Getting ready for a bear hunt in south east Oklahoma and looking for advice.

Spot and stalk or from a blind?

Don't piss him off.

Are you hunting private or public land? In OK I believe you are only allowed to bait on private land. The tactics change quite a bit if one is using bait.

Hunting private land, from a tree stand and doing my best not to pizz em off. I put out a bait barrel with dog food, old peanut oil, syrup and marshmallows this weekend.

That will do it. Some vanilla extract maybe. Bears like meat as well. Some dead pig maybe wired or screwed to a tree. They use beaver carcasses up north like that.

Thats a good start. I some times will bring a camping stove and cook up 3 or 4 lbs of bacon at the bait site on a windy day. That really gets the scent out and can help establish the bait site. Another thing I will do is bring a small transistor radio hooked to a battery and timer and once I know the bears are hitting the site I will set if up for a week or so to play at night. This will help prevent the bears from going nocturnal on your site.

I would also have more than one stand to compensate for different wind conditions. Bears have a better sense of smell than any other mammal. I usually use climber so that I can be flexible and pick any tree that works for the wind conditions.

Also don't let anyone other than yourself tend the bait pile. The bear(s) will notice and may abandon the site if a new person's smell is detected.

I also make and put scent lure at the bait site. I mix anise extract, carmel extract and vanilla extraxt in equal parts with water and than spray it around the site.

Thanks guys. I have an almost unlimited supply of used fryer grease/oil. I was thinking about making popcorn in place of dogfood, cheaper and easer to carry in. If anyone has more info, drop it on me.

Thanks.

Bears are stupid. Don't believe the statement that they will abandon a site. We are covered in them in push county. They will come in to our deer feeders an hour after we leave from checking our cameras

Maybe in your part of the world. Where I live there are both stupid and smart bears just like deer. The dumb ones are young and small just like button bucks or spike bucks - dumb and easy to kill. The smart ones are like those 180 inch bucks and go 500, 600 or even 700 lbs. They are not easy to kill and are canny and will most certainly abandon a site at the drop of a hat. Anyone can kill a small bear and if it's my last day I would take a small one to fill my tag, but what I am after, if possible, is a trophy. A trophy is a rare experience and you need to consider every factor to be successful, and even than, more often than not they bust you.

PSE Madman I hope you are right. We are hunting Pushmataha County so maybe I will run into one of the big old stupid bears that will stand still for me.

I wasn't trying to offend you. I am sure there are smart ones mixed in. Ours are pretty stupid though. We had one come in and lick a jolly rancher wrapper underneath the ladder stand my buddy was sitting in. It scared the crap out of him but we thought it was comical at camp.

where about in Push county will you be hunting? there are not tons but we do see them each year. we don't hunt them because we are all to cheap to eat tag soup.

Did not offend me, I am hoping for a big ol dumb one to come by. We are off the the Honobia Trail and looks like we might be in Le Flore county but just east of Push. The guys on that lease killed two last year and they have lots of bear on trail cams. Just hoping to slide an arrow through one, its on my bucket list.

We have bears!!!!