree near your bait station. You could even take it up a level and smear it up a little higher on the tree and put up a trail cam nearby. Not only will the bears commence to licking and chewing the molasses from the bark, but as they extend up to reach the molasses your trail cam can capture a shot of how tall the bear is.
Quick Idea: Use a small roller brush to hit a couple of close trees. You can pick one up for under $6. Just put it in a grocery bag or small garbage sack so you don’t end up with the molasses everywhere when your done rolling it on the tree and have to hump it back out.
Extra Benefits
When a bear rummages through your bear bait station they will undoubtedly end up with some of the molasses on the paws. When they leave your station, after eating their fill of your primo bait concoction, they will track the molasses across the forest floor for other bears to pick up on. It’s almost like they’re creating a molasses runway for the other bears to be guided into your station!
Be Safe and Enjoy the Hunt!