Paul Tweet, Kenneth, shot a 300-pound female black bear eight years ago in Canada, so what should he do with a 400-pound male he recently shot in northern Minnesota?
“I’m still trying to decide,” Tweet said. “I could have a three-quarter mount (head and front legs) of him coming out of a wall, but then we wouldn’t be able to see his girth.”
The bear’s girth measured 59 inches — nearly 5 feet around his belly. “That’s a big waistline,” he said.
He’s told his black bear, shot on Sept. 11, 2015, is the second largest recorded with the hunting service he used in Roseau County, five miles south of the Canadian border.
Adult black bears typically weigh between 100 and 500 pounds, so Tweet’s is clearly on the top end. “They kept telling me, ‘That’s a really big bear,’” he said.
Wikipedia says, “The biggest wild American black bear ever recorded was a male from New Brunswick, shot in November 1972 that weighed 902 pounds after it had been dressed, (meaning it weighed an estimated 1,100 pounds in life and measured 7.9 feet long).”
Tweet’s bear was six feet long from nose to tail and its loins — which are processed for meat — weighed 120 pounds total for front quarters, hindquarters and loins.
The meat, he said, tastes “surprisingly good” for a bear of that size and age — 8 to 10 years old.
Tweet processed the meat locally and had it made into steaks, sticks, bratwurst and summer sausage.
“It’s like beef steak without the marbling,” he said, when asked to describe the taste. “And lean.”
He admitted there’s a “gamey” taste to bear meat, but he said it’s no different than detecting a wild taste in venison, pheasant or other game meat.
Tweet shot his monster bear in the heart with a high-powered rifle from a tree stand about 20 yards away.
“He ran about 50 feet and dropped,” Tweet said. “He pretty much died instantly.”
It happened on Day 5 of a five-day hunt he had booked with a lodge in northeastern Minnesota, which had been baiting the hunting sites since mid-August.
“We knew there was a big one in that area, because we saw a big pile of crap and a really big paw print,” Tweet said.
He said the hunting service takes care of transporting the bear to the lodge. “I just called them on the walkie-talkie to tell them I got one,” Tweet said, adding that the guides were pleased his big bear hadn’t gone far before dropping.
“They take good care of their hunters,” he said, describing sleeping quarters, meals, snacks, rides to and from the hunting stand and other amenities.
“It’s almost like a resort. They say, ‘This is your vacation,’ and they do all the work.”
With a freezer full of meat and the bear’s hide currently being tanned, Tweet needs to make a decision about whether he’ll have it mounted.
“Maybe I’ll see if anyone wants to buy him — maybe Cabella’s would want him,” he said.
When asked how much he wants, Tweet didn’t have an answer. “A bear like that is nice to keep,” he said. “What are the chances of me ever getting another bear like that?”