I think if you treat bear meat as a delicate perishable, it is nearly always delicious (my son's favorite game meat). Break it down, bone it out, and get the meat cooled down and kept cooled as quickly as possible, and it is great meat IMHO. If you give bear meat the same priority you'd give the meat from a big halibut, your odds are VERY high of having excellent table fare. I base this on a small number of bear, but the same holds true for hundreds of pronghorn in my direct experience. One reason deer and elk meat are so well liked, is they are fairly robust to less than meticulous meat care, in comparison to other species.
