First time Bears and Butcher

[CabinDweller]

Hey everyone, I'm heading out to region 3 in about a week, this is my first time ever hunting black bear and have been researching and listening to a million books and podcasts on the topic and feeling good. I'm curious if anyone has tips for me after the shot with quartering if I am successful on my hunt. I think my plan is to take it to Ron at Mission Meats but he has been relatively unhelpful with my questions about pricing, available slots and it there's anything in the field I can do to improve or keep the quality of the meat up.
I guess two questions.

1 Does anyone have tips for a bear newb on skinning, quartering and storing meat
.

2 Does anyone have experience with Mission Meats? Google reviews seem good and I'm local. But open to suggestions if anyone has had pepperoni and sausage done somewhere nearby.

Thanks, much appreciated :D

[warnniklz]

are you looking at getting it rugged?
are you going to get it all done in pepperoni and sausage?

[wideopenthrottle]

same as any other meat...gut in the field, bring to camp to hang up to keep it clean for skinning..the less you hack it up in the field the less dirty meat to cut off later but if you have to debone it you will have lots of meat exposed to potential contamination so keep everything clean as possible..cool it ASAP after killing!!!...wash the body cavity out with lots of water when it is still fresh to get any guts or blood off (and it will cool it a bit too)..do not get it wet again after that...don't touch the skinned animal with dirty or bloody hands. that way you get good quality meat

[CabinDweller]

are you looking at getting it rugged?
are you going to get it all done in pepperoni and sausage?

Most will be done this way, will probably get some ground and some for stewing. I've got quite a few recipes but I love pepperoni and sasauge

I'll be skinning it for a rug in the future yes

[CabinDweller]

Appreciate it! The meat quality is the most important thing to me. I will have a rug done later but we are mainly hunting for the meat. The camp I'm staying at refuses to let hunters hang animals in spring due to other guests and their opinions on hunting so will probably drive back to the butcher asap

[caddisguy]

Pretty much the same as a deer, just more fur.

It's not a bad idea to decide before hand which method you want to go with, traditional, gutless + bone in, gutless + bone out.

We don't keep hides, so we usually make pretty quick work of it and skin only what is necessary as we go along. Our way is probably a tad strange to most, bit of a mix, but after years of experimenting with several bears, I prefer to just to remove the front and rear quarters with the hide still on, making sure to keep a nut attached to one of the rear quarters, hang the quarters up by the paws, next skin around the neck, just enough to slice around the neck meat and remove it as a whole. Then we skin down one side from the spine down just passed the ribs, cut out the backstrap, then remove the rib meat using rib roll method (you will want to Youtube this to see how it's done... once you know it, it's super easy and useful) roll carcass over and repeat on the other side. After that, I remove the hide from the hanging quarters. Depending on the pack out scenario, we either debone the quarters or not, then lastly detach the quarters from the paws and off we go.

Do be prepared for flies. They can get pretty nasty and swarm especially on a hot day. Our "skin as you go" method goes a long way to prevent flies from getting at the meat and with the help of game bags, it's pretty much a non issue. A 50/50 vinegar/water solution (and I think black pepper?) is said help keep them away, but we haven't tried that one

We usually don't keep the skulls these days (have some good ones already) but if we do, it's easy enough to detach quite effortlessly just with a little knife work.

As for cooling, it all depends, we generally have a cooler with a couple frozen water jugs (4L ones like milk jugs or the ones you'd buy distilled water in) If there's a nice and cold creek flowing by and if feasible sometimes we put the game bags in doubled up heavy duty garbage bags and leave it for an hour or two. Gotta be careful though, to make sure nothing is going to puncture through the bags as introducing creek water isn't ideal. Rubbermaid container is safer and works great if you have a creek around camp. Generally if we get a bear during the day we just head home same day. If it's in the evening, temps this time of year are usually not too bad. 7 degrees or less, we've just left the meat outside in a rubbermaid cracked open a bit to vent. Edit: Just read your note about not being able to hang anything in camp. A big cooler with a few 4L frozen jugs is probably the best option next to racing off to the butcher.

Not sure about the butcher stuff. We just take it straight home and grind it all.

[Salty]

Good advice here. On the hide the easiest thing is to freeze it until you get a deal sorted out with a tanner or taxidermy guy. If you can't get it to a freezer that day or maybe the next you can buy yourself some time by rubbing the inside of the hide down well with coarse salt. Whatever you do lay it out flat over a log or something fur side down as soon as you skin it to get it cooled down sap. Don't roll it up right away and stick it in the truck or decay could start in short order

[CabinDweller]

Pretty much the same as a deer, just more fur.

It's not a bad idea to decide before hand which method you want to go with, traditional, gutless + bone in, gutless + bone out.

We don't keep hides, so we usually make pretty quick work of it and skin only what is necessary as we go along. Our way is probably a tad strange to most, bit of a mix, but after years of experimenting with several bears, I prefer to just to remove the front and rear quarters with the hide still on, making sure to keep a nut attached to one of the rear quarters, hang the quarters up by the paws, next skin around the neck, just enough to slice around the neck meat and remove it as a whole. Then we skin down one side from the spine down just passed the ribs, cut out the backstrap, then remove the rib meat using rib roll method (you will want to Youtube this to see how it's done... once you know it, it's super easy and useful) roll carcass over and repeat on the other side. After that, I remove the hide from the hanging quarters. Depending on the pack out scenario, we either debone the quarters or not, then lastly detach the quarters from the paws and off we go.

Do be prepared for flies. They can get pretty nasty and swarm especially on a hot day. Our "skin as you go" method goes a long way to prevent flies from getting at the meat and with the help of game bags, it's pretty much a non issue. A 50/50 vinegar/water solution (and I think black pepper?) is said help keep them away, but we haven't tried that one

We usually don't keep the skulls these days (have some good ones already) but if we do, it's easy enough to detach quite effortlessly just with a little knife work.

