db wrote on Mar 21^st, 2009 at 7:05am:

bear's sense of smell is said to be ~7 times better than a bloodhound's

And consider this. A bloodhound is able to track a human being by sensing the trail of sloughed dead skin cells left behind even a fast running person. If you have any allusions of "smell proofing" your food, camp or even your tracks forget it. If a bear comes into your camp it will know what you had for dinner, and if you opened your food box in camp mr. bear probably knows what meals you have planned for the rest of your trip. Being opportunistic he probably evaluates the strength of the smells and then determines if it is worth the effort to try and capitalize on it based on past experiences. Keep the smells to a minimum and keep the food relatively inaccessible and you might win the game most of the time.