There's at least one other bear in the pix above.

Can you find it?

We have a place in Bear country and see them frequently.  If we don't feed the birds, bait traps, leave the barbeque out or garbage we have no problems.  Any sort of food brings them in though.  My Brother-in-law had to shoot one off his porch as he was pushing in the side door (while they were inside).  He had been breaking into their vehicles in the days leading up to that.  He was pretty tasty though.

That's a mangy bear...

Or a llama with a bear's head photo shopped on...






Just kiddin and pikin on ya!  

Beautiful animules.

Our bears have disappeared...

Probably on Fur-lough.

Ouch....  

So that's where my fan club is hiding out!

Tell you what.

When they return, I'll buy all 3 of them a one way ticket to you!

My buddy whose ATV lost several seats to some chewing will prolly chip in.  


But damn they are the cutest animals.

Here's my SO raking up bear poop...

SO found the 50 foot sump-pump hose that's coupled together with Ferncos. It's the one mentioned earlier that we figger the bears stole.

It was maybe 100 yards from where the bears took it, and you have to go into the woods from a trail, then turn and go into another area that winds up in a small clearing abt 15 by 20. Basically just an animal path.

The hose was stretched from one end of the open space to the other. I didn't even know the clearing was there.

They only chewed it a couple places. To test how the bears could have gotten it in there I dragged it out and because of the corrugations I guess, it wasn't much of a problem.

Haven't detected the bears for weeks now, game cam is back out I see5117.

Not sure when our bears hibernate but they haven't been around -except maybe for one instance last week.

Pieces of 4 inch black corrugated drain pipe started appearing behind the barn. Then my SO found a whole bunch of torn up pieces scattered around where the coiled pipe is stored.

This pipe is tough and it looked like something ripped it apart like it was paper. Don't think a mountain lion has the strength to do it.


We had some other visitors too. One morning early I noticed something outside the container doors and it was a pack o dogs.

No ID on them so I opened the door and called to see if they were dangerous.

They came right over and tried to get in. So I petted them thru the door, then got dressed and went out and walked with them for a bit.

It was cold with some snow on the ground and I sat down on a big rock after awhile and the small one crawled up on the rock and fell asleep against my back. The biggest one settled down and snuggled up and laid his head across my knee.

Another one hung out around the other two.

Sweetest nicest dogs I've seen in a long time. Finally had to try to get them to leave, I have no idea where they came from, area is remote.

They had no concept of 'fetch' when I threw sticks, but seemed to pick up on it. They definitely wanted to climb on the ATV. They loved all the hugs I gave them.

Old post, sorry.  Your bears are sleeping now.  I would take that water heater thingy, and line it with nails/spikes poking out.  It is only a matter of time before they really damage it.  If it escalates to harassing the wife, time to go.  If the local DNR is no help, I would think some country boys would just flush the radiator of their truck.

in for video of the bear humping the propane tank





 

Ditto!

I'm thinkin 20lbs of Tanerite and a shotgun shell booby trap attached to a 5lb roast.

This RTDT is our answer to the bears...


RTDT

Hahaaa!!!!  I swear on my life I literally just finished chewing on a donut, and.... bam.  I click on this thread.LOL

My ass would be in trouble!  

Bears are stirring up trouble again. We have a wood stove that the sheet metal inside is rusted out in places so it sits in front of the container door -outside.

There is some chimbly pipe on it and I put a heavy duty plastic pie plate thing on top of it wit a rock on top to hold it securely.

Well, looked at the cams a little while ago and the cover and rock are lying out in the rocky area and the plate is chewed up.

I'm glad they didn''t push the whole stove over the bank, again, it's heavy and a pain to get back in place.  

These bears just don't like rocks in places they shouldn't be.

I hung a modified fly catcher with a large plastic nut jar modification instead of the plastic bag, to hold more flies, in a tree and just remembered to look and they haven't gotten it -yet. I hung it high so maybe the can't reach it and are just frustrated.

These bears are very precise and delicate they way the do strange things, except I guess, kill stuff.

My SO found good tracks a couple days ago and here's a pix...

You're gonna end up face to face with those critters sooner or later.