As for cooling, it all depends, we generally have a cooler with a couple frozen water jugs (4L ones like milk jugs or the ones you'd buy distilled water in) If there's a nice and cold creek flowing by and if feasible sometimes we put the game bags in doubled up heavy duty garbage bags and leave it for an hour or two. Gotta be careful though, to make sure nothing is going to puncture through the bags as introducing creek water isn't ideal. Rubbermaid container is safer and works great if you have a creek around camp. Generally if we get a bear during the day we just head home same day. If it's in the evening, temps this time of year are usually not too bad. 7 degrees or less, we've just left the meat outside in a rubbermaid cracked open a bit to vent. Edit: Just read your note about not being able to hang anything in camp. A big cooler with a few 4L frozen jugs is probably the best option next to racing off to the butcher.

Not sure about the butcher stuff. We just take it straight home and grind it all.

Awesome! Yeah I heard the frozen jug method on a podcast and figured it would be better than ice bags that could melt out and get water on the meat. Thanks for the long response, I'll definitely check out that method on YouTube

[CabinDweller]

Good advice here. On the hide the easiest thing is to freeze it until you get a deal sorted out with a tanner or taxidermy guy. If you can't get it to a freezer that day or maybe the next you can buy yourself some time by rubbing the inside of the hide down well with coarse salt. Whatever you do lay it out flat over a log or something fur side down as soon as you skin it to get it cooled down sap. Don't roll it up right away and stick it in the truck or decay could start in short order

I have a deep freeze back at home with space, I'm probably going to try and flesh it as much as I can before popping it in the freezer. I've got a buddy who just did a bison hide as well so I may have some help ;)

[caddisguy]

Awesome! Yeah I heard the frozen jug method on a podcast and figured it would be better than ice bags that could melt out and get water on the meat. Thanks for the long response, I'll definitely check out that method on YouTube

Those refillable water jugs you can buy at the grocery store we find to be the most beefy (more so than a regular milk jug) They do crack eventually which I am not sure is just "luck of the draw" versus being frozen X number of times. We usually have 2 or 3 of them and find we have to replace one every 10 trips or so. When they do crack, it's generally during the freezing process and the crack is usually obvious, so a quick inspection before putting them in the cooler goes a long way. If you do end up with one leaking, these things don't melt particularly fast either, so you'll just notice a tiny bit of water and have plenty of time to do something about it (twist it up nice and tight in a garbage bag then tie it off) ... anyway, sure beats regular ice and a heck of a lot cheaper.

Cashier always gives us a weird look when we buy those jugs. Normally people are filling them up in the store and buying the water which is the whole point. Since we're just after the container we don't fill it up. Every single time... "This is empty. Did you forget to fill it up?" haha

Here's a good video on the rib roll method

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIDkLman-FE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIDkLman-FE

[Salty]

I have a deep freeze back at home with space, I'm probably going to try and flesh it as much as I can before popping it in the freezer. I've got a buddy who just did a bison hide as well so I may have some help ;)

Sounds like a sound plan especially if you can get your buddy to help LOL

[jlirot]

I can't wait to try that rib roll move. That was super helpful. Cutting it out between the ribs is kind of a PITA. I'm going to try this.

[Rob Chipman]

It's interesting seeing the different ways to gut/skin the animal.

My system has evolved over the years. I generally still start by slicing up the gut (unless it's a trophy animal with cape considerations) but where I used to pull out all the guts and end up with a complete carcass, sometimes with hide off and sometimes with the hide on for later removal, nowadays I will do it slightly differently, especially if I'm packing out the meat on foot in a pack as opposed to throwing the whole carcass in the truck.

Even if you are putting it in the truck this method still works. Slit 'em up the belly. Skin out a hind leg and then detach that leg. Skin forward to front leg, usually going down pretty close to the spine. Detach the front leg. Deal with the neck meat then and there or deal with it later.

Flip the animal over, carefully, and repeat. You now have rib cage, neck, and tenderloin/backstraps, and a gut pile, but it's all smaller and way easier to move and handle. Depending on time of day, the weather and the terrain this can be really fast and pretty easy. It can also make it easy to keep the various parts clean (they get cut off, go right in the bag and often get hung on something).

[walker1985]

I like this guy to show you how to skin and quarter out a bear. And he has a couple other video's to show you how to skin the skull and paws as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFrjVGdMyzw

[srupp]

hmm salt hide NEEDS eyes /lips/nose/ears turned split..also gettinf in between the toes/joints is STILL PITA...best advice on a GREAT bear is freeze.
dont start " save" average bear hides...PRIMO hide..great markings..big head..big paws n claws..
size DOES matter...spend the $$$$ space on close to or 7 foot bear..no 5 footer to 6 footer.
take your time..skinning...
look at lots of videos..even go to your taxidermist..ask what HE wants..watch him do a bear head.skinning etc
good luck
steven

[Livewire322]

Ron did a bear for me in 2014/2015. Product was mediocre at best. I had pepperoni, farmer sausage, and hams done up.
The hams were pure salt and the sausages were drier than a popcorn fart.

Processing game is easy enough to fumble your way through yourself - it seems daunting, but if you can part out a chicken, you can part out a bear… If you can devote an 8 hour chunk to it, do it yourself!
Just bone out the meat and get it cool - if you don’t have time right away, freeze it until you have time to fully process it. You can cut your primaries out and take the trim to a butcher to make pepperoni or sausage.

Also, save some stew, roast, or burger from the bear. I did from my second and third bears and regretted not doing so from my first one.