Deterrents and detection matter, but they all come second to one thing: a bear that finds nothing worth the trip stops making the trip. Securing attractants is the quiet work that prevents most encounters before they start.
The usual suspects
Garbage is the big one: store it in a bear-resistant container or inside a closed building, and put it out the morning of pickup, not the night before. Bird feeders are concentrated calories; take them down through the active months. Clean grills after every use and stash pet food, livestock feed, and fruit windfalls.
Think like the nose
A bear reads your property by smell long before it sees anything. Freezers on a porch, a fish-cleaning station, compost with kitchen scraps, even a recycling bin with sticky cans all register. Walk your land and ask what it smells like from the treeline.
Make it routine
Attractant management is a habit, not a one-time fix. The properties that stay quiet are the ones where securing the perimeter is just part of the evening, the same as locking a door. That is the line that holds.