We have bear come onto the property from time to time. It's probably more frequent than I know.
But if they are here, I should probably shoot one or two for the freezer.
My friend has absolutely refused to help if I shoot one. He has killed a lot of bear.

I have killed exactly 1 (one) bear. we ate it and it was good.

I've had black bear sausage at a game dinner once and thought it pretty good. I'd be interested to try it prepared other ways.

I have eaten the meat from several different black bears taken in Montana, one from Canada, and several from Idaho.

The meat was good to eat.

I butchered them the exact same way I do deer and wild pigs.

Oh,Hell Yes! If is taken care of properly, it tastes like really good pot roast. I let my bear hang for at least 3 weeks and butcher it myself. Take all the fat off and out of the meat that you can get and enjoy!

I smoked a rump roast, grilled backstraps, and made sausage out of bear and all were quite tasty. I really liked the sausage, which I made just like I do from feral hogs.

These were all from bears killed in the spring - not sure if a fall bear would be different...

The only one I've eaten I shot in a corn field 2 years ago. Had it dressed and on ice in 30 minutes, then skinned to the butcher the next morning. Every cut was fantastic tasting. I'd always heard it was terrible and greasy.....absolutely wrong. All in the handling of the meat.

Why has your friend refused to help?

I killed one here in WI 5 or 6 years ago, 175lb male. It was some very good eating. I liked it seasoned and grilled just like I do my elk. In fact in side by side tests, friends preferred the bear meat above all others, I beleve that evening I grilled deer, elk, bear, and a wild turkey. Most preferred the bear.

Bear meat and carcasses can be very wormy. I tried one burger, never finished it. Skinning and gutting exposed tape worms and some other kind of cork screw worm. It lost its appeal. Bear has a higher probability of trichinosis than a pig.

I don't eat coyote, prairie dog, or mtn. lion either. But I know people who have and do.

taste like possum.........

Shot one two years ago in Maryland. Didn't know how it was going to taste. Marinated it for a day and cooked it on the grill and it was awesome! Buddies that came over for it loved it.

Ive only arrowed one.
I made cube steaks out of the tenderlions and back straps. They tasted fine. I canned most of the rest. I did not know you needed to get every little scarp of fat off of it. It was unedible. You might has well have taken a spoon, dipped in the bacon grease jar and put it in your mouth.
It didnt go to waste as the dogs at the local shelter thought is was great.

Bear is one of my favorite wild Game meats.Skin it out right away to cool it down.Take all the fat off it and render it.This makes some of the best tasting Pastries you ever will eat.

Frank

I've eaten spring black bear and it was really quite good. I found it to be quite a bit better than deer meat. If I could shoot one on my property I certainly would do it.

Mark

A funny story:

Years ago when the kids were still small, a friend gave me about 1# of pepperoni sticks he had made from a Washington black bear he had killed. He told me they needed to stay refrigerated because they were somewhat fatty, and wouldn't taste good at room temperature.

I put them in the refrigerator and forgot about them for about a week. When I remembered them, there were eight or ten sticks left. I asked my then eight year-old twins what had happened to the meat, and they told me they had eaten it for snacks after school, and it was good!

I told them it was bear. The looks on their faces were priceless.

All to say that there is really very little that is inedible, if not in fact quite tasty, as long as it is prepared correctly.

quote:

Take all the fat off it and render it.This makes some of the best tasting Pastries you ever will eat.

The bear I kilt wasn't very big, but Lora B. rendered 8 quarts of oil from that bear and it is excellent when making pastries. We and all the folks we served it to enjoyed the meat well enough that I want to go kill a bigger one, or go to a two bear area and get two if I am lucky.

I will say that even though my bear was shot in the fall, I am not real sure how a black bear that has had the chance to feed heavily on dead or dying salmon for a few weeks would taste.

The only problem with hunting bear here that their territory is so darn big. In order to make it likely that I see one when I am hunting I would probably have to use bait, and that just isn't my kind of hunting.
On the other hand I might come across one while deer or turkey hunting.

Absolutely outstanding meat, our favorite. I don't know about the fat tasting bad I use it instead of pork fat in my sausages and everyone that tries them says they are fantastic. The drippings off the roasts make the best gravy I've ever eaten. +1 on the pastry use of the rendered fat, great pie crusts!

Far from a favorite of mine, and I have to shoot them often from crop damage. Have yet to find worms, or the fat to be bad tasting, but I dont let it set in the freezer long either. I turn the whole thing into cased, smoked sausage. Folks I distribute it to like it.

Black bear is excellent meat! Render the fat for lard. Mmm!

It depends on what they are eating? Dead Salmon along the rivers. YUK!!! Hukleberries high in the Mountains. YUMMY!!!

I have always heard that meat form a bear that ate a lot of fish, did not taste good.

My brother while on an Alaskan black bear caribou hunt ate some Mountain Grizzly, and he said it was very good to eat.

Have eaten Michigan bear that lived on a lot of berries and Colorado bear from the mountains. Both tasted fine, although not as good as other meats I've had.

