'Island Bear' Vancouver Island...

The OP asked about 4570 or 375. Both good but the 375 will be more versatile, even if it's the 375 Ruger. Hahaha When you blunder into that 8'er you'll be happy you left the 243 at home.
 
jaydog said:
Might???? ;)

And yes, the venerable 30-30 and up will do the trick on your island bear. When in doubt, close the distance or check your POI. :D

(Don't let this stop you from buying any gun you are lusting after though!!!)
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Never seen a SS 30-30 before. Anyone?
From a .243 to the 8mm ubber magnums would suffice,
Just cause Jim Shockey uses one, doesnt mean you need too.
Then again taken from his web page on Island Black Bears.

"Guns .30 caliber and larger are ideal for our big bears, although smaller hunters can get by with a .270 caliber rifle. We strongly recommend premium, bonded bullets as bear are strong, heavily muscled animals. Gun hunters should be prepared to take shots from 25 to 200 yards. Archers should use a premium fixed blade broadhead and be practice shots out to 40 yards"

Tight Groups,
Rob
 
shot placement and good bullet thats all u need,shoot a rifle u are comfortable with,rather bring less power on target with accurate rifle than have a big caliber and shoot less precise,my single shot 7x65r brought down 4 bear on road,not a big caliber
 
I'd go with the scoped Marlin 1895GS, the bottom rifle.

fieldtools.jpg
 
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Johnn Peterson said:
Most of what I've seen in the way of Black Bears here on the island have been at relatively close range. The odd one in a big slash or on the beach at low tide may have been at slightly longer ranges but for the most part, usually fairly close. I had planned on using my model 71 Winchester but I have some 'work' to do first. In discussion with my better half, she's just told me rather firmly, she doesn't really find the thought of Bear meat appealing. I was saving some recently acquired 200gr Winchester Silvertip bullets for that purpose.
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Johnn, I'm with your wife on this one!
We have tried it, didn't like it. I've told about growing up in the great depression where people lived on wild meat, year around. I never heard of a homesteader in those days that ate bear meat.
The Native Indians that used to live in the bush, didn't eat bear meat.
On coming to BC I knew a bush homesteader who shot a bear cub every fall, but he wanted the fat, which was ideal cooking lard, but he never ate the meat. Also, bear fat seems to be an ideal dressing for leather. People with good knowledge of leather, have claimed there is no better dressing you could put on your good leather boots, for preservation and waterproofing, than bear fat.
 
If you want tasty bear meat try a "prairie bear" that has been feeding up on ripe grain in late summer. Bears just love oats and get hog fat on it. These ones taste very good.

When I was doing hail claims in MB the farmers around Dauphin and points north wouldn't even grow oats because of the heavy bear damage. I did claims 2 years in a row for a fellow whose fields ran up against the north bdry of Riding Mountain NP. He didn't grow oats, but the bears still raised havoc with his wheat; so much so that the MNR told him to shoot as many of the park bears in his fields as he liked. The first year I saw him he had shot 32 bears by early August with his .30-06.:eek: I called him "Grizzly Adams" and asked him if he expected a problem getting his swather around all of the bear carcasses in his fields.:p

The buggers like corn too. Last fall I did a wildlife damage claim on a field of silage corn which was pillaged by bears. Turned out that they had fed on or knocked down 5% of the total acreage.:eek:
 
Most of the bears away form the coast taste much better than any bear near the coast or near salmon spawning streams. Usually coastal bears get ground/cut up and then used with lots of garlic and spices! :)

Younger bears almost always taste better than the old ones, although I've had some pretty good big berry eating bears!

At our wildlife banquets, the bear dishes are often the most anticipated. Every year we have done it, I have been stopped on the street the next week and told how much they enjoyed the bear curry or bear with red wine sauce etc.

FOr an optimum eating bear I'd suggest:

  • DOn't hunt where the bear is eating lots of fish
  • Pick a medium size bear (5 ft or so is good)
  • Get the bear skinned and cooled ASAP
  • Trim off all the silver skin/tendons etc before cooking. This stuff usually always has a nasty flavour.
 
:puke:
Gatehouse said:
Most of the bears away form the coast taste much better than any bear near the coast or near salmon spawning streams. Usually coastal bears get ground/cut up and then used with lots of garlic and spices! :)

Younger bears almost always taste better than the old ones, although I've had some pretty good big berry eating bears!

At our wildlife banquets, the bear dishes are often the most anticipated. Every year we have done it, I have been stopped on the street the next week and told how much they enjoyed the bear curry or bear with red wine sauce etc.

FOr an optimum eating bear I'd suggest:

  • DOn't hunt where the bear is eating lots of fish
  • Pick a medium size bear (5 ft or so is good)
  • Get the bear skinned and cooled ASAP
  • Trim off all the silver skin/tendons etc before cooking. This stuff usually always has a nasty flavour.
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You want to avoid any critter than has been feeding heavily on fish because the meat takes up the taste of it. We used to get our meat, poultry and fish from the British ration depot in Cyprus. The Cypriot contractor who supplied turkeys finished them on fish meal right up to the time of slaughter and they definitely smelled and tasted like fish rather than fowl. They were well appreciated by the local cat population anyway.cp: Then there was the kibbutz on the Golan Heights that wanted us to run our sewage line to them so it would help them out with their turkeys.:puke:
 
H4831 said:
Johnn, I'm with your wife on this one!
We have tried it, didn't like it. I've told about growing up in the great depression where people lived on wild meat, year around. I never heard of a homesteader in those days that ate bear meat.
The Native Indians that used to live in the bush, didn't eat bear meat.
On coming to BC I knew a bush homesteader who shot a bear cub every fall, but he wanted the fat, which was ideal cooking lard, but he never ate the meat. Also, bear fat seems to be an ideal dressing for leather. People with good knowledge of leather, have claimed there is no better dressing you could put on your good leather boots, for preservation and waterproofing, than bear fat.
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I still haven't had much success in changing her mind. Generally speaking, from what I have tried, although it isn't my #1 preference, I didn't mind it. Most had been from young Bears, taken early in the season which had been frozen for quite a while and then cooked 'well done'.

Some other 'cuts' that I've tried has been along the line of pepperoni and salami, done up by a guy in the Naniamo area that, to a degree, specializes in Bear meat prep and some from a friend of mine that's a butcher. Not bad.

When we lived in the interior, the wife of Dads hunting partner was a native lady. When we had returned from a hunt one day, she invited us in for lunch, the main item being Bear roast. Gotta' say, it was good. Her method was to put a grill in the bottem of the roaster to keep the meat from being cooked in contact with the fat. I don't know of using rendered down fat for the preserving and/or waterproofing but the lady said in her estimation, rendered down Bear fat makes baking/cooking shortening second to none.

My biggest hurdle at the moment is convincing my better half.
 
I'll jump in on just watching bears suits me fine. Never shot one and really don't have the desire to. A couple of hunters and their wifes are into it and what they dish out is pretty darn tasty. I had a big glass jar with jellied bear stew in it and it was soooome tasty and tender. Good vittles on a poor boy bun. They wouldn't tell me what it was until after I commented on it. Yep, I trust this crowd. Goose was another thing I managed to have and it was great as well. Something about zippy bags, milk and a couple spices in the fridge overnight makes it much more pallitable...........
 
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