Tyler Dodge was sitting in his treestand in 2022 overlooking a bait site when he had a bear come in behind him.
The animal appeared to detect his scent, which usually means it’s game over.
“She was sniffing the air and stopped, then went back in the woods,” Dodge said.
He was certain that the bear was long gone. Instead, the sow eventually circled down toward the bait barrel. It sniffed around, but kept walking.
It then moved to a spot 10 yards in front of Dodge and started licking the blueberry attractant that he had sprayed on the ground. He harvested the animal, which field dressed at 250 pounds.
“It was super cool to see her come into my spray,” Dodge said. “She wasn’t interested in the food, she wanted that blueberry smell.”
The hunt was especially satisfying because the spray is one of many products Dodge makes for Wilderness Freaks, a business he owns with his wife, Bailie. Their primary focus is hunting attractants.
The Pittsfield couple bought Wilderness Freaks last year from Jason Frechette with little hesitation. Tyler Dodge had previously used the scents successfully and had helped promote them on social media.
“When I started using his scents three or four years ago, I shot a bear every year after,” he said. “That’s why I loved it so much.”
It has been a busy 14 months since the Dodges acquired Wilderness Freaks. Tyler Dodge loves hunting, so spending some of his spare time blending scent formulas and creating new ones is a perfect way for him to immerse himself in the sport even further.
“Deer hunting’s fun. It’s a blast,” he said. “But bear hunting, there’s nothing like it.”
It’s no secret that black bears love sweets. Bait hunters, who harvest approximately 65 to 70 percent of the bears taken in the state each year, use a multitude of baked goods, candies, syrups, honey, fryolator grease, nuts and other foods to entice them to visit bait sites.
Wilderness Freaks’ scents appeal to bears’ keen sense of smell. The most popular aromas among hunters are anise, caramel, cherry, jelly donut, butterscotch, bacon and blueberry.
Based on input from customers, Dodge has added cotton candy, grape and peppermint this year. He also offers apple pie, marshmallow and popcorn.
“It smells just like buttery, movie theater popcorn,” he said of the latter flavor.
The sprays are oil-based, which helps them adhere to surfaces when exposed to the elements. Cornbread, root beer, peanut butter and smoke are among other offerings.
Tyler Dodge continues to work on developing, improving and testing tantalizing scents to attract both bears and deer. And it doesn’t stop with sprays.
Wilderness Freaks now offers “Bear Crack,” a fruity bait additive, and “Bait Cakes,” which are made with sugars and fragrances and can be placed in a tree for longer-lasting scent dispersal.
The company also sells a concentrated bait starter, which is designed to be mixed with fryolator grease or on a soaked rag for scent cover while on stand.
For deer hunters, Wilderness Freaks has pastes featuring buck urine, doe in heat and buck urine with tarsal gland.
Some hunters swear by the skunk paste, which has been known to get bears that have abandoned a bait site to come back and investigate. Some of the scents also can be used by trappers.
Scents are another tool for bear hunters, who invest lots of time and money buying bait, driving back and forth to maintain their sites and hunting.
Wilderness Freaks offers apparel and other hunting-related items from its home-based operation. Dodge, who by day works for Formtek-Maine, a metal manufacturing company in Clinton, has been selling a number of his in-ground PVC pipe bear traps.
He opted to build his own trap and try that method when he was unable to get a big bear to show up at his site during daylight hours.
The pipe is placed into the ground and bait is inserted in the bottom. There is a cable snare located at the top of the device. When a bear inserts its paw to grab the food and tries to remove it, it hits a trigger that springs the snare, which closes onto the leg.
Dodge’s design prevents a bear from triggering the snare cable unless it attempts to remove the bait, as opposed to activating it by hitting the trigger on the way down and springing it prematurely.
“If the lock is set up the right way on the snare, then that bear should not be getting out of that,” he said, admitting that bears are strong and sometimes can avoid being caught.
Hunters across Maine have spent the last three weeks preparing for the opening of bear hunting over bait. Youth Bear Day is Saturday, Aug. 26, and the regular four-week bait hunting season begins on Aug. 28.
Bear trapping runs from Sept. 1 to Oct. 31.
Dodge hopes to harvest a bear at his camp in Hancock County, or maybe at a site closer to his home in central Maine.
“I think our bear scents are gonna grow. Our traps have been doing tremendous this year, too,” Dodge said.
He admits black bears have the upper hand on hunters, regardless of how potent or delicious bait offerings might be.
“There’s a lot of natural food out right now, too. It’s hard to compete with natural foods,” he said.
Dodge is already looking ahead with the hope of turning Wilderness Freaks into a full-time business. A garage that is in the works will house operations.
He is hard at work designing permanent deer hunting huts that will include integrated solar, and is exploring a solar-powered wax burner unit to warm scents. Dodge also has partnered with Sniper Hog Lights, which sells gear designed for nighttime predator hunting.
Wilderness Freaks products are available at Old Town Trading Post, Indian Hill Trading Post in Greenville and Willey’s Sport Center in Ellsworth.
“We have expanded the business quite a bit in just one year,” Tyler Dodge said. “My goal is to have our own shop. I want to have it full time.”