Bear Meat

[2MANY]

Glad to hear all the positive feedback.
I personally have never eaten a bad bear but know of some naysayers.

[Jpmiller]

I have only had be priveledge of bear steaks a few times but loved it. I am really.hoping for my first bear soon. Couldn't believe how much the meat shrank as I cooked it though.

[timberfaller]

Bear Chile,  yum yum yum yum!!!

[cougforester]

I summer sausage'd an entire fall bear that I killed out of a huckleberry patch last year, and it is the best sausage that I've ever had before. I'm sure that the steaks would have been good off it as well, but I'm quite content to continue down that road for a loooong time.

That way any elk or deer I harvest can be steaks/roasts/ground while still having the bear be summer sausage!

[JDHasty]

I used to have Stewarts smoke the hams and turn the rest into pepperoni sticks.  When I was in college I used to take a couple fists full of pep out of the freezer every morning and put it into my book bag.  Other students used to come looking for me and hit me up all the time for pepperoni sticks.  Once I was at a party and someone said:  I have never seen a corned beef w/a bone in it, I said: neither have I.  They then asked:  So what is that?   Smoked bear ham does taste about like corned beef, I guess. 

I never did much else w/bear meat because I had so much other meat and thoroughly enjoyed it smoked or in pep.   

[JoeE]

People love bear meat. After choking down my last bear and giving away as much as other people would take off my hands I'm in no hurry to shoot another one. Wasn't for me.

[saylean]

I am having bear breakfast sausage tomorrow morning, its the only sausage that doesn't hurt my stomach>> (I can hear the YAR crowd already).

Don't waste the meat or the fur, its worth the effort! (boy, I am setting them up for ya'll).

[j_h_nimrod]

Glad to hear all the positive feedback.
I personally have never eaten a bad bear but know of some naysayers.

I have eaten fall Alaska black bears and browns both and the meat was never worse then a rutty buck. All the spring bears I have had were very good and at least 8 different Washington fall bears were great. I have been told bear was not good eating on numerous occasions by numerous people but have yet to experience it.

I know there is a lot of mental "flavor" with some people and animals, they cannot get over the mental aspect of knowingly eating certain animals. I had otter blackstrap once that was really quite good, but I still could not bring myself to like it just because it was otter.

[andrew_in_idaho]

I'm in the never eaten a bad bear crowd also. But if a guy wanted to kill a bear and not pack out the meat Idaho has no salvage requirement on bear meat. That being said I'll be packing the meat out when I get my next one


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[zwickeyman]

I love Bear meat. Backstraps into steaks and the rest breakfast sausage, makes great sausage

[lewy]

Cubed bear meat makes for excellent stew as well

[DOUBLELUNG]

I don't have first hand experience with this, but according to a friend with 25+ Washington fall bears to his credit, they are all good to eat BUT the ones eating fish carcasses, garbage or other carrion have nasty rotten oily gunk in their hair and the challenge is to skin and peel them back carefully so the hair doesn't touch the meat.  He hunts dense forested country near salmon streams in the East Cascades, and uses a come-along and improvised meat pole at the kill site to hoist the bears in the round to then carefully peel the hide back and keep the hair from the meat.  I know this to be true for pronghorn, people either love or hate antelope and it has everything to do with post-harvest cooling and keeping the hair off the meat. 

[Squidward]

I don't have first hand experience with this, but according to a friend with 25+ Washington fall bears to his credit, they are all good to eat BUT the ones eating fish carcasses, garbage or other carrion have nasty rotten oily gunk in their hair and the challenge is to skin and peel them back carefully so the hair doesn't touch the meat.  He hunts dense forested country near salmon streams in the East Cascades, and uses a come-along and improvised meat pole at the kill site to hoist the bears in the round to then carefully peel the hide back and keep the hair from the meat.  I know this to be true for pronghorn, people either love or hate antelope and it has everything to do with post-harvest cooling and keeping the hair off the meat.

you can say this about any animal you clean up. keep the outside off of it.

[csaaphill]

bear sausage is pretty good had tons of it years ago when I killed a bear.
never tried just plain bear meat like steaks or loin etc... so not sure how that is. had a bear roast once............. greasy............ but it wasn't mine it was from my uncle so he may not have done it right so dunno.

[biggfish]

game animal, so take what is fit for consumption.  However, I don't think it is spelled out what meets the rule vs the intent of the law like in Alaska.  Just your opinion vs the gamey about what would be waste.

 


Both bear and cougar are considered big game animals like deer or elk.

And this is why I don't even attempt to fill my cougar tag. I'm terribly allergic to car hair I would be near death by the time I got it skinned and dressed.

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