I live in the northernmost town in Maine right along the Canadian border , in fact 1 mile from Canada. Here in Maine where I do my bear hunts it is in the heart of the St. John Valley , farming country, where potatoes , oats and barley are grown. It has the most dense population of bears in Maine and the largest bears in the state. It receives the least amount of hunting pressure in the state due to all private land. Locals do hunt bears here on a small scale. The biggest problem with hunting them over bait here is the time of year we are trying to hunt them is peak season for natural food supply. I don’t care what you try feeding them in a bait barrel , you cant compete with natural food . Now when you hunt with us across the border we enter a big woods environment (over 4 million acres) where natural food is not nearly as plentiful and they hit bait much more consistently . Now you might ask then what makes the area you hunt in N.B different than the north Maine woods? An analogy I will give you is Its like comparing American made products to Chinese made products, night and day difference.
I’m going to throw a few facts out there : (read carefully) If you hunt anywhere in the north Maine woods area ( this is the area of Maine where over 90% of the bear hunting is done) there is a bait site every half mile and don’t let anyone try to get you to believe otherwise. Its big business for the private shareholders ( timber companies). Tracts of state land are managed the same way , baits every half mile. All the outfitters lease a bait site every half mile on a map. The country I hunt in Maine is all private farm country where I do not compete with many people.
In Maine everyone wants to hunt the first 2 weeks of the season. There is good reason for this , see here in Maine the hound season and baiting season overlap each other for the last 2 weeks of the baiting season. Many people have hunted bears in Maine for years during the 3rd and 4th weeks of baiting and have had dogs strike off of the bait site they are hunting. Hence fourth all the guides and outfitters try to cram as many clients into their camps as possible the first 2 weeks. We only take a maximum of 6 clients per week in Canada and Maine. Canada has no hound hunting which makes the bears much less pressured animals and less nocturnal.
Bear Licenses in Maine are sold on an unlimited basis over the counter. In New Brunswick all non residents can obtain a license in one of two ways, one way is thru a licensed outfitter like myself or thru the general draw. They only advocate a certain # of tags per zone so the bears are managed. My baits across the border are spread out 3 to 5 miles between each site and I have over 4 million acres to hunt with no other competition. Here in Maine there are hundreds of guides hunting bears.
You will be hunting the most active bait sites that we have going at the time of your hunt. We have plenty of active sites and are very aggressive at putting clients in the best spots to be successful. Most of our bait sites are set up for archery or firearms. Most sites have multiple stands for various wind directions. We utilize the use of ladder stands, tripods, portables with climbing sticks , ground blinds , pop ups . We have many options to make you comfortable and successful. We truly hunt the wind correctly each and every day at our bait sites. We guarantee very active bait sites with numerous bears hitting each site, some as many as a dozen bears on a site, especially in Canada. We run right around the 100% mark on shot opportunities in Canada and around 80% here in Maine. We advocate the taking of mature bears only. Absolutely no sows accompanied by cubs are allowed to be taken. We weigh every bear we kill and we have averaged between 160 # - 210# over the last 8 years. Scales do not lie, the outdoor channels do. I would beware of any bear outfitter guaranteeing you a kill. We can not control the weather or the hunter’s abilities. These are truly free roaming animals that have a huge home range. Do your homework. It is not a canned hunt under high fence. We do however bait with as much bait or more than any other outfitter. Our sites receive on avg. 400 # of food a week per site. I have sold bait to other outfitters here in Maine and Canada for almost 20 years. I can tell you with the amount of bait most of these guys buy from me for an up and coming season , they use one tenth the amount I use at my sites.