PDA

View Full Version : Spring Bear = College Meat



Buckmeister
05-24-2017, 11:43 AM
So my son who just completed his 1st semester of undergrad studies is thinking ahead to the fall semester and his budget. Since he will be living on his own while in university he is very conscious about his available dollars and the money he has to put out for living expenses and food and such. And since he will be a very busy student, he will have very little time for hunting and opportunity to fill the freezer. So he asked me if we could get a bear or two this spring so he will be set meat wise for the coming two semesters. Not one to turn down a hunting opportunity I agreed to his request.

Never having hunted bear in the spring before, I asked a friend who had done plenty of it for a few tips on where to go and what to look for. Our first outing three weekends ago produced about 40+ deer sightings and one scrawny little bear who wandered down a road in front of us. We passed on it cause it was too small. When people asked if we saw any bears on our outing I replied, "I am diametrically opposed to the killing of any animals with milk still on their lips"!

On the next weekend we tried a farm we have permission to hunt. Bears had started to be seen in the farm fields in the valley so I thought we would try an evening hunt. No luck, but we got to view a number of whitetails.

Then the May Long Weekend came. Bear sightings had been up significantly in the last week with the warmer weather and the lush greens, so I was very optimistic we would see something. We left on Saturday late morning and went to an area that offers plenty of great habitat for sightings. We were only about 1 to 2 kms down a logging road and we already had passed by some great grassy/meadowy areas, then as we left one such area we drove into and skirted the left side of a small cut block when my son yells, "BEAR"! I stopped the vehicle and asked "where?". After a few seconds I spotted the bear in the middle of the cut, but he was already fixing to leave. As the bear headed for the tree line directly opposite us my son got out of the vehicle and fumbled with putting the magazine in his gun. Looking through the binos I could tell this was a shooter bear by our standards (standards which may change on a moments notice) and notified my son as such. As the bear neared the tree line it slowed down, put it's front paws on a large stump, and it turned to take a look back at us. My son took a kneeling position to steady himself, readjusted once, and took aim.

wideopenthrottle
05-24-2017, 11:55 AM
oh you tease you....I love it

dmaxtech
05-24-2017, 12:04 PM
I'm glad to hear he took aim, but what I'd really like to hear is that he pulled the trigger. Oh, and pics to prove it.

Buckmeister
05-24-2017, 12:04 PM
I wish I could say this was a bang-flop affair, but it wasn't. After many seconds had passed, my son still had not taken a shot. I wondered what was taking him? He later informed me that he had pulled the trigger but nothing happened. In his haste and excitement he had failed to chamber a round :roll:. I was now getting worried this bear would take off again, but it stood it's ground. My son squeezed the trigger again and got a shot off. The bear dramatically dropped down and was rolling/flopping around. After watching it for a bit it appeared the bear was trying to move off into the trees. My son said he had a shot but he was shaking too badly. I quickly stepped out of the vehicle, grabbed my gun and magazine and chambered a round. When I found the bear in my scope all I had was a shoulder shot and I took it. The bear disappeared out of sight and we could hear more crashing and the movement of branches, but we could tell it's movement were slow.

As I went to park the vehicle off the road, my son went after the bear. He entered the trees to the right of the bear and tried to flank it. He could see it was dragging itself very slowly and he waited for a clear shot. I was still up by the vehicle about 180 yards away and I had to chuckle to myself cause my son was yelling out a play by play to me of what he saw and I could only understand about half of what he was saying. I finally heard him take the finishing shot and yell out to me that the bear was down for good.

Here are a few shots of the cut block, one taken from the road, and one taken from where the bear was standing when we first shot it.
The bear was next to the tree line to the left of the two standing dead birch.
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/IMG_1596a.jpg

In the next photo you can just see the edge of the road to the right of the two standing dead birch.
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/IMG_1591a.jpg

Buckmeister
05-24-2017, 12:40 PM
I grabbed my hunting pack and hiked in. Man alive, why do they have to make such a mess of cut blocks these days??? One can hardly take a step without risking twisting an ankle, let alone trying to drag a dead animal to the vehicle. On the hike in the realization that we now had our work cut out for us set in and I understood we were ill prepared for a long drag out. Somehow, I had envisioned that we would shoot a bear that was standing on the road (I mean, after all, isn't that where they always do their business??) or that it would be above us and offering a clear down hill drag. I don't know what I was smoking, but next time I will be packing some rope so at the very least we could rig up some carrying poles.

