my bear hunting this year

[wijim]

first...my tasg went unfilled.  i learned a heck of a lot though.  i started baiting real early and got a ton of bear in from the get go.  problem was..i had way too many cubs and 2-3 year olds.  so many i realized that the boars just weren't there.  i quit at that bait site for a month.  and started there again to get the cubs out wandering more.  pretty soon i had 4 good mature boars in consistently.  1 week before season my baits stopped.....acorns fell.  and i found that because my best bait being located in the pines was goin dry.  well i hunted 20 out of 36 days and saw only one bear.  i had several close calls at dark...(way too dark to shoot)....but twilight and daylight opportunities were pretty much non existent.

well fast forward to two weeks ago....one of the bears i had been having at my bait....(young 3yo boar) got hit by a car across from my house.  he was easilt identifiable because of a scar down his snout.  i got there immediately after it happened.....i asked the dnr what they were gonna do with it....they said they usually take them and offer them out for sale.  i asked how much they wanted for him....he said he'd have to evaluate the hide.  i said well lets flip him over.  he had a hloe on the top of his butt and his guts hung out of it....the dnr said...well we'd take 10 bucks for him...lol...so i bought a dead bear off the side of the road.  he was a 200 pound 3 yo.  i figured since i fed him up so good....that id take his rug.  the meat was no good he had been bashed up too good inside.  pretty much a sack of mush on hind and fore quarters.  but his hide will be repairable and the fur was so thick that you can part it with your fingers and barely see skin.

if it hadnt been a bear that i recognized....i wouldnt have taken him. but i figured that a bear like that deserved better than to be sold to a tavern so he could hang on the wall and wear a new years hat....lol

[wipartimer]

I'm glad your happy with the hide, but it sounds like the sleazy dnr guy hustled you for pocket money. At least in Wisconsin what he did (charging you $ for a roadkill bear ) is illegle.

[wijim]

ummm.....i got a reciept and there were two....one supervisor.  its a common $ recoup for them.

it is a legit dnr receipt and they usually auction off the hides, and the majority of them go to taverns.  one of the reasons is that there is a demand for them, and the other reason is so they can keep people from basically hunting them with cars.  with bears...they have to be removed from highways because of the gall bladder trade, so there is a cost in having to deal with unwanted road kill carcasses.  thats my understanding anyway.

i knew they sold them long before i came across this one.  most ive heard of that dont have hide damage go for 50-100 bucks.

[wipartimer]

I guess in my mind I wasn't making any distinction between roadkill deer and bear. I was under the impression that it was against the law to sell game animals. But your explination makes sense, my mistake, sorry.