How to keep a bear from spoiling

[Boss Hogg]

If a bear is shot on opening day, a Saturday, how can it be kept until Monday, when the locker plants open. I thought of puting it in the garage, out of the elements and filling the chest and other areas with block ice. Then covering it up with a tarp to keep everything as cold as possible. Maybe even putting ice on the outside of the bear.

I certainly don't want it to spoil, or the hair to slip. If I can't find an acceptable way to keep it, I won't hunt until Sunday.

In the past I have shot bear during the week. By the time I got them dressed and out of the woods, it was late at night already. No problem then.

[reinhard1]

here is what i have done with deer in the past under these circumstances. i have filled the cavity with cubbed and block ice. cubed can be better fitted into corners of the animal. the ice must be kept in plastic bags. moisture is not good for meat. i also topped it with a tarp and layed cubed ice bags on top [blocks can slide off]. also make sure the animal is drained of as much blood as possible. keep the animal in the shade if possible. good luck.

[Archerysniper]

The most important thing is to get the hide off and then cooling the meat will be easy.

[motley man]

Call the local meat locker and make arrangements to get it in on weekend. Most lockers will make themselves available.

[Boar]

I f the locker wont make arrangements alot do, You must get the hige off an try an trim as much of the fat off as possible, then quarter it an get in cooler with ice. Your gonna have to try an prepair as much as possible,, at leaste get him to ur garage, an do the abouve.

[fowldreams]

I picked up a chest freezer off of C L for $45 . Thats worth it too me. We will have it plugged in and ready to go. And when the season is done great place to stock pile bait.

[mnbearbaiter]

I like dry ice alot for that type of thing. We hunt many hours from home, and know where to get dry ice near where we bear hunt. We usually try and buy it the opening day and store it in freezer. We then place any bear quarters/hide in a Yeti cooler with the dry ice and it buys valuable time until bear is registered after which it can be deboned. Black pepper generously sprinkled on the inside of the hide and around the vertebra where the neck was broke will also hinder flys if proper refrigeration isnt readily available.

[mrklean]

Skin it quarter it and get it on ice asap that what i did and it worked great

[Black Bear]

Allot of good advice here. I have taken or skinned about 70 MN bears with my hunting party and we only "lost" one. My first, and unfortunately it was a big one and bothers me to no end to this day. Got some real bad big mouth "know it all" advice about it being fine until morning. That said, with the previous success we have had, my partner and I now only shoot bears that are to big to get out with just 2 people...therefore we skin them and 1/2 or 1/3 them on the spot. We too, gave in years ago and now bring a 25 CF chest freezer with us. The botom line, shoot, recover, photo, skin and have a beverage of your choice. Interesting but when we were hunting 51/no-quota, we whould dump them (on a rope stringer) in a very cold creek/mini river next to camp and skin them in the morning. We never lost a bear that way and the meat tasted fine. Skinning in the daylight is allot easier than in the woods with a headlamp. Calling a meat locker at midnight is a dump shoot at best in my opinion. Been there and tried that.

[bwana_d]

Our experience to date:

• Track down locker a head of time that will take off hour calls for a fee, worked well but became a little spendy on multiple bears.

• Skin them ourselves with the plan to cut them up the next day, it was a cool night, but the next day warmed up fast, off to the locker with skinned bears wrapped in painters drop cloth plastic. Locker was impressed with how clean they were, they normally charge extra for dirty bears
• We have since bought a 5x6 foot walk in locker that we can run on a generator. Tested it out in the summer on 90+ degree days, life should be easy for us now, we will skin them when we get them, put them in the cooler and then cut them up during the day at our lesiure, then put them in a freezer.

• We firmly believe the line that you need to treat dead bears like a carton of milk in a mink stole.....if you are not comfortable with skinning them yourself, you need to make a plan to be at a locker within 5 hours of being killed. Our closest locker was an hour drive one way, thus the desire to do it ourselves, a 2 hour drive, plus watching the bear get skinned led to some pretty late nights. Eats into hunting the next day.

Good luck,