05/27/2025
My name is Christopher Davila, and I am the owner / operator of Serpent’s Edge Outdoor education and guide service. Based in northern Maine I specialize in fall Black bear hunting over bait, Moose hunting and Furbearer / Bear trapping. Hunting over bait is the most used tactic in Maine for bear hunting and accounts for most of the state’s yearly harvest. However, despite its apparent popularity, it is one of the most greatly misunderstood and looked down upon tactics in the hunting world in general, probably only surpassed by Hound hunting.
The common perceptive of both the public and hunters is that it’s a simple, easy non-sportsmanlike endeavor in which success is guaranteed. All someone has to do is walk out into the woods, dump a load of jelly donuts on the ground and wait a few minutes to shoot an unaware animal as it walks straight in and starts pigging out on the bait, right?
This popular perception comes from people’s experiences with habituated bears around rural dumping areas, suburban backyards and parks… and is unfortunately further propagated (Mostly unintentionally) by TV and Internet hunting celebrities and outfitters. Episodes showing hunters riding ATVs right up to the foot of their stands and within minutes of sitting down have bears filing out of the woods. They sit in exposed tree stands talking to the camera while bears frolic around the bait site behind them and almost without fail by the end of the episode they look down their weapon sights at a monster bear who almost poses at the bait 10 yards from the non-camouflaged hunter in broad daylight. To top it off while they Hi-five the cameraman and congratulate themselves even more bears come in the site despite the gunshots and death moans.
This portrayal is about as far from reality as it can be when it comes to hunting in Maine.
Maine has the largest bear population in the lower 48 with an estimated 24-36,000 bears. In 2023 13,100 bear permits were sold and 3,272 bears were harvested (2028 taken over bait sites, 813 by hound hunters who use bait to attract bears before releasing dogs to track them and 318 by trapping which usually involves a bait site as well so that’s up to 96% of bears were taken with some use of bait…) That is a statewide success rate of just less than 25% in a state where hunting over bait lasts 4 weeks, hound hunting lasts 7 weeks, trapping is legal for 8 weeks and still hunting is allowed for 12 weeks and baits are allowed to be set up 30 days before the opening of the season
The first difference between how bait hunting is portrayed in hunting media and reality of hunting in Maine is the areas shown are usually deep in the Canadian wilderness where the only humans these bears ever see is the staff of the camp and the guides that bring bait into the sites. Most have no idea that the hunter isn’t anything other than a strange smelling bear sitting in the tree by the bait (which in a bear’s view this is a submissive position). The second difference is that these shows usually show hunting during the “Spring” season. The spring season runs from late April to June in some places and coincides with a lack of concentrated natural food sources and the bear rut. Bears are hungry after emerging from their dens and don’t have many other options for high caloric feed at this time. The grains, dog food and meat scraps on offer are tastier and more filling than grass so bears will travel great distances to congregate around the few sites in the millions of acers surrounding the outfitters area. And while the sows are busy feeding big males have something other than self-preservation on their minds, traveling from site to site looking for hot sows and when one is found they’ll stick close to her even ignoring danger at a bait site. To add to all this daylight that far north lasts until after 10pm in some cases meaning more bear movement during shooting light so more opportunities. This all adds up to some great TV and an amazing experience for those that choose to make the trip… however even with everything aligning like stated above success isn’t guaranteed and what isn’t shown is the hundreds of hours the outfitter put into their preseason work and the days the hunter sat on stand just watching small bears, squirrels and pine martens waiting for a mature animal to present a shot.
Here in Maine, unless one is hunting in the northwest of the state in the gated portion of the Maine North Woods or along the extreme western edge of the state, bears know very well what a human is. They have dozens of interactions throughout their lifetimes and most likely this will include several decidedly negative encounters. This makes the bears cautious and sensitive to unnatural scents and noises, especially when coming into a bait-site.
In Maine hunting over bait happens for the first 4 weeks of the Fall bear season (End of August to the middle of September) during this time the rut is over and natural food sources and agricultural crops are abundant. A bear will almost always prefer natural food sources to a bait site and in years with heavy natural forage activity on sites can become almost non-existent with just occasional visits at random times from bears passing through just checking to see if the site is still there while on their way to feed on natural mast.
The average bear’s behavior when arriving at the bait is also different here. In the early summer Canadian wilderness, a big bear might come sauntering into a site, bulling over saplings and popping their teeth in a show of dominance to the bears already feeding. Here in Maine, they will almost always come ghosting in without a single sound. Stopping frequently to test the wind or just stand and watch and listen to their surroundings and if anything seems off they’ll leave or bed down and wait until dark ( I’ve had bears that would notice something as small as the barrel was set back upright instead of on its side and do this) They’ll circle a site sometimes just grabbing a mouthful of bait before running off and starting their approach all over again. This brings us to one of the last big differences between the media portrayal and reality. In the Spring season the sunup north may not set until well after 10pm (or not really at all) but here in the fall Maine woods shooting light ends between 8pm and 6pm with it being so dark in the last few minutes that you can only see silhouettes around the site. This happens to be when the biggest bears feel most comfortable showing themselves.
All in all, hunting over bait in Maine can be a challenging experience and the odds of success are nowhere near a sure thing. But it is an experience one should try if able.
