Wet bait

[karaRobert]

I had a huge problem with my bait getting drenched this past season. We are allowed to use barrels in the White Mountain National Forest I hunt in NH, but I'm hiking in quite a bit further than most guys and carrying a barrel to these locations would be near impossible. This past season we had 5-6" of rain during the opening week of our 3 week baiting season. One site, which has been hammered the past few years, rotted in the wet conditions without a single bear touching the bait.

Any ideas to keep bait dry without using a barrel? I've considered tying a tarp to surrounding tress, suspended 5 or 6 feet above the bait to keep it mostly dry, but am concerned about how the bears would react to this sort of set up. Any ideas are appreciated.

 

[lang]

Just use what is there and cover, divert rain. Might take some work and ingenuity to be effective and require packing a saw and shovel once. I would imagine a tarp would turn some bears away. I hunt North Idaho and have some very wet springs, and another thing that has helped us is to put less bait each trip and go more often. Gets expensive in a hurry, but keeps bait fresh and increased competition between bears has helped bring more in during shooting hours.

 

[Getnlost]

I agree with lang. I'm new to this so I have never actually had this issue but maybe putting a hole at the base of a dense tree. Something that may provide some natural cover.