Those bear may or may not be easily baited into a kill zone with krispy kreme donuts. I know nothing of this but something tell me krispy kremes are like crack for bear . But like I said I have no experience with this and would have no idea if it would work . If i did know any thing about this I would say leave a few in their normal travels for them to taste and map the sent to the taste after that I would put them where I want to kill them , maybe even make them a little difficult to get to . Oh stale works as good as fresh ...... if I had any knowledge of this .

Expy won't do that.  He likes the bears, and assesses their potential threat to him and his family as not warranting ballistic correction.  I and many others disagree, but that's just how it is.  FWIW, I hope he and his stay safe and nothing ever goes sideways because of it.

Already happened, twice...  

Appreciate the advice.

I keep telling my friends to leave you alone, but nobody listens to me anymore since I was photographed in someone's dumpster.


Bear

Looks like at least 3 of your buddies are hanging out the past month, FreeBear.  

One, the Suave Bear, small, brown with black highlights, and another small one ---the Mangy Bear   mostly brown. These may be the young ones from last year.

There is a new one, Big Blacky, all black and BIG.    Never saw one of those in all the pix before...  No pronounced hump,  so just a black bear...

We have pix to post that show all 3 against the same background, to judge size, about a week apart each.

When we go up and while there we can hear them moo'ing frequently during the day and evening. Not too far away.

The big one judging from paw prints barely broke the upper glass in the solar box last week. I couldn't figure out how they got the fly trap out of the tree but the big one could do it easy.

Put up another fly trap using a pole and between dropping it repeatedly and getting the horrible stinky fly bait liquid splashed all over me when it fell, no bear is going to get it now.  

Or around me prolly...


Then there is the barn 'cat' we 'adopted', we call Spotty. It has a short tail and small spots, looks plenty mean, --we've haven't see it personally but we're sure it would be fun to pet.  


The pack rat war is raging with plenty of dead ones. They seem to be as numerous as illegals. And more destructive if that's possible.

Just looked via IP cam, the rat trap under the excavator has been set off, the peanut butter licked off and I expect right now a rat is chewing on wires in the machine -again... Gotta get up there.... Pisses me off...

If you have to BO, prepare to deal with this kind of stuff...

I put a trap in the light tower genny and caught a rat over night  a few days ago, in the nest it had been making.

Plently of pix to put up soon, when I can...

I expect a bear pulled the same kind of sump pump tubing as they found interesting before, from the tiny spring we have that was directing water down a hill to accumulate in a small drinking area, a good long distance from where we live there, maybe 1/5 mile. 8670

They turned over a septic waste tank [small horizontal sprayer tank we need to take and dump] and lost some contents... Again, every time they come around it seems...

For some reason the animals seems to have gone wild the past two years, even the rabbits are already all over the roads playing car tag this summer.



ETA Here now, no rat damage...    That I've found so far.

This evening we heard something that has me puzzled. As we were unloading the truck, in late daylight, I heard a clicking sound.

I was checking one of the machines to see if the rats chewed anything and heard it off and on, wasn't sure if I was hearing things. Told my SO to listen and we heard it again, louder and it sounded like someone was dragging a scraper blade on a rocky dirt road and making an erratic clicking sound at the same time. Like snapping a stick across a wash board.

It sounded close and there isn't anywhere around that this could be happening.

I'm wondering if a bear was snapping it's teeth and tearing up rocks and stuff a 100 or so yards away. The last sound lasted maybe fifteen seconds and stopped. We looked at the dirt road for signs and there were none. It was loud and close by...

A little later one was making it's 'mooing' noise.

One of the bears did turn over some rocks my SO lined the road with, again, she had just fixed them the other day. She got more pix of the bears incl a face shot of an older one.

One of them broke a bi-metal thermostatically controlled vent under the container, that will have to be replaced. It never ends.

Also, ants had found their way in and were all over one side.

Pests have to be considered when planning a BOL or even if packing out on foot, depending on your circumstances.

That's why I suggest folks ditch their romantic notions what their BO house should look like, and make it out of metal. If wood, the pests will have great entertainment w/ it.

Right now I'm a bit concerned abt leaving the sliding door open and the vent running to keep the Yard Guard we used to kill the ants smell from getting too strong. It's nice and cool, maybe I can put a stick in the door, if I had one. It's late and I'm too scared to go to the barn to get one by myself...  

I have a full can of Yard Guard, that ought to be a deterrent for an intruder...

Uh, this is a disaster waiting to happen

Your furry buddy is slowly being desensitized to the presence of humans and the perception between food and you is being blurred.

