Welcome to AT from northern Illinois. Maybe an electric fence high enough that deer can jump over……never seen a bear jump.

 

Good luck op, bears here tear up everything and walk thru my food plot electric fences and they will knock you down if you touch it and no shoes on lol

In WV where you can bait we tried a 3/8 rope that was 75 feet long tree to tree. And 20 foot up in the air with a pulley system to pull up feeder but bears would climb tree then use the rope to swing/climb out to hanging feeder and bite it and put holes in it or they would end up breaking rope and feeder falls and break .

Best thing we found was to kill the bears lol.

 

It is dam hard to beat a bear!

 

I made an L-shaped bracket out of 3/4" tubing that is chained to the tree like a lock-on treestand that puts the feeder barrel about 6 feet out away from the tree. There are 2 pulleys that I run 1/4" steel cable through so the feeder is lowered up and down with a boat trailer winch which is mounted to a 1/2" steel tubing bracket that I lag bolt to the lower portion of the tree.

It is important to use a bolt or some other locking device to prevent the bears from messing with the winch and causing it to disengage and your feeder falling to the ground - trust me, they will figure out how to do it. They will climb the tree and try to reach the feeder but I have not yet had a bear climb out on the bracket and tear down the feeder. I will try to post a picture later if anyone is interested.

 

Moultrie makes one that shocks them when they tamper with the motor, it works.

 

A friend has her feeder trashed by Brer Bear. Carried off the corn container and was never found.

 

Aircraft cable between 2 trees at least 20' apart. Put aircraft cable through PVC pipe so if the bear tries to walk out to the feeder it will spin and he won't be able to do it. Run a pulley from the center to a winch on a tree. Put a chain around the winch handle so he doesn't disengage the winch. Make sure the bottom of your feeder is around 8' high, so he can't reach up from the ground.

 

This seems like a great idea.

 

We used to have a set up like above that worked real well but I can't remember how it feed the deer with it.
Will have to give my brother a call on it as this was back in the middle 80's.

 

Make a low barbwire fence around the area. 3 strands is fine, maybe even 2 strands and max 30" high so even young deer can jump it. Add T-post insulators about 15-18" up facing outward. Wire in an electric fence. Make it impossible for a bear to get over without touching the strand. Need T posta instead of metal rods usually in the ground because a bear might just grab the top and pull it over and cause the fence to ground out. Need a robust electric fence. I use a 2 mile for racoons on my deer feeders and it works perfect. A 10+ mile is probably needed for bear. You want them to instantly get the hint. A 2 mile is a lot like static electric shock. You want a lot more. Maybe 20+ mile one. Aren't cheap though for a good solar one but it will last forever.

 

Look at the “Once and Done Feeders.” They keep the out and work great. We have them on a lease in Florida that is full of bears. So far they haven’t been able to destroy yet. Get an extra steel rachet strap from them and go around the door.

 

Hang a set of keys on the feeder. Our liberal, bear hugger appeasing governor says to jingle them if approached by a bear. It must work to scare them off.

 

only way is hang it off limb high ! use crank steel cables pulleys leave it hang 6 feet below limb

 

i built steel feeders out of angle iron all welded bears still tore it up on ground

 

Every metal feeder I have ever had is nothing but trouble at least where I live.
The problem I have with metal is that condensation easily forms inside of it due to temperature differences between the outside and inside of the barrel.
It then runs down the inside, into the corn, and they clog up horribly.
I have been running about 15 poly feeders for 20 years with no issues other than a timer messing up from time to time.
I had 5 hanging feeders with funnels one year, every single one clogged. Tried again only filling them halfway, still same issue, I sold everyone of them and will never buy another.

I did have 2 tripods get wrecked a couple weeks ago.
I am going to try getting 10 foot long legs in thicker gauge steel, that don't come apart, to get them higher.
Then I am going to get 4 foot long rebar and drive it down around each leg about a 1.5 feet from where each leg hits the ground.
I then am going to get wire and wrap it around the rebar a bunch of times really tight.

If that doesn't work, I will probably scream and holler a bunch of four letter words and create some new ones. lol

 

wrap wire around the rebar and the leg, ment to say that.

 

T post holds much better. Sinking it 2 ft is probably the better than rebar 4 foot but to each their own

 

If none of these work, invite us out for a bear hunt. I'm sure we can keep enough pressure on them to convince a move.

 

So, in short, You just gotta be smarter than the average bear. Remember Yogi?
I lived in bear country a while, and they will tear up everything they can't eat.

 

One and done feeders bear proof package

 

Well my Feeders that I put up this year didn't get wrecked the way I did them.
Used the 12 foot square tubing, then drove t-post down about 1.5 feet from the bottom , then wrapped wire around the T-post and leg multiple times. Used wire like they use for putting r-bar together. The things were way up in the air. Lol