Upon seeing the bear close up I was very glad to know we tagged up on decent sized boar. There would be a lot of meat on this boy.

We decided against field dressing it were it lay because of the long drag through dirt and standing water. Quartering it would have been a good idea, but we kinda wanted to save the hide and were not keen on skinning it in the bush. Oh well, live and learn. I could use the exercise anyways. Two and half hours later we had it to the vehicle. We knew because of the warm weather we would not want to hang it ourselves, but we also wanted to save on processing fees, plus my go-to butcher only operates in the fall. So once we got it home we strung it up, skinned it, and started cutting and grinding immediately. We ended up with 110 one to two pound packages of ground which we split evenly. My son knows he will only use one package a week while in school, so his 55 packages will last all through school and then some.

We tried the various measurement techniques. Tip of nose to tail and spread of front paws was pretty much right on 5 feet. On Monday my son skinned and cleaned the skull and we got a green score of 18 11/16 inches.

Here are some "as they lay" photos and some "look what I got" photos. Sorry for the hanging tongue, it wouldn't stay in for the pictures.

On approach from behind.
http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/IMG_1588a.jpg

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/IMG_1589a.jpg

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/IMG_1590a.jpg

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/IMG_1594a.jpg

http://www.huntingbc.ca/photos/data/500/medium/IMG_1595a.jpg

HarryToolips
05-24-2017, 12:55 PM
Very nice bear congrats!

monasheemountainman
05-24-2017, 12:59 PM
nice bear, congrats boys!

caddisguy
05-24-2017, 01:02 PM
Wow that's a nice one! Congrats!!

wideopenthrottle
05-24-2017, 01:17 PM
about perfect for why you/he wanted it...you may want to give him a few extra packages for winning over other students to hunting....nothing like hunger to change your opinion about hunting...perhaps a few "dinner parties" to impress the ladies too....heheheh

Buckmeister
05-24-2017, 01:52 PM
Oh yes, I was surprised how much fat was on him, but I don't know what is normal for a bear. We saved a bunch of it and my wife rendered it down for several jars of lard and a jar of cracklings. Yum yum.

dmaxtech
05-24-2017, 03:06 PM
Nice bear. Great job.

northernbc
05-24-2017, 05:47 PM
That is a real nice bear ,it is a lot of fun when the adrenaline kicks in. Good eats for school!

hparrott
05-24-2017, 07:06 PM
Oh yes, I was surprised how much fat was on him, but I don't know what is normal for a bear. We saved a bunch of it and my wife rendered it down for several jars of lard and a jar of cracklings. Yum yum.

Not sure how much work it is to render down the fat but it is on my list of to-do's for this years bear. I heard it is awesome for baking and for waterproofing boots.

Surrey Boy
05-24-2017, 07:42 PM
Nice photos. Congratulations!

Salmon Belly
05-24-2017, 09:01 PM
Great story and nice bear -- a length of paracord in the pack goes a long way. Congrats to you and your boy!

SB

Bunner
05-24-2017, 09:30 PM
nice bear thanks for sharing

Buckmeister
05-24-2017, 10:16 PM
Not sure how much work it is to render down the fat but it is on my list of to-do's for this years bear. I heard it is awesome for baking and for waterproofing boots.

It's not hard at all. We only saved a 4 liter ice cream pail worth of fat. You run it through the meat grinder, then you can render in a pot or a slow cooker. With either one, add 1/4 cup of water. If using a slow cooker, let it do it's thing for around 10 hours, use on high at first then turn down to medium. If using a pot, render for about 1 to 2 hours on medium heat. Stir it every once in awhile. When done, strain into containers using 4 layers of cheesecloth. The stuff left in the cheesecloth is the cracklings. You can either throw the cracklings away, or add some seasonings for taste and deep fry them, or bake in oven for an hour at 350 degrees.

A friend said perogies fried in the lard is pretty good!

boxhitch
05-25-2017, 09:56 AM
Some claim the fat from around the kidneys has a better flavour than fat from under the hide in the back area.
Something about the biology of how fat is generated and stored , blah blah blah

Viper
05-26-2017, 07:34 AM
Nice bear. When I was in college I ate a lot of meat. Mostly tasted like chicken smelled like fish. LOL

two-feet
05-26-2017, 08:15 AM
Not sure how much work it is to render down the fat but it is on my list of to-do's for this years bear. I heard it is awesome for baking and for waterproofing boots.

My father in law used to grease his boots with bear fat, he said it worked very well. Until he was at a party and a dog ate his entire boots.