How good is bear meat?
- Thread starter Snake Eyez
- Start date
Why would you want to eat bear
Why eat mutton when you can eat lamb…. Why eat pike when you can eat walleye.… Why eat bear when you can eat venison.
All kidding aside, I have had bear meet and it is eatable, but I will never go as far as to say that I will bear hunt for the meat. I like my meat tender, or as tender as I can get. It is one of the reasons I like to bow hunt.
In Quebec, everything is permitted during bow season, even very young dear. Venison is good, but when the dear is less than a year old, it is absolutely delicious and tender.
Sorry Bamby, but the younger you are, the better the meat is.
Robert
Why eat mutton when you can eat lamb…. Why eat pike when you can eat walleye.… Why eat bear when you can eat venison.
All kidding aside, I have had bear meet and it is eatable, but I will never go as far as to say that I will bear hunt for the meat. I like my meat tender, or as tender as I can get. It is one of the reasons I like to bow hunt.
In Quebec, everything is permitted during bow season, even very young dear. Venison is good, but when the dear is less than a year old, it is absolutely delicious and tender.
Sorry Bamby, but the younger you are, the better the meat is.
Robert
I've never had it myself and often wondered the same thing. I've heard mixed opinions on it. One thing is for sure though, also something I hear from ALL that ate it, you have to make sure that it is very well cooked in order to kill some type of bacteria or some word that I can't even pronounce 
Bears are caniforms actually, making them most closely related to dogs. In fact, there are two extinct families of bear-dog (or dog-bear) species.
They are also closely related to smaller musteloids (badgers, raccoons, weasels, martens) and pinnipeds (seals, walruses).
I haven't tasted any of the animals I've listed above, so I wouldn't know if they're comparable in terms of meat taste/quality. I've heard bear jerky is really good though.
Bear can be excellent table fare-I've had it cured [hams] dinner sausage[makes the best dinner sausage you ever tasted] pepperoni,[pizzas] and I rendered the fat down for baking-its a hard, white lard-the old timers used to get a fat fall bear just for the lard-and cured the sidemeat like bacon.Up until this year,I always had it cured-but this year I tried some roasts-slow cooking is best-I sauteed some onions, added grated fresh ginger,fresh ground black pepper,a bit of teriyaki sauce and a bottle of beer-and let it cook in my dutch oven on low heat all day[a slow cooker works as well]It seems to need the time to break down the fibers-I tried it in the oven for a couple of hours-and it needed longer.
I just try to get a bear well away from garbage and fish.Spring bears are leaner-some guys say spring bear is only good for pepperoni-but I didn't find that so,the roasts were excellent,fall bears are fat-but the taste doesn't seem to make much diference
I just try to get a bear well away from garbage and fish.Spring bears are leaner-some guys say spring bear is only good for pepperoni-but I didn't find that so,the roasts were excellent,fall bears are fat-but the taste doesn't seem to make much diference
beretta boy
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Orillia, Ontario
... and so are jackals, red pandas, skunks, otters. kinkajous and wolverines !
Many of these are not considered particularly great table fare.
Even though the tight-arsed anal taxonomists classify them as carnivores, bears are considered omnivorous - and, as such, depending on what their diet has been and how they've been taken, handled & processed ... bear meat can be very good indeed.
Ever try a west-coast Canvasback that has been gorging on rotten salmon
or a deer that's spent the last month on eastern white cedar browse ? Both are pretty close to disgusting. Now, a young fall bear, well fed on acorns & beechnuts, that's not something to shy away from in my book !
Like anything, bear is an aquired taste. I do not like eating deer at all, but love moose, caribou, and elk. It really just depends on the person. Now having said that I ate a lot of bear and just loved it. Back when I still lived in ontario I hunted bear in the spring every year. I always perferred the leaner, softer meat from a spring bear, that is until someone really smart, wise person (don't even get me started on that one!) decided to cancel the bear hunt in the spring. I have hunted bear in the fall and the taste was abotu the same, depending on what they ate all summer, but it was just a lot more work to clean and butcher.
Hope this helps you out.
Hope this helps you out.
I by far prefer a spring bear to venison. The steaks are a bit chewy but roasts, burger and sausages are excellent. I have yet to eat any meat from a large ber but the smaller ones are good.
I would describe a bear burger as a mixture of pork and beef.
I would describe a bear burger as a mixture of pork and beef.
Northman999
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Southern Yukon
I've eaten it lots. We usuallu eat the heart and liver right at the camp site the first two dinners after we get a bear. I've had roasts - they're okay; usually once we've eaten the heart and liver, the rest gets cubed and made into smokies and sausages; now those are good. I'd never shoot a bear and not take the meat.
Absolutely the best meat I ever tasted was black bear cub. Well not a cute cuddly little cub, but still quite young- the sow had been shot dead and the cub could not have survived, so...
No, it wasn't me who killed either, but my friend did the cub, and as I said, it was unbelievably good.
No, it wasn't me who killed either, but my friend did the cub, and as I said, it was unbelievably good.
A neighbor told me a little while ago he had hung a spring bear on a front end loader overnight in a farmyard containing three dogs. The hydraulics on the loader gave out during the night and the bear was lowered to the ground but the dogs never touched it. Same dogs would have eaten a deer done to the bone in the same situation.
I'll eat bear over venison any day. of course I prefer my bear to be berry or grain fed, so typically look for them on higher slopes or in grain fields. I wouldn;t imagine a coastal fish fed, or one thats been eating out of a stinking bait bucket to taste all that great.
Depends on what is in the bait bucket... mine are fed on doughnuts and fryer oil... yummy!
Be hard to find a grain or berry fed spring bear, but fresh green grass is pretty good.
I never use any meat to bait bears. And black bears as in my opinion, experience and research will not eat old fish, only fresh fish.
but I guess I should point out that everytime I eat bear meat my uncle cooked it, I guess it could be his cooking
