What do you do to "bear proof" your food in the backcountry?

[broncoformudv]

I can't remember where I read it, but someone camping in wyoming I think takes cans of aerosol cooking spray and fills the lids with peanut butter. Set around camp the "pop" frightens off snack inclined bears. I have never tried this, but I wonder...

pat

I have seen the aftermath of a bear biting into an aerosol can and it did look like the bear or bears left after that went pop. Unfortunately that was well after the fact that they destroyed the cabin. Looked just like a group of teenagers broke in and wrecked the place except it had bear foot prints everywhere. They did leave a bottle of scotch untouched.

 

[Becca]

They did leave a bottle of scotch untouched.

Which is proof that it wasn't teenagers

 

[Yellowknife]

I can't remember where I read it, but someone camping in wyoming I think takes cans of aerosol cooking spray and fills the lids with peanut butter. Set around camp the "pop" frightens off snack inclined bears. I have never tried this, but I wonder...

pat

This works WAY better if you the aerosol can says "Bear Spray" on the side. Rub them with bacon and hanging them on likely approach routes.

Yk

 

[broncoformudv]

Which is proof that it wasn't teenagers

Good point Becca! Then again if I had been the teenager it would have been left as well, never cared for scotch but found plenty of other beverages that I liekd over the years.

 

[broncoformudv]

This works WAY better if you the aerosol can says "Bear Spray" on the side. Rub them with bacon and hanging them on likely approach routes.

Yk

Thats all fine and dandy till the bear decides to bring it over to you or your gear before biting into it. I am sure it wouldn't be any fun dealing with gear covered in pepper spray. Had some of my guys discharge a can of it outside our building one day and I was breathing that crap for two days. Just enough of it to tickle your throat and nose but not enough to really get you. Guess thats what I get for telling them to take it outside before playing with it and not giving them a minimum safe distance from our building or my truck.

 

[Yellowknife]

Thats all fine and dandy till the bear decides to bring it over to you or your gear before biting into it. I am sure it wouldn't be any fun dealing with gear covered in pepper spray. Had some of my guys discharge a can of it outside our building one day and I was breathing that crap for two days. Just enough of it to tickle your throat and nose but not enough to really get you. Guess thats what I get for telling them to take it outside before playing with it and not giving them a minimum safe distance from our building or my truck.

True... the several people that I talked to that used this technique all hung them from trees on likely approach paths outside the camp or cabin. These were in areas with known bear problems. IIRC, two guys used bacon and one rubbed it in salmon as the "bait". Reportedly, it worked well in every instance and those particular bears did not return. No way would I want to have discharged bear spray close to my gear, and apparently they all thought the same thing.

Yk

Yk