I am hoping to pick some brains here as I have been pondering this whole deal for weeks now and can't quite settle on a theory.

Up here in Mn we have three weeks to bait before season opens so once baiting opened I put out a two 55 gallon drums that have been welded together. Inside I filled it with roughly 300lbs of whole corn and 30 gallons of used fryer oil. Below the barrels I put out a bunch of windfall apples and sprayed the surrounding trees with anise and vanilla extract.

Over the next two and a half weeks I had over 1500 videos of bears hitting the bait at all hours of the day and numerous videos of multiple different bears at it at once. I was also out doing some other things on the property during the second week and I stood about twenty yards from one bear I met on a trial who wandered off unspooked and later that evening saw two bears hitting the bait at once.


All that was great and incredibly exciting as I really enjoy just watching the trail cam videos however about two days before season opened they just completely shut off except for a couple visits that lasted a couple minutes in the wee hours of the morning.


Since then I have added marshmallows, syrup and some pastries to the bait along with some freshly cooked bacon each time I hunt with some prevail as I passed on a smaller bear who stopped by however nothing close to what it was.


What I am wondering is if I possibly over fed the bears and are sleeping the gorging off, found another food source, simply not interested in the bait or something else entirely.


Any insight would be appreciated.


MN DNR, this is all on private land and in accordance with the 2016 regulations.

bears wont stop eating ever. its not in their instinct. they will over feed themselves and then continue to eat. if there are natural food ripening like berry's , they wont hit baits.
bears know baits aren't natural and know there is risk involved . i hunted one year where we had 1000s of cam pics of bears on baits but as soon as the temperature dropped, mountain ash berry's ripened and the bears disappeared from the baits for an entire week.

from what ive seen , bears seldom use baits as a primary food source, its more like a crack addiction to calories.

My guess is they've got a new source for a natural food. Bears will almost always pick the natural food source over bait. I've been averaging 350 photos per week for the past few months, but now that the acorns are dropping I'm down to 150ish and nothing but small bear instead of the big guys I've been watching all summer.

Using popped sorghum in a timed feeder for 8am and 6pm, along with a jug of HogWild since the bait was meant for pigs but the bear have taken it over.