Honey Hole

Cookies, trail mix, candies, gummies, ice cream and waffle cones, caramel, jelly. All of these are available at Tom Kaiser’s bear bait business, Honey Hole Bear Bait, in Waseca. “You can’t just go in and throw a box of donuts down and shoot them– they’re smart and some will wait you out,” Kaiser explains, fantasizing about the hunt and how the love of the hunt is what brought him to start his bear bait business back in June of 2022. 

It was Kaiser’s uncle who taught him to hunt and bear hunt in 1991, bringing him up to his cabin near Bemidji, where Kaiser has been hunting ever since. “I deer hunt, goose hunt, duck hunt, and everything. I’d give it up in a heartbeat all for the bear hunt,” Kaiser says, a natural enthusiast. It was this love of the hunt that inspired him to create a bait business, selling all kinds of bear bait to hunters, guides, and anyone interested.

Honey Hole Bear Bait is located in a giant pole shed on the family property: The building is filled with barrels, totes, boxes, and bags of all kinds of sweets for the bears. According to Kaiser, there’s some science behind choosing the food. Bears are just like humans in that they will eat junk food like donuts and such, but they like quality foods and everything sweet while avoiding spicy or sour foods. The sweets Kaiser sells are damaged or below-standard products sold to him by the semi-load.

The wide selection allows hunters or guides to choose items which they believe will be inviting to bears at their locations. While hunters a relatively short distance away might be using corn and fish as bait, Kaiser says northern bears  prefer sweets. He also states that the practice of baiting is beneficial, explaining that a bear bait site is likely to supplement the diets of forty or fifty bears–including a fair number of cubs–while leading to the harvesting of only one bear–if even one. 

Kaiser says he started his business because he has always enjoyed the challenges and rewards of selecting the right baits. While his companions sometimes complained about the time he was taking, he would be examining sites to see what the bears seemed to have taken the most of, trying to figure out what worked the best and what the bears liked. Similar to most hunters, Kaiser has a lot of stories and is more than happy to share them. He also has some tips and tricks of the hunt. Anything from tying licorice to a tree and watching the bears struggle and climb on logs to get it, measuring the height of the bear by putting tape on a stick in the ground, to watching the bears get cookies stuck to their noses. 

On the business end of things, Kaiser runs Honey Hole Bear Bait near Waseca  because he knows there are no similar distributors south of the Cities; there are only three other large companies like his in the state, and all are well to the north. 

 Another plus for the business is inexpensive labor. Two young hunters, Kaiser’s own 14-year-old son Nathan and Jonathan Gransee, the son of Kaiser’s girlfriend Heidi Wiitanen help out by filling barrels for only five dollars a barrel. Kaiser explained the boys are not only earning some spending money, they are also acquiring a work ethic and learning about customer service, managing money, and the many skills needed to own and operate a business. Wiitanen, who helps manage the business, and Kaiser wish to thank Heath Miller and Larry Johnson at Minnwest Bank in Waseca who told them that “Either you’re absolutely brilliant or you’re completely nuts,” Whitey Thompson at Wet Signs, Ross at Minnesota Design Studio in Mankato and G & J Transport out of Medford.