Bear Info. Wanted

[DOXNUT]

I'm head north to area 21a, was wondering if anyone could fill me in on the bears.

[Stalker]

DOXNUT..... I used to hunt that area (around both Terrace Bay and around Longlac).... if you are looking for bears that's a good place to find them and there are a number of good outfitters in the area if you want to go that route.... the biggest bear I personally saw was 470# but some of the guy's say they have seen bigger ones...... if you are NOT looking for bears remember to keep your campsite clean and never leave around food, garbage, coolers, cooking equipment or utensils...... give the bear the respect it deserves... I'll do it if I have to but even the little 150# bears are more than I want to wrestle with....

[DOXNUT]

Thanks, Stalker.

I'm not hunting bears, well maybe after I eat some bear stakes I was given. Moose is the game I'm seeking as of this moment, I've just been hearing some crappy news towards bear population in that area. This will be the first moose hunt for me using archery equipment, so I'm trying my best to be prepared for whatever possiblities that could come up. A friend I'm hunting with shot a bear a few yaers back, it scale around 526 pounds.

[John Wade]

What do you do with the bear afterwards? I always heard that the meat was risky to eat and I never really hear of anyone eating it. Not like moose or deer anyway.

John "Bearly There" Wade

[DOXNUT]

never heard RISKY before..........I hear bear is really good, but it's alot of work cleaning up a bear. Lots of FAT to cut off..................

[jeff]

Bears are great to eat. I have eaten all of the bears that I have taken and shared the meat with my co-workers and they all loved it. It can be made into sausage, ground up, steaks, chops, roasts etc. My preference is sausage and ground meat.
As far as them being risky to eat. That is somewhat true. The meat must be cook right through. No medium rare here. Check my spelling on this but you can pick up a bug called tricanosis if the meat is not cooked fully.
When it comes to cleaning bear yes it can be messy but not always. They certanly have more fat than a deer or say moose would but it varies with every animal. My friend and I took 2 bears this past weekened and they had about 1.5 inches of fat on the hind quarters. Another friend who shot a bear a week ago said his bear had almost no fat at all. Some bears stink and others don't. It obviously depends on where they coming from and what they have been eating.
Give it a try for yourself, you might be pleasantly suprised.

later

jeff

[John Wade]

Yes, that was the parasite. I would like to try bear someday. I almost shot a bear once. Not because I wanted to (all I had was a .22 - maybe useful as a club) but because he wasn't giving me much choice. Tore up my tent, bit a hole in my water supply and finally took a big dump on what was left of my tent and then started giving me a look that was either loving or love to eat. Never found out as he finally gave up. Found out afterwards that some fisherman had recently dumped fish guts in the woods. Suprised us as we were fairly remote in location.

I looked up some information about trichinosis: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites ... inosis.htm

- John "Bear Bait" Wade