Idaho enacts new bear baiting rules for hunters

HUNTING — Idaho’s general spring black bear hunting season began Friday, April 15, with updated rules on placement of bait.

No bait site may be situated within 200 feet of any water (lake, pond, reservoir, or year-round free-flowing stream or spring) or within 200 yards of any maintained trail or any established roadway that is open to the general public for motorized traffic and capable of being traveled by full-sized automobiles.

An established roadway is defined as any road that is established, built, maintained, approved or designated by any government entity or private landowner for the purpose of travel by full-sized automobiles.  An established roadway shows evidence of repeated use by full-sized automobiles, and may include a traveled way of natural earth with depressed wheel tracks and little or no vegetation in the wheel tracks.

Craig Walker, Idaho Fish and Game Department enforcement supervisor for the Panhandle Region describes the new clarification rule this way:

“It means if you can legally drive a pickup on it, then it’s a roadway,” he said.  “If there’s a forest road with a gate that blocks public access, then you can’t drive a pickup on it legally.

“If a handicapped sportsman is participating in a USFS program that allows vehicular access behind a locked gate, the general public is still not allowed vehicular access.”

Updates to the 2016 black bear season and rule information can be found on pages 66-71 of the Big Game Seasons and Rules brochure.