Either get him off the property with the help of game officials or get yourself a bear tag before it's too late my friend....this guy is learning your game, watching you come and go...if it was a burglar you woulda shot him by now.  But remember, burglars dont usually attack and eat your SO.

Bears look cute right up to the point they clamp their jaws down on your head.

<----Make Mr. Bear look like this

nevermind

You have to understand how many bears, lions, bobcats, etc, there are hereabouts. They are all potentially dangerous, folks live all over the world with them and how many do you hear being eaten???

Oh- wait....

The people pop density here is zilch.

So we have to make the best of things, DNR or whatever isn't going to be much interested in the bears since relocating one or two, isn't going to make much of a difference, and we aren't some sort of subdivision. There's no particular bear to single out.  We're the interlopers.  

Also, the bears haven't done anything to get riled up about, [I know whatcher thinking] ---yet...  

They're just being bears, so we might as well enjoy them. We understand the risks, and they aren't that great. We're more at risk from a doper or drunk traveling to and from.

It's been abt 2 years since any personal encounters. Time for another I suppose. Getting ready to walk out in the dark w/ a flashlight.  What would Davy Crockett do, he didn't even have a flashlight.  

Re the bear tag, we're talking about it...

Meanwhile at the Surf' wildlife resort....

Checking to make sure the chickens are doing ok.



Refilling the feeder.



Chicken coop roof maintenance.

Birdshot (#8.5) in their butt from a distance works wonders at keeping them from getting to friendly with your immediate area.  Used it multiple times on nusiance bears that just couldn't get the hint to stay away.

Personally I'd get a bear tag and enjoy the amazing meal and rug, but if you want them in your AO thats up to you.

Nice looking bear Surf!

"Eat Moar Chikn" comes to mind, or maybe he's sizing up the place for a new home...  

I'd love to hear some -PRACTICAL- solutions from you -given the circumstances, rather than your making wrong assumptions about my position on this.  

This!!  Soooo this!

HAHA!

Soooo a  response worthy of a video game playing basement dweller...

I've got an idea Expy.  You are pretty good at improvising/adapting/inventing/creating/materializing things.:)

Have you given any thoughts to inventing rubber buck claymore mines?  The bears get to live, they learn that your immediate AO is very ouchy, and you can hunt/view them outside your AO at your pleasure....

There might be some way to do it legally.  I'm not well versed on it though.  I'd love to see a vid of them getting "claymored".  They'd be thinking "Dang!  That Expy ain't screwing around about guarding his food cache.  I'd better steer clear of his den/cache!"


Because it still applies:

That's a good idea Var, but I'm the person who would prolly wind up with a rear end full of rubber pellets!  

Or my SO...  


I've thought abt rigging an IR sensor to trigger a water spray, but then all the clan would probably show up at all times for a drink and a wash-down.  

And besides, water is critically in short supply.

 

Live a little!

What about some battery powered IR driveway alarms to initiate some pipe barrels full of rubber balls (maybe around 10mm dia.) off of DH Gate or other cheap chinese source.  Use maybe 100 grains of black and an electric match/model rocket starter?  Set them up around the immediate AO, then leave yourself one clearly delineated safe path in so you can dissarm them from behind.

Non-lethal, less than 1/4 ounce explosive, and you could run an electric wire with some signs around the perimeter too so you aren't man trapping?

Video it for the win!  Check legality before posting vids of course...

Sorry, I don't see it that way.  The question is not "how many bears there are out there", but "how many bears are leaving paw prints on your screen door"

I respect animals and our creeping into their lands and I believe man can live around wild and dangerous animals, no problem.  But when the animals lose their fear of you and begin to watch you like you are prey and then begin to associate your house, dog, wife, you with food - that's the last straw.  The next step from that is they take a nibble.

BTW, I'd shoot the doper and drunk, too....leave their bodies out to feed the bears you let live.

EDIT: I'll throw in some non-lethal idea.  Game warden assisted relocation, PIR-based lights and sirens, remote control activated pepper spray bomb, play some ted nugent really loud all day over outside speakers....uh, help, i'm runnin' out already.....

Here's our cat that we'd like to pet...  

The Tasco cam was cheap at Walmart a year or 2 ago and takes adequate pix. There's a pix at night from the same cam of the same cat and it's not too bad. Not as good as the HyperFire cams...