Guys, I can't resist. Yes I've eaten bare, but was forced to put my clothes back on by the waiter.

quote:

Originally posted by OLBIKER:
Bear is one of my favorite wild Game meats.Skin it out right away to cool it down.Take all the fat off it and render it.This makes some of the best tasting Pastries you ever will eat.

If any of you foodies have read early american recipes you will note that the pie crust a pastry instructions call for bear lard when available.

Its an interesting topic. I find more clients each year like to take bear meat home. Its good to see as each hunter can take 2 bears and often do. Eating the meat is really an added value to trophy hunt.
Its intersting to hear first timers comment how clean the bears smell, most expect some sort of bad smell.

I would like to weigh in on this one. I have killed a grand total of six black bears and one grizzly. The bears that I killed in the fall were exceptionally good eating with the exception of the griz which had been feeding on dead and rotting salmon. I could not get past the smell of that one.

Spring black bear meat has had a strong taste to it, possibly because while in hibernation/winter sleep, bears tend to store waste products in their muscle tissue. The fall bear meat I have eaten has been of good flavor and very tender. Some years ago, I brought about 100 pounds of meat home with me from a fall bear hunt in British Columbia. I cooked a roat from it and my wife took some to a party for the teachers in her building. A number of the teachers tried the meat and loved it until she told them what it was. Their opinion changed then. She did not tell them that the barbecue they ate was mountain lion.

Every year, it is traditional that I prepare a bear stew for our hunting camp the day before Pennsylvania's fall bear season. There are no leftovers.

To expand on a previous post, if you kill any game, getting the hide and fat off of it and cooling it down quickly is key to good tasting meat. My bear last year had a huge layer of fat on it. My buddy Dave took a quantity of it to make hand creme and boot dressing by a formula he has. I used some of it for cooking, and it is pretty good as a lard substitute in making pastry.

I sure did and it was great. This was a spring bear taken last May.

Cooked the roasts on the Traeger and everbody loved them.


The burger for hamburgers was everybody's favorite.


This bear didn't stink at all. I was by myself and you wouldn't believe the wrestling match I went through to get him rolled out of a brush pile and up onto the road to get this photo.

That is a BIG bear that I wouldn't want to have handled by myself!

No.
A local state game biologist says most if not all bears in Alaska have trichinosis. I don't want that.
If your going to skin them, wear thick rubber gloves. You can get trich. from a nick on your skin.
It's not worth the gamble for me.

It really depends on what they're eating. If it's berries bear is really good. If it's fish not so much, if it's garbage forget it!

I've eaten two of the black bears that I've shot and part of another. All were shot in spring/early summer in Colorado and Montana.

I enjoyed eating all of them. I thought the meat tasted somewhere between elk and beef. The fat on these bears was mostly on the outside of the carcass. There was almost no fat marbeling in the large muscles.

I eat a lot of black bear a good bear is very good eating.

I've also had the chance to eat a number of bears and they were all good. I've got two that weighed a couple hundred pounds, and one that weiged over 500, and they were all good. Whenever one of my clients got one it was always the same: are these any good to eat? I'll have the cook fix some and if you don't like it fill out the donation form and I'll take it. I never got to keep one!
These were all Colorado bears and I just got my tag tonight for another.
Yummy.

quote:

Originally posted by TJ:
No.
A local state game biologist says most if not all bears in Alaska have trichinosis. I don't want that.
If your going to skin them, wear thick rubber gloves. You can get trich. from a nick on your skin.
It's not worth the gamble for me.

trichinosis is a well known problem in bears, as in wild hogs- for damn sure i wouldn't touch that rare roast! well done hamburger, maybe...

I am having some tonight for supper I think I'll have the wife do some bear stroganoff.

Yum yum

Hi Frank. Yes they are very good eating. I usually grind a bunch of bear burger. It's a big hit at the hunt camps. I have killed several on my property with bow and gun while deer hunting. Remember, here in Va. it is a one bear limit and baiting is illegal. Good luck!

Many bears, many years.

We often split the meat from bears taken over hounds. Fifty bears or more.

Two were not fit to eat. Mature males. The meat was rank through and through. No way to make it edible. If you kill a mature male bear, take a piece of it and fry it before you spend time or money processing it. If it stinks up the house ditch it. Not your fault, its just a natural thing.

I shot a spring bear back when Maine had that season. No fat, all muscle, un-toned from months of hibernation. Delicious! Cook it "low & slow, same as wild hog, due to trichinosis (ie- no rare cuts, save those for deer & elk!)

I've killed lean spring bears and fat fall bears. In both cases, both bears were killed quickly and cleanly, gutted promptly and when they were processed, ALL bits of fat were trimmed off.

I didn't notice any difference in the quality of the meat other than the fall bear had a lot more fat to trim. The meat was tender, slightly finer grained than beef and had a wonderful taste. We grilled it, roasted it, fried it and baked it and never found a bad piece of bear meat.

However, the bears I killed did not (to my knowledge) pig out on fish prior to my shooting them....