First Bear of the year

[AlaskanGuy]

hi Guys..

I have been hitting it hard looking for a couple burger bears... seen several but the season was off to a slow start for me and my wife until last night.. about 730pm a pretty decent male crossed in front of us at about 95 yards. i lined him up with my lever action 1949 marlin 336 in 32 win special loaded with a homemade  175g cast and let it fly.  I saw him hit hard, but instead of a bang flop he ran up the side of a steep ass hill. at the top of the hill, i heard him give off the customary death moan, so after about 10 more min, i started climbing up the steeper then crap Mt MotherFricker (marine corps days) with the wife backing me up with her 30-06.. we got to the top of the hill and it became some really thick dark rainforest snarl brush, so we climbed in and went a few 100 yards and then the wife spotted him curled up behind a stump. i had her flank him while i did the frontal approach with my taurus 44 mag loaded with the lee 310g home hard cast bullets. i was so dark in the thick forest I couldn't tell for sure if he was breathing or not, but he had not moved so in I went.. about 10 yards or 10 feet, not sure which, that big sucker got straight up and Hissed at me and snapped his jaws a couple times. i had to kinda aim around the tree but let fly one of them big 44 mag bullets and he went down for the last time... i have never had a bear play dead before and am not accustomed to anything but a clean kill, so it was a bit un-nerving let me tell you, and this was my new wife's first bear hunt. she hung in there though.



i knew the bear was larger then my usual 2-3 year old I try to target, but after hauling him out of the downed trees and tangled devils club of the Alaska rain forest, i knew he was a heavy.. and so did my Back.. we got back to the road dragging the bear with my bride who figured this was a normal hunt... but it was anything but normal.



i figure the spring bear topped 300lbs cuz he was a solid 220lbs field dressed... a bit larger then the 150 lb'ers that I usually go for.. My aching back remembers why I leave the bigger bears to the trophy hunters. they are just too much work... give me one of these every time..



i did see when I got it skinned, the first shot was completely fatal.. a double lung and top of the heart... its just some bears dont give up!!!

[ShotgunDave]

Mark, that's freakin awesome!!!

I assume you call them "burger bears" because you turn most it into ground meat?

I've had ground bear, it was pretty good too.

[AlaskanGuy]

yes sir... grind em... but need to make some stew meat with this one due to the new bride wants to try it..

 

[Captainkirk]

Nice work, Mark!

[Len]

Wow !!!

[Yolla Bolly Brad]

Nice work AlaskanGuy! The deer herds are so decimated in California that now I get more chances at bears than I do at legal bucks, and I don't pass them up like I used to. My experience is that if you don't crush them with the first shot is they can go a long way. One boar that I hit square in the brisket (the bullet exited through his back) cartwheeled a couple hundred yards down a steep rocky canyon wall, touching down every 180 or 360 degrees, mostly on it's head. I swore the fall alone would have killed it but when it finally stopped tumbling it got up and ran away. I finally tracked it down and finished it but it was still trying to run away!

[ssb73q]

Hi AG, that bear wasn't wearing a Covid-19 mask, it deserves to be shot. What does bear meat taste like? I assume not like chicken?

Regards,
Richard

[ShotgunDave]

"What does bear meat taste like?"

Oddly enough, it tastes a lot like...............bear.   

You know I'm kidding ya Richard. The bear I've had was mixed with beef. It just had a "gamier" taste is all. And if memory serves, it was a tad greasy.

[sourdough]

Nice bear, Mark!

Back around 1982, I took a small black bear on a September moose hunt high up in the Talkeetna Mountains North of Wasilla, far from any salmon stream so it wasn't a "fish" bear. I, too, ground most of it mixed with some ground beef fat. I never told my two young boys what it was, just hamburger, but they loved it. When we ran out of it, they were very upset.

Black bear meat is very good, but I cannot say the same for grizzly/brown bear meat. At any rate, bear meat must be cooked thoroughly to kill any trichina larvae, the same that are found in some hogs. I never had trichinosis but it is supposed to be very painful.

Bon Appetit!

Regards,

Jim

[AlaskanGuy]

thanks guys!!! i do love my first fresh meat of the year!!!!

[Dave Shooter]

Nicely done! And you have a good wife!

[G Dog]

Sounds  like it was a great adventure.  Congrats on your bear.

I keep halal, may Allah be praised.  Does anyone eat black bear liver or is it toxic like polar bear liver due to concentrations of Vit A and cadmium?  Asking for a friend. 

[AlaskanGuy]

i do not eat any organs from any bear for that reason GDog...

[mazo kid]

Thanks for taking us along on your hunt. I don't know how old the bears were that were butchered and served at wild game feeds that I have eaten. I thought they were very tasty! The neighbors just down the road from us have drawn bear permits over the years and have been successful a few times. I asked for some bear fat the last time they went hunting and they brought me 25 pounds of fat from the bear that Shirley got with her 12 ga. shotgun using slugs.

[AlaskanGuy]

unfortunately, around here if there is a bear in the spring it has no fat after coming out of hibernation... but I got lucky and got about 2 quarts of rendered fat... a very rare thing and I am guarding it from the wife...