2014 at the Hell Bear

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Markus
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2014 at the Hell Bear

Post by Markus »

We had a great year at the camp this year. The Hell Bear is now 4 years old and we've been hunting the property 8 years. It's became a year round play ground for us and we spend a lot of time there improving the property, the trails, the camp and do a lot towards conservation and wildlife management.

Every late spring/early summer we do a quad run with a few friends. It's always a great day and this year we made a run from my uncles camp all the way to ours. We used google earth ad a bit of in tell from friends to find our way through the hills and successfully make our way from camp to camp without using actual provincial roads. Its always a great get together with friends.

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I wont bore you with all the projects we do with the food plot, site preps and camp upgrades and we'll get right to the hunting!

First season for us is the bear season in Sept and my camp partner Tim was the first to put a bear on the ground. He got a nice dry sow that's been around for a couple of years. Perfect double lung hit with his 30-06 and she only went about 15 yards.

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Next up was my oldest daughter Hailee. We made a spot that included 2 hag stands so we could hunt together.

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Her 2nd night we had a bear appear and present a perfect broadside shot and she made short work of it with a double lung hit with the 30-30 she loves to shoot. It went about 25 yards and piled up. She bagged her 1st ever black bear and we were both thrilled to death with the hunt.

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Tim had a moose tag to fill so that was next on the agenda. It was a tough hunt and after 5 days of seeing nothing, he came upon a bull and cow. He put the crosshairs on the bull and dropped it in it's tracks with his 30-06.

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Finally the early deer bow season opens and I'm now in the stand doing some hunting for myself. My very first night I had a couple young bucks come into the food plot and I'm not fussy when it comes to bow hunting. If it has antlers and it gives me a shot...an arrow is launched. I took a young 4pt just before dark and for the first time ever, I had a bow kill deer drop right where it stood and no trailing required.

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Next up is the youth deer season which opens a week before the general rifle season. Hailee had her first bear, so her first deer was next. We put her in the food plot in the elevated deer blind and I returned to the camp.....which is about 400 yards away. About an hour before dark, I was out in the camp yard puttering and I suddenly hear a "crack" from her 30-30....which was promptly followed by a text from Hailee, "dead". lol She took a spikehorn that entered the plot. I was thrilled and she was still shaking when i arrived to assist with the drag.

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I turned my attention to bear hunting. I wanted to wrap up the bear season so we could stop tending the bear sites and just move onto deer hunting. I had been passing on smaller bears and finally had a decent boar come in that I was happy to put a tag on. Another bruin with the 30-30.

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Tim and I continued to hunt during the general deer season. We have a "no doe" rule at the camp and despite being able to take them, we pass on them with the intent of them providing future fawns for the area. Tim saw lots of deer, but either passed on them, or the hunt didnt come together for him. I finished the big game season with a decent buck that I took late in the season with my fathers old 303.

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With our big game season over, we turned our attention to waterfowl until the trapping season opened and then I switched over to furharvesting. I've had a fantastic season with a great mix of fur. Predator control around the camp is a big part of our deer management plan and we like to remove a good number of coyotes to improve fawn survival in the spring. Our biggest coyote this year was a 54lb male.

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We're already hatching new plans for 2015 and cant wait to get things rolling this spring. For now, we'll just enjoy the camp life at the Hell Bear until the snow melts....and we never stop enjoying the meat treats in the freezer from our 2014 season.
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smitty55
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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

Post by smitty55 »

Well well, this is a great surprise to see the Hell Bear camp posting here. Good stuff Markus. I'm sure hunter folks here will enjoy your posts, specially the trapping and hunting stories and all the pictures that go with it. As I recently posted, I have been following your story for 3 years now, before I even knew you were associated with this site, and it's been a great read for me, all 65 pages of it.

For any members here interested, I can highly recommend checking out Life at the Hell Bear. With almost 20,000 views it's a good way to pass some time. Cedar Grove Camp is also a good read with some magnificent deer pictures. http://bearseast.proboards.com/board/47 ... properties

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Smitty

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Markus
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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

Post by Markus »

Thanks Smitty. The bears east site is run by a good friend of mine and the Cedar Grove Camp thread belongs to a hunting friend of mine too. Both those guys have helped me with so much and we work together all season long to make the most out of each season. Glad you enjoy the Hell Bear story, we enjoy sharing it.
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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

Post by Out4trout »

Hey Markus
That's a fantastic year... thanks for sharing.
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Doug
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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

Post by Doug »

Another great read Markus!

Those bears are all HUGE! Guesstimates on weights?

Thanks for posting!

Doug
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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

Post by cprince »

Holy crap! My oldest daughter wants to meet yours now!! lol!

Great parenting and great hunting Markus.

Thanks for sharing... can't wait to see more.

Any shots or stories about how you guys cook these guys all up? Especially the bear.

Craig
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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

Post by bradford2 »

crap's always going down at the Hell Bear. Great double for Hailee!
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Markus
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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

Post by Markus »

cprince, we only do 2 cuts with bear....all roasts and burger. I'm not a fan of steaks with bear meat. I find the texture closer to pork. We do the roasts in the slow cooker various ways and it's by far the most desired meat in our house. We use the burger in meatballs, chili, taco's, spaghetti, hamburger soup, ect. And we always save a few 10lb bags of burger from every big game animal for sausages. We like 50% of the meat mix to be bear and use deer and moose for hte other half.

