Please BEAR with me, 2024 is going to be full of unBEARable surprises!!!

[Sytes]

Pay attention Montana - If you really want to know about your mule deer herds, you should probably hire an Alaska wildlife biologist as an advisor on how to do it

We'd have to raise NR fees to adequately pay for an Alaskan bio.

Back to the awesome story! Again, great adventure for you and your wife! Absolutely awesome following along. Appreciate the time placed to share your journey.

Bruiser bear! Wow!

Grats and thanks!

 

[seeth07]

Note to self - do not use big old bears to make ham. It did not turn out well. Even after cooking low and slow in smoker for 13 hours, she is still tough as ever. Taste is great and brining did its job but its a "chewy" ham no doubt. Guess the rest of him will be grind.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Note to self - do not use big old bears to make ham. It did not turn out well. Even after cooking low and slow in smoker for 13 hours, she is still tough as ever. Taste is great and brining did its job but its a "chewy" ham no doubt. Guess the rest of him will be grind.

I found that bears cook best low and slow with a lot of moisture in a crockpot or an oven. It always took 8-12 hours in water or broth to break the collagen between the muscles down and get it tender.

I bet if you put that ham into a crockpot with liquid of your choice for several hours it would soften up.

 

[seeth07]

I found that bears cook best low and slow with a lot of moisture in a crockpot or an oven. It always took 8-12 hours in water or broth to break the collagen between the muscles down and get it tender.

I bet if you put that ham into a crockpot with liquid of your choice for several hours it would soften up.

I might just give that a try because I shaved off some pieces for a sandwich today and the samples I had while cutting were not what I was expecting. In the past, never had an issue with Moose/Elk/Deer hams.

 

[seeth07]

Time for the thread to fire back up. It's WI bear time. Saturday we went and bought a bunch of bait. Last time I put on the miles and hours collecting free stuff but I think I've wised up to that nonsense because for 500 bucks, it was one single haul and I have over 600 gallons of bait that is mostly ready to go. We are allowed 10 gallons of bait at a spot so this gives me about 60 baits and my plan is end up running and maintaining hopefully at least 4 sites.

My wife has some cousins in the heart of big bear country in the north woods of WI so that is where we ended up later that day Saturday and on Sunday. I have never been on their properties before and so I had a bunch of public spots ready to go just in case but it became pretty apparent early on that I don't think it will be necessary. There were three parcels between 80 and 130 acres and each one looks promising and we only scouted about 1/4 of the total acreage. We were able to get 3 baits set and ready on Sunday afternoon.

Her cousin went in today to setup his cell cams for us on each of the three baits. He is excited to help which is great for us since it's a 4 hour haul from our house to this area. When he went in this morning to do that, bait 1 of 3 was already hit and empty. Gonna be a fun and busy summer.

 

[seeth07]

 

[seeth07]

Darnit, now this bait has a sow with cubs too!

 

[seeth07]

I didn't catch this right away but if you look at the cubs from yesterday, I think one might be partially a chocolate phase bear. I've looked through all the photos (there were 19 of them) and there is always one cub that has that hint of brown to it. If so, that would be extremely rare for northern WI as the genetics kick out almost exclusively pure black phase.

Another note, 3 cubs for both sows. That is about normal for WI from a mature sow. The baits are about a mile apart so there is a chance its the same one.

 

[seeth07]

She sure is a gorgeous sow. Been on the bait all day long. Very thankful she has young cubs with her because I could be mistaking her for a boar. The bears here sure do have nice coats even in the middle of summer.

 

[Outlaw99]

Really enjoying this. Thanks for taking the time to bring us all along