751 lbs Black Bear bagged in NL - Pics Added

bearkilr said:
Have you actually seen bears dining in the "diaper and tampon section" of your dump? Because that's not what they come there to eat. A dump is full of food that's much less disgusting than they may find in nature. Most blueberry seasons in Canada don't last from the onset of spring through fall, and you probably don't want to know what they eat before and after the brief berry season.

If a "natural" taste is what you're after, try eating a coastal bear that's been feeding on salmon for a while. I hear they're awesome.
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kamlooky said:
Orchard bears should be right up there for great vittles as well.
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As BK said... the berry season is not very long and neither is the fruit season... bears are very opportunistic scavengers... more so than top tier predators... that is not to say they won't scarf up a beaver caught away from water or yank a calf moose out of a birthing cow... But in early spring they are largely vegetarian eating new green growth and poplar catkins, they move on to sucker runs and scavenging until there are berries available, and then on to grain crops and fruit when that is present... but they will also scavenge cities and dumps if they must. Bears in the areas we hunt have no access to dumps, but they are not above dining on rotting carcasses found in the woods or along roadways. Before denning they will eat the cambium from aspen and birch and continue to scavenge... when they start burning more calories than they are taking in, they go to den... blackies are not strictly speaking "hibernators" they are "denners" as the trigger is not photoperiod but food availability.


How did the whole "dump feeding" come up in this thread anyway... where did it say that the bear was taken in the vacinity of a dump??? I must have missed something...
 
hoytcanon said:
How did the whole "dump feeding" come up in this thread anyway... where did it say that the bear was taken in the vacinity of a dump??? I must have missed something...
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It didnt take but the second post to toss out ''its a dump bear'' and therefore nfg to eat.
Not to mention in the first sentence of the news paper article as well.
I am sure those Islanders know a thing or two about moose,cod jiggin and bears too.
Someone trying to be funny or was seriously jealous they have either yet to get out or their tag was burned on a gut shot critter.
To bad it had to get dragged into the bottom feeders and not up there with all the high Fives it deserves.
I am sure there is a pretty good back story too.
Tight Groups,
Rob
 
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statixstorm said:
Have you ever heard the saying "You are what you eat"?

It's true, animals taste like what they've been eating, and a bear that has been eating garbage from a dump, is going to taste like it's been eating garbage from a dump.

That is, unless you aren't planning on harvesting the animal, which is just :confused::confused::confused:
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Well, it might be that this particular bear only ate the choice morsels from the dump and the dump is what is left over from what people eat...anyways, no matter what it was eating it is one hell of a big black bear! :)
 
I could think of a few reasons to shoot a bear that size, but eating would be at the bottom of the list. To many images of bears eating puss bag, rotten salmon floating in a backwater for me to entertain eating one.

Nice Bear, and i hope the fur is nice, would make a awesome rug mount.
 
nowarningshot said:
I could think of a few reasons to shoot a bear that size, but eating would be at the bottom of the list. To many images of bears eating puss bag, rotten salmon floating in a backwater for me to entertain eating one.

Nice Bear, and i hope the fur is nice, would make a awesome rug mount.
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Actually, they walk right by the maggot filled and rotting dead ones for the living ones. True story. Just the same a diet of fifty pounds of fish a day doesn't make for a tasty bear, either. This black bear wouldn't be any good either, but regardless very impressive. I think heading to the dump for a hunt is a bit depressing for many to consider, is where any flack this one's catching stems from. I'd probably have driven to the dump for this one.
 
Thats quite the brown coloured muzzle on it. At first I thought it was the A&W Root Bear joke!! Lol
Nice looking animal and hell yes given the opportunity I'd shoot one that size too. Not for meat though. I hate the taste of bear but that would make a nice rug!!
 
Luck hunter, even more lucky father. The girl is cute and lovely.
I wanted to train my daughter to be a hunter, but she now wants to be a veterinarian. Cannot imagine if she would try to Resurrect the animal I just shot.
 
I haven't checked, but I bet that a lot of the posters who are badmouthing this magnificent trophy are also well-represented in the other thread...you know, the "Ooooh, yuck, cleaning a deer is gross!" thread. :rolleyes:

I always need dog food, and use a lot of game meat for that purpose. If I let this bear walk it would be due to taxidermy costs and limited space to display it, not because of how it would taste...but who the hell am I kidding? I wouldn't let that monster walk! :)
 
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Bland said:
One big bear. What is the record for NL?
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I know of a same size one that was shot about three years ago, was never officially weighed and the skull was not returned after submitting to wildlife with the attached tag.

Newfoundland is mostly unknown in North America for Black Bear, but 500 lbs plus is not out of the ordinary.
 
Newfoundland black bears have a genetic pre-disposition to trophy class pumpkin heads. Even small 250-300 lb bears can have 21"+ skulls. As for the size of the bear in the story, they're not that uncommon nor do they necessarily have to be dump bears. I've harvested several 500lb+ bears and had a run in with a 700 lb+ boar 150km back in the bush during a caribou hunt in Central Newfoundland. He was drawn to the smell of fresh blood. I was armed only with a machete I'd been using to clear brush around our campsite to erect a meat pole tripod. I was lucky enough to back away and jump in the camper bus we were staying in. A local trapper successfully harvested him several days later. He was the size of a small grizzly.

Newfoundland has a population of around 10,000 bears. They have no natural predators, next to no hunting pressure, tons of free range, a mild climate and abundant food supplies including consistently bountiful blueberry, partridge berry and cloudberry crops and abundant moose and caribou calves upon which to predate, not to mention large runs of Atlantic Salmon from spring to mid-fall. Combined, that makes for some very large bears that have no need to feed at dumps. In fact, most smaller local dumps have been phased out in favour of large regional landfills that bears cannot access over the past few years province wide.
 
Our blackies are actually a subspecies, and as X-man pointed out, we have plenty of big bruins.

I'd say there have probably been quite a few very large bears taken here that never drew the attention of the record keepers for various reasons (especially before the advent of social media).
 
X-man said:
Newfoundland black bears have a genetic pre-disposition to trophy class pumpkin heads. Even small 250-300 lb bears can have 21"+ skulls. As for the size of the bear in the story, they're not that uncommon nor do they necessarily have to be dump bears. I've harvested several 500lb+ bears and had a run in with a 700 lb+ boar 150km back in the bush during a caribou hunt in Central Newfoundland.
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There aren't a whole lot of B&C record bears to be found weighing 250 lbs unless they're old and starving. I've seen and weighed a pile of bears and truth be told have yet to come across one that's over 21" and under 400 lbs., that would be in early spring when they're at their lightest and few black bears hibernate longer than here in MB, so they've lost more weight than in many provinces with milder climates and shorter winters.

No doubt Nfld has a lot of bears, but without actually weighing them and measuring cleaned skulls, pretty much everyone estimates sizes to be much greater than actual, no matter the location of course.
 
bearkilr said:
No doubt Nfld has a lot of bears, but without actually weighing them and measuring cleaned skulls, pretty much everyone estimates sizes to be much greater than actual, no matter the location of course.
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Ain't that the truth... I have had over 300 bears on the scales and they all shrink...
 
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