Just the other night we made up a 100lbs of sausage...50lbs of italian and 50lbs of donair.

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Meat prep and meals are our favorite part of the whole hunting experience.
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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

Post by smitty55 »

Markus wrote:. We use the burger in meatballs, chili, taco's, spaghetti, hamburger soup, ect. And we always save a few 10lb bags of burger from every big game animal for sausages. We like 50% of the meat mix to be bear and use deer and moose for hte other half.

Just the other night we made up a 100lbs of sausage...50lbs of italian and 50lbs of donair.

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Meat prep and meals are our favorite part of the whole hunting experience.
Now you really got me going Markus. I'm a huge sausage guy. Since the 80's I've always had custom sausages made. Usually always after May so I can supply fresh wild garlic to the mix. Started way back with beef sausages made in Cheneville QC, and now I'm lucky enough to have 3 quality butchers within less than 15 minutes of here. I also bought about sixty pounds of eye of round roast at $2.00/lb a couple of years back and had it made into smoked garlic Kielbasa by Jack Kolsters. I supplied my own home grown garlic and frozen wild garlic. Excellent stuff. I had one guy wanting to buy it off me. Very strong garlic. Jack used it all hehe.

Btw, I totally agree about bear meat in sausages. Probably the best batch I ever had made was bear and deer, with leeks of course. :) Bear makes great burgers as well. I think most folks don't realize how nice bear meat is, mild flavored and sweet. Better when it's younger, like most animals. Years back, I finally talked the receptionist at work into trying some bear burger. She didn't care for game meat, but really enjoyed the bear.

I probably should start trying to make sausage myself and save the butchers cost for the fresh ones. I have an attachment for my meat grinder so I could try it. It's only your regular domestic model. Plus I have a size 10 manual grinder with a sausage fitting. Markus, I'm sure you guys probably played with recipes for years before doing up 100 lb batches. Pretty cool. How long does that take you guys to do?

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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

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Smitty, I'm just getting into the sausage game. My buddy wayne has been doing it for years though and has it down to a science. He's got a binder with about 20 recipes in it, but I chose to keep it simple and just make my 2 favorite blends. I plan to give a lot of it to friends, so a big assortment of flavors wasnt needed.

It took us 90 mutes to do the 100lbs. We had most of the meat already ground into bags of burger. We did that when we processed our critters. We kept 1 bag of bear trim to add as well.

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So we divided the meat into even amounts in 2 big tubs, added the spices and put each 50lb batch through the commercial grinder twice. We had planned to add some pork fat, but decided to try it with just the bear as our fat moisture. We had presoaked the pig casings and then thread them onto the sausage nozzle.

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Then dumped the meat mixture into the sausage auger and the tube of sausage was born....just needed to be spun into user size piece ad cut into lengths you want to go into the packages.

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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

Post by Doug »

Sausage making is fairly easy if you have the right gear, and if you don't want to make up your own recipes, there is a FABULOUS store called Halford's Hide and Leather in Edmonton AB that sells any manner of butcher's supplies including sausage binders, seasonings, casings, smokable casings, etc etc. Their on-line catalogue is a PITA to work with, so I suggest you call them and ask for a copy of their actual catalogue. 1-800-353-7864. They also are happy to give you advice over the phone if you are not sure about something you are going to try for the first time.

I prefer to use collagen casings, they are just a lot easier to work with, but I have buddies who will only buy hog casings.

Make sure you add LOTS of cold water to your mix! And unless you are a teetotaller, some ice-cold red wine in addition to, or in place of, the ice water gives good flavour in every recipe I have tried so far.

Like Markus says, the meat preparation is part of the hunt for me as well. But I don't generally do up a hundred pounds at a time!

Doug
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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

Post by smitty55 »

Tks for the responses guys. Markus I'm kinda surprised you pregrind your meat before making sausage. I've always just chunked any game meat to give to our butcher that we used for many years because that's what he wanted, not ground. He was concerned with the meat getting ground up too fine so he wanted to grind it himself to assure the proper texture.

Doug I like the idea of the red wine as I use a fair amount in cooking already. More than I drink lol, even though it's a good quality Cab I had made. As for the cold liquids in the mix, I imagine that the recipes must spell out how much to use. I also know how the proper fat content can be crucial to a good quality sausage. A buddy tried to make some once with too little fat and the meat was so dry it was like eating sawdust.

Last summer I also had about 40lb of pork sausage made up when pork loins were $2.00/lb. Maple chipolte and honey garlic. So along with my maple bacon and hot beef ones I probably still have at least 60lb. in the freezer. Plus I have some moose sausage for real special occasions. Once all that goes down and I make more room in the freezer I'll start looking for recommended recipes and try it myself. Looking forward to it.

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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

Post by Hyn_Dry »

What great year you had and nice pics. I hunt with my daughter as well and can't wait to get her on her first deer. Thanks for sharing Markus.
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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

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Smitty, we pre grid because we never know what we're going to be using the burger for....sometimes we donate meat, other times we do a big cook up of meatballs, burgers, hamburger soup, chili, ect. The sausages come last to clean up remaining bags. And they go the quickest.
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Re: 2014 at the Hell Bear

Post by ASK »

Good job guys

Thanks for sharing

ASK
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