Are black bears good to eat
Contributors to this thread:Bears
From: delta
09-Apr-16
I have eaten many deer & antelope am going on my first black bear hunt in May. Are they good to eat ?
From: Ziek
09-Apr-16
Only one I've killed was in the fall in Colorado. It was great.
From: Zebrakiller
09-Apr-16
Yep
From: Cazador
09-Apr-16
Like anything, it depends on where and when you kill it. There is a reason some states don't have a salvage law on the meat in some areas.
From: Blacktail Bob
09-Apr-16
It really depends upon what they have been eating.Generally, yes they are good meat. The ones we kill on Prince of Wales Island, that have been eating fish their whole life, are pretty bad.
From: Nick Muche
09-Apr-16
From: huntr4477
09-Apr-16
I bring the meat back every year from my Quebec hunt. I don't notice any wild taste at all.Sometimes it's a little chewy,but it tastes almost like beef to me. Makes awesome sausage,stroganof,stew,and corned bear w/cabbage! Bob
From: cobra
09-Apr-16
Very good. I recently had bear burgers on the grill. The meat was given to me. The best burgers I have ever eaten. Important to quickly skin and cool the meat, trim all fat/tallow. It is a very blood rich/dense meat. I rate it right up there with moose.
From: Tracker12
09-Apr-16
What Cobra said. Great stuff if care taken during the cleaning process.
From: Ermine
09-Apr-16
I've always enjoyed the few Colorado bears I've killed. Makes great brats!
From: Bou'bound
09-Apr-16
Some taste like dog food
From: bad karma
09-Apr-16
Use it in place of beef in a beef burgundy recipe. It is perfect for that recipe.
From: Bear Track
09-Apr-16
Bear Track's Link
I'd say 95% of our guests take their meat home from our camp every year, saying they love it. I've eaten it and liked it but I shoot a moose most every year and my wife and I each take deer also and there really is only so much meat you can eat. I have heard that bears taken that had a steady diet of fish were not good to eat also. I don't have experience with the ones eating dog food though.
From: TradbowBob
09-Apr-16
I've been told that there is a significant difference between spring bears and fall bears. Fall bears are suppose to be good eating. The spring bears are suppose to be all wormy.
Don't know from first hand experience, but that's what I've been told.
TBB
From: ahunter55
09-Apr-16
I've eaten mine, spring & fall. When I cook the meat I drain the grease off like for chili, or spaghetti ect.. Butchering I trim as much fat as possible as I do with most of my wild game. NO one has complained, only said, IT'S GOOD.
From: KJC
09-Apr-16
It's the best tasting meat that I've found for making bratwurst.
From: TSI
09-Apr-16
Dont you guys like beef?
From: TSI
09-Apr-16
Dont you guys like beef?
From: Bigbear
09-Apr-16
Very delicious!! Like everyone else I think it tastes a lot like beef!! Best way I've eaten it is in brats on the grill!! Mmmmm
From: Alexis Desjardins
09-Apr-16
They are good spring or fall here our guest take most of it home, the rest there is few locals that take what's left. We fry some up once in a while never had a bad one yet, just make sure u butcher it as soon as possible there like a coyote they will get green fast. Good luck on your hunt.
From: BIGHORN
09-Apr-16
We slow cooked it in a crock pot with onions, carrots and a gravy recipe. I didn't really care for it as steaks. It did make some good jerky.
From: JacobNisley
09-Apr-16
Here in Pennsylvania the regional recipe is to chase one over 3 mountains, have at least 4 different guys shoot at it and hit it in at least 5 different places, spend 2 hours dragging it to your truck, 3 more hours taking it to a check station to get weighed and registered, then you drive the 3 hours home on park the truck for the night. The next day you drive around and show it off to more of your acquaintances before you skin it and butcher it. Since most of the meat is shot up and there isn't that much to put in the freezer. The key is it leave it in the freezer long enough to get freezer burnt then you get it out, fry it like a deer backstrap, complain that bear is tough and tastes funny, then you throw the rest out to the coonhounds.
From: willliamtell
10-Apr-16
jacob - bet you never tasted any kind of game animal meat that tasted good that way. Kind of like antelope, except add an 80 degree day.
Bear fat once rendered makes the best pie dough there is - light, flaky, tasty. Don't toss the fat, render it. Don't store more than 6 months though, fat goes rancid after that.
From: Julius K
10-Apr-16
Love it. I've only had fall bears, that eat lots of pastries, acorns, and blue berries. I think it is a much different taste than most other meats I have tried, and that throws people off sometimes when they try it.
From: southpaw
10-Apr-16
If its processed properly, you will have some fantastic eating meat, Nick that ham looks awesome!!!
From: Jodie
10-Apr-16
I like to eat black bear. Like any meat, best from a younger carcass such as one less than 200 lbs dressed.
From: Burly
10-Apr-16
I prefer it when it's made into sausage. To just straight up cook it and eat it, nope. It has a rancid taste to me. But my one son loves it.
From: ELKMAN
10-Apr-16
Try one!
From: JacobNisley
10-Apr-16
My coworker shot a nice one this past year and brought some bear meatloaf to work. It was quite good. We had to watch for BB's though because sometime in the bear's life someone had peppered his rump with what looked like #8 shot.
From: TradbowBob
10-Apr-16
In PA you don't get many guys bowhunting bears. They have a 3 day season with no baiting and do a lot of gang hunting, two lines of rifles pushing towards each other. Not for me.
TBB
From: cobra
10-Apr-16
Jacob great scenario. Who hasn't experienced that very thing with some type of game. LMAO thinking how many times thru the years that was exactly how it played out.
From: bdfrd24v
10-Apr-16
Bear hunting in PA is a mess. A few day season in late November. Like Bob said almost all bears here are killed on massive drives. I've not had good luck with black bear meat but again it may have been treated as Jacob described. Never killed one myself.
From: JacobNisley
10-Apr-16
PA has 5 days of archery hunting followed by 4 days of rifle hunting and over 4000 bears are killed. No dogs and no bait allowed. Aside from a few ambushes and stalks in feeding areas pretty much everything is done with drives and often with large numbers of hunters. There's a local gang of 20+ guys that usually kills 2 or 3 bears a year with bows and its mostly done by nearly surrounding standing cornfields and having hunters drive the bears past the posters. I don't know of anybody that doesn't shoot at the first bear they see no matter the size. It really is pretty crazy what can happen with vast numbers of hunters even in fairly remote areas.
From: Frank Sanders
10-Apr-16
Tastes like chicken
From: bohunr
11-Apr-16
I've always had my bear meat cured and smoked. One year for Christmas I took a smoked bear ham to my mom and dad 's. The turkey had one little slice taken out of it (my sister in law ) but I swear there were tooth mark's on the femur bone. My grandmother always said that rendered bear bear fat was the best for making doughnuts.
From: DanaC
11-Apr-16
Like any other animal, there are 'prime' cuts and 'other' stuff. It isn't pen raised so it doesn't have the same fat type or content, and has to be cooked differently.
As mentioned above, great in stroganov.
From: grape
11-Apr-16
Bear meat is excellent to eat. We make burgers, steaks, roasts, brats, and can lots of it. Like any game animal, the way you take care of your animal after the kill is number one. Another benefit from bear meat is rendering the fat for making soap.Spring bears may not have a lot of fat, but fall bears have enough fat for lots and lots of soap. My wife has been making bear soap for many years. It is a process, but one she has mastered. She makes all the unscented soap I use for hunting, and then makes a whole array of scented soaps that people like.
From: Fuzzy
11-Apr-16
I like it
From: Bill in MI
11-Apr-16
Sweet Baby Ray's bacon wrapped bear kabobs over coals was #1 at a wild game feast I put on. I was the only hunter out of about 10 people there.
From: WausauDug
11-Apr-16
bear steak is just like beef steak but tougher for obvious reasons, my wife and kids love it. I prefer over deer and I love deer meat. I've only eaten fall WI bear and cherish it!
From: hogthief
11-Apr-16
it's the other, other white meat. very good!
From: Sage Buffalo
11-Apr-16
Bear is the MOST underappreciated meat from the field.
Bear is 95+% delicious. My kids like it better than elk, deer and moose.
As some have mentioned bears you forage on salmon streams are nasty just like birds who eat fish as their diet.
From: Will
11-Apr-16
Best wild game I ever had was at a christmas party probably 20 years ago - sweet and sour crock pot bear. It was black bear in small chunks cooked most of the day in a sweet and sour sauce in a crock pot. By the end of the party we were all ready to go out with pitchforks (so to speak) and kill another bear just to eat it :)
Seriously the best wild game I've had to date... though my wives Rosemary and tyme venison is darn close...
From: Ziek
11-Apr-16
"...though my wives..."
How many of those do you have, Will?
From: sureshot
12-Apr-16
I shot my Ontario bear in the fall, it was some of the best game meat I have eaten. Mine had a little bit of a sweet taste, I assume from eating berries.
From: AXE MAN
13-Apr-16
Only taken them in the fall in CO, but 4 of 5 were excellent , One ol boar was tough . Depends on: what they have been eating and how you take care of it ( and marinate it 3-5 days)
From: Larv
13-Apr-16
I've eaten it in spaghetti, sausage, tacos, etc. Haven't had a bad one yet. Can't eat it rare tho like a beef steak! Good stuff!
Larv