The bears have been quiet a few weeks, they're around but haven't heard them calling, see tracks. Thankfully they haven't gotten into the drainage pipe in the pix below and chewed on it.

We got a Victor single shot electronic mouse 'trap' and it's done a good job.

We got 2 of those traps you wind up, with a hair trigger tab they step on when then go into it, then a revolving sort of paddle wheel indexes 1/4 revolution and sweeps them into a holding area. It's worked pretty well and doesn't have to be emptied real frequently.

We're going to get a Victor electronic 'trap' that has a mechanism to zap a rat or mouse and dump it into a holding area for disposal and reset automatically for the next one.  Will advise how it works.

We picked up at the farm store for bigger critters a trap that has an IR sensor that detects entry and then a solenoid releases a trigger mechanism that closes the entrance door. It holds the animal unharmed so you can relocate it.  

I haven't caught anything in it, it's only been out a couple nights. I can't leave it out when not there for fear of catching a bunny or something and not releasing it.



ETA, my SO says this was at night, but another pix of the cat is definitely at night and quite dark except for IR illumination. You can see the IR illumination in this pix and is sort of concentrated, this Tasco is pretty cheap. So I have to conclude it's at twilight. This Tasco is a color cam in the daytime.

The full night time Tasco pix of the kitty has the IR illumination in a circle centered in the center of the frame, with half of the frame dark.

Glad to know you and my fan club are getting along well `EXPY!

Thanks for your influence on them!


Hey- I 'invented' something yesterday...  This proly ought to be in Grayman's camera thread but here goes.

There's a need to be able to make a trigger-able decent quality wx proof small, CHEAP, low power camera, like a GAME CAM, with an add-on device that can remotely trigger it, via wire or wireless, from some sort of detector or alarm  -on command.

Without going inside the game cam [tho that is easy for some]

The simplest way is to spoof the IR sensor of a game cam.


Let's hear folks' ideas on how this can be done. I already figgered it out but haven't tried it, it costs pennies and should work fine in a tiny package.


Doing so has aps like, using the relay contact output from a Dakota Alert receiver [or a model airplane, wireless doorbell, or a Harbor Freight wireless alarm transmitter/receiver set] to remotely trigger a game cam some distance away, by placing the battery powered receiver at the game cam, connected to the 'device'.

Sorry OP, don't have the time to read 4 pages right now.  Saved for later.

Try some of these.  



http://www.keepshooting.com/12-gauge-ballistic-bean-bag-round.html

Associate them with something you and your SO always carry - namely your voice.  Shout and yell then BOOM.  Next time you see em, just yell and see how they respond.  

FYI, I've hazed lots of bears in my time and have never felt the need to deploy the 1 oz. slug sitting in my left side cargo pocket.  






cheers,

What is that, a cotton ball in a sock?

Need to get some of those and a 12 ga....

What state are you in?

The state of disbelief of whatz going on with the Public in the US...

Besides, I move around a lot...  

Tested a Victor mouse/rat electronic trap that zaps them with juice today.

This is the trap we got a couple weeks ago and it got rained on after doing a pretty good job on a couple mice.

So it's been sitting out a while and hasn't gotten anything, I put one of those poison bait blocks in it and something's been nibbling on it for a few days, but -no ZAP.

An unlucky mouse just happened to get caught in one of those wind up paddle wheel [relocation] traps that gets tripped when the critter walks on a sensitive treadle, and gets 'swept' into a holding compartment, ready for dishposal.

Took the Victor electronic trap with some peanut butter on the business end, put it in a bucket, dumped the mouse in, and it wouldn't go in the main open end.

Instead, it somehow pushed itself thru the small holes in the end, not much bigger than my finger.

To make a long story short, the trap worked, with a buzzing sound.

I didn't want to disturb what was going on while trying to observe the trap's operational sequence, and used a telescoping inspection mirror to look into the trap, lighted with my trusty Fenix.

The mouse's hand/paw whatever, was spread out like Michel Jackson's doing a moonwalk.  



Just got some automatic electronic traps from Victor, they have a stairway to Heaven up one side, run on 4 C cells, and the chamber of electronic death is on the top.

Once the trap has finished its job, the chamber is rotated by an electric motor and drops the mouse into a holding tray, that I removed so I can watch the results remotely via IP cam.


Will update with the efficacy of this device.