AZ hunting

I'm hoping to get over to NM again this year to see if I can tag another one. My family loves the bear meat in chili and stews.

 

Always wanted to try Bear. I start drooling every time Steven Rinella talks about Blueberry Bears.

 

i'll have to see what I have left in the freezer, if I have any left over bear, I'll let you know. It's stupid good...

 

A tough hunt doesn't bother me but potentially not being able to get the meat out before it spoils does so it's not a hunt I'll attempt without more planning. It's just not a last minute kind of thing to go and do half assed and poorly prepared. I'll probably wait a year or two before I decide to go for it.

 

I thought they were only in South America?

 

I appreciate the offer and that sounds like a great time. If my pops doesn't want to go dove hunting with me this year I may contact you about that.

 

Now I know who to ask for recipes when I get one! Haha

 

Dude, Javelinas are all over AZ.

 

Which are peccaries, but collared peccaries ,I believe, are only in South America.

Edit:. Nevermind. I just wikipedia'd that shit and I stand corrected. Javalina are indeed collared peccary. My mistake. I was thinking collard peccary were the South American cousins to javalina.

 

Mmmmm tasty....

 

That's how I feel about it...I got lucky that it was still cool in NM and after I shot my bear it rained. I think if you were to get one up on the rim, you'd have enough time if you get a couple buddies to help out. The bear I shot was about 400-450# and 7-7.5' long, I had two buddies help me out. We popped the the left side quarters and one of them packed them out along with the tripods (about 3/4 mile). He brought back water and by the time he got back we had the other quarters off, backstraps, neck meat, and hide/head/paws off. We loaded myself up with the hide/head/paws and my rifle, the other two took the meat and some gear. Took the shot and bear went down roughly at 2pm, stormed till 230. we were back to the truck by like 530pm. Drinking beer back at base camp by 630pm

Lesson learned, when your buddies tell you that they will pack out the meat and let you pack out the hide/head/paws, don't think they are doing you a favor... I should have known by their grins.. holy shit I didn't realize how heavy that was going to be!

Fun fact, the biologist from NM that process the samples told stated the bear was 7-8 years old.

 

What calibur did you shoot it with? I have a .243. I'm not sure if that's heavy enough for black bear

 

I used my Winchester model 70 in 300WM with 150grn soft points. I put one round into it and it ran 25 yards then flopped. I don't know if a .243 would do it, i use that 300WM for everything. I'm a big fan of using more gun than probably needed..

 

I'm a big fan of more bullet than required too. I want to know it's enough, not think it probably might be enough. But the rifle I have is a hand me down from my dad. It's a pre '64 Winchester model 70 featherweight chambered in .243 win. It's the rifle I hunted with growing up and my dad used the same rifle chambered in .30-06, so it's very sentimental to me. Plus I love shooting it and after over 15 years of not being fired it's still dialed in like a champ.

I'm considering buying a TC Dimension in the future for bigger game. It's a modular rifle, so you can change out components to shoot different caliburs. And the base price is under $700. Seems like a hard deal to beat- 1 rifle for everything.

 

I wanna make more deer chili, I wonder if javelina chili would be any good.

 

I just want to hunt.

 

Peccary is only good for sausages in my opinion. I tried crock potting it and it wasn't so hot. Tossed out the pot. Might not be bad if you were to mix it ?

 

Take a look at the savage line of rifles with the accu trigger and accu stock. My brother has one in 300 and it's a hell of a shooter out of the box. I think they are right around the same price.

 

These guys do an amazing job with javy- brats sasauges
http://vonhansons.com/

 

I'm shooting pigs year round. Bambi it's getting capped on the season. Rabits during the winter and douchebags squirrels when they are messing with the electrical on my feeders. Kitty agrees with me too.