Keeping bear meat vs hide only... what do you do?

[Grisha]

for black bear, grinds and roasts. cooking some this weekend, as it happens.

 

[rclouse79]

Bear meat is my families favorite. It pisses me off royally that Idaho requires you do take out the hide and skull but not the meat. In my opinion wasting the meat is a bigger sin than not utilizing the skull or hide.

 

[buffybr]

I've been in on 3 blackbear and one Alaskan brown bear hunt.

The first hunt was back in the mid '60s when I was on a Forest Service summer crew. The Colorado Fish & Game also had a summer crew camped by us. One evening after work I went with one of the F&G guys and he shot a black bear. That was the first big game animal that he had ever shot and I helped him skin it and cut up the meat. He gave me a few packages of the meat.

Later, in the '70s I shot a black bear in Colorado and another one in Montana. I kept and ate the meat from both of those bears. One of my co-workers in Montana was about 10 years older than me and I'm sure that he had done more hunting than me.

We had him over for spegetti dinner one night. After dinner Larry and I were sitting around talking and I asked him if he had ever eaten bear meat. He said "No". I said "After all of your hunting, you've never eaten any bear meat?" Again he said "No." I asked him again "Are you sure you've never eaten any bear meat?"

I could see that he was getting a lilttle irritated, and he again said "No!" So I said "You just did. The meatballs in the spegetti were bear meat."

To me, black bear meat has a waxy texture, but I would put it's taste between elk and beef.

A few years ago I went on an Alaskan brown bear hunt. I didn't shoot a monster, but he had a beautifyl Toklat colored hide, and he wasn't too far from camp.

When we were skinning him out, I don't know if they came out of his intestines or the meat in his hams, but there were a bunch of worms that looked like pink earthworms in him. We didn't eat any of him.

 

[MountainBoat]

When we were skinning him out, I don't know if they came out of his intestines or the meat in his hams, but there were a bunch of worms that looked like pink earthworms in him. We didn't eat any of him.

Great pictures as always. I think your picture of the unlimited ram with the golden retriever is the single greatest hunting photo of all time. That is one of the most beautiful grizzlies I have ever seen.

 

[Coveyleader]

SE AK bears, I haven't ate one yet. I have salvaged, and donated, but never eaten. They can have these long worms on the outside between their hides and meat, and even in the meat which has been a turn off. The hides suck there as well, so it really is a conundrum.

Lower 48 bears I've killed have all been given away as well. I've eaten it, but I just can't get over the worms and the the prep work to actually eat a bear. I shot a boar on a carcass a couple falls back and when I was skinning it, there must have been 1000s of maggots (dead) passing through his anus from the carcass. He was spooning them up like rice I guess. That's still a hard vision to forget.

I'm going to be hunting BC this year, and they are very strict on meat salvage, not unlike AK salvage laws. Neck, rib, quarters, you name it, so that will be a bridge for me to cross. Maybe donate if I can find someone maybe keep if it looks good. I'm not sure what I will do if it's riddled with worms.

Funny, though, SE Alaska Halibut are some of the wormiest fish I've seen, and eaten. Funny we are!