Oklahoma Bear Biology with Jeff Ford

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Trail Cameras. Be sure to follow Exodus on Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to visit Exodus outdoor gear dot com for more information on velvet Fest. My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world of hunting the icon of North American wilderness bear. We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation, but will also bring you into some of

the wildest country on the planet. Chasing Bear. On this episode of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast, we're down in Oklahoma meeting with Jeff Ford of the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife and we're talking the nitty gritty of bears. This is a cool podcast because Jeff is a he's a biologist, and he is a he's a he's pretty much the man in Oklahoma when it comes to black bear. And

there's a fascinating story about Oklahoma black bear. It's a fascinating hunting opportunities, but really it's a fascinating conservation story. So we have a really interesting converse station where we nerd out, absolutely nerd out about black bears. Super fun. Jeff Ford has has become a good friend of mine over the last several years as I've gotten to know him. Because you have to check bears in, you actually have to take the bear to the check station, and that's

how I met Jeff. Was the first year that I harvested a bear in Oklahoma, I met Jeff Ford who become friends. Since then, Jeff as a tradicial blow hunter fun podcast. Hey, I want to bring to your attention we just put up a very cool video on our YouTube channel. I don't know if you're watching our YouTube stuff that you should. We've got a new video called Stalking and it's about my hunt in British Columbia's pretty

incredible video. A lot of really neat stocks stalking a bear through a culvert and just it's a it's a great video. It's up on the Bear Hunting Magazine YouTube channel. To check it out. Below the videos, you're gonna see a Bear Hunting Magazine store and it started to Spring store and if you'll click on those you'll see a wide variety of T shirts, swag stuff, phone covers, whatever, all all kinds of stuff the Bear Tech says that you can buy from our t Spring stores. To check

it out. Lastly, we are taking pre orders for the Bare Horizon Season five DVD. So all our Bare Horizon videos from any given year we make into a DVD that you can give away to friends, that you can give away as Christmas presence that you can watch at your leisure. We have now five DVDs that we've made. It's available at bear dash hunting dot com. Guys, check out the Western Bear Foundation. These guys are fighting the good fight for bear hunters and bear conservation out in

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southeast Oklahoma. Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. We are in Hodgen, Oklahoma today with with a good friend of mine has become a good friend over the last few years through checking bears. But uh, I'm with Jeff Ford and I'll introduce him. I've also got the bear tech Colby moorehead. Give him a give him a hello. Just talking about how Colby doesn't say much. But uh, now this is a this is gonna be I've been looking forward to this conver station for a wild Jeff.

But so, Jeff is a You're a biologist with the Oklahoma, Oklahoma Department of Game of fish how long. We'll give us a little bit of an introduction, Jeff, but my initial question would be how long have you been working with the department. I started full time with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife in nineteen I'd worked a couple of years prior to that, just part time, and uh, opportunity came up for a full time position, so I hopped

right in there as a biologist. As a boy, I started as a wildlife technician, and I became a biologist about thirteen years ago. Okay, okay, and you you're originally from this area, Southeast Oklahoma, Yes, where I grew up ten miles from here, spent spent my whole life in Southeast Oklahoma. Yea, and a little personal background. You're a traditional bow hunter, that's right. That's the to me, that's the purest way to hunt. Yeah, and uh, I admit

I do grab across the bowl late deer season. Yeah, if I haven't put any meat on the table yet, But yeah, I like eating them way better and I like missing them. So yeah, Well, we're looking at a couple of nice Southeast Oklahoma white tails on the wall right there, A couple of nice dere Yeah, I'm really blessed, but have some good areas to hunt and and have a little time in the fall, usually in December. Yeah, to get out and chase them after bear seasons over.

So you are I want to get into you, but I want to talk about the landscape, which I was almost gonna jump into, kind of the landscape of where we're at and whatnot. But you are. There's not an official bear biologist of Oklahoma. Am I correct in saying that's correct? But if there was one, it would probably be you. Yes, sir, yes, if you can put it that. See, in Arkansas we had well now it's a large carnivore coordinator because now we have confirmed mountain lion sightings in Arkansas.

So it was there was a bear biologist quote unquote that was over all the bear operations. Now his title as large carnivore biologists. But so in Oklahoma, you're the You're the bear man, right, I've you know, just living in an area where we have most of the bear that are in Oklahoma within forty miles of where we are right now. And uh so, just I guess it's it's fallen on me, you know, take care of the nuisance.

Bear in the hunting seasons that we have for bear now we've had for the last ten years, we've had a season. So so I'm responsible for what goes on and keeping up with with the records. So to give just a general would you, Jeff, give a general history of Well, this is such a big box of cards here, Where did these bears come from? And how long have you guys been hunting them? Can we ask that question? Yeah?

We the bear that are here, we're the ones that were part of relocated into UH southern Missouri and northern Arkansas in the sixties, and it's taken them, you know, that long to work their way down through the mountains in and into here. We've we had our first confirmed nuisance bear if we could call it a nuisance most call it a problem bear around nineteen nine, and UH we've year after year and a lot, depending on the weather, you know, the sightings increased and and the problem number

of problem bears increased, UH usually related with drouth. And UH we've had we started a hunting season. We decided through research, We've done the research and UH projects and we've been doing bear surveys since the early nineties and UH we we decided ten years ago that we had enough bear in southeast Oklahoma four further southeast counties to have a bear season, and we started a bear season in two thousand nine with a twenty bear quota, and

the first year the quota wasn't met. They almost got there. This nineteen bear harvested and the second year hunting, everyone was allowed to hunt with crossbows. It was legal legalized in two thousand ten, and just so half in that year was when there was a severe draft started. So two thousand and ten bear season lasted one day. We still had a quota quota, twenty bear quota, and they harvested thirty two bear on the first day, so we shut it down. We had a lot of Oklahoma's crossbows. Yeah,

we had. Yeah, we we had a lot of hunters that were upset because going from the data from the previous year, uh, when only nineteen bear were harvested, they thought they had plenty of time to hunt. And so I mean I had people showing up out here ready ring my neck. You know, I haven't even gone hunting in it's over. So uh, two thousand and eleven rolled around, the draft was still ongoing. Uh, bear season lasted two days. Then we still had the twenty bear quota and they

harvested thirty one bear. And talking with other states, southern states that have a black bear season, uh, they were telling us that, you know, sometimes quotas work and sometimes they don't. Normally, on a on a bad year, you'll have a lot of bear harvested, bad weather wise and food wise, and then on a good year, when there's a lot, big large mass crop in the weather calls off early and the bear slowed down in there there

full it'll go back down. And we've seen that. We took the quota off after three years and uh and and that year, uh, you know, all the hunters were happy, they got to hunt all they wanted and the harvest was up, but not where we were concerned. And since then we've seen it. We've had a record year in with eighty five bear harvested five so it went from so you've had over since two thousand nine, and we're coming into the tenth year of hunting bears in Oklahoma.

The harvest has been between nineteen and eighty five bears, that's right, yeah, yeah, yearly. The fall of was our tenth Yeah, and we've had a year in there where they only harvested bear after the quota was taken off. So and we've been seeing the bear. If you just averaged our overall bear harvest's gonna be about fifty bear year and you said it earlier, but they're current well up until this year. And we can talk about the

regular st changes. But for the last ten years, there has been four counties in southeast Oklahoma that were open for bear hunting and it was it's legal to hunt bear on private land in those counties over bait. So that's been the method that's been the primary method of harvest. That's the most successful way to harst is that you guys wanted archery hunters hunting bear on private land and using bait, and that was that was a methodology for

harvesting them. Yeah, that's we didn't see a problem with letting people huntover bait on private On public hunting are snow Clona that's managed by the department. There's no baiting is allowed for any type of harvest wildlife. Well, and we've talked about it so much even on this podcast. You couldn't kill if there was no baiting in this part of the state. I mean, just a handful of bears would be killed every year. I mean, so it's

a management tool. It's a it's a management tool for you guys that have the research, that have the science, that have the knowledge of how many bears need to be extracted. It's a management tool to be able to do that right. And it allows hunters to observe the bear before season gets here and they know what's coming in. That's a good good thing about it. They can uh, you know, our research bear all have ear tags, some of them have callers, and we can talk about some

of the changes that's going on with that. But yeah, I have a lot of hunters who are you know, are female bears that research bear pink ear tags and so they know it's easy to tell that ear tag and uh, and so they know it's a female if they want to harvest. Some they're legal its harvest if they want, but some people just don't want to. But uh, even overbait. And you gotta know your bear hunters. Once

those acorns start falling, it gets really tough. So and it's one of the reasons our harvest was up, you know this year was you know, it stayed hot the bear removing and there the acorns were gone relatively early, so the bear kept coming to the bait. The weather was right for the hunters. I mean it seems, you know, everyone says, well, the animals aren't moving, but when it gets cold and wet, the hunters quip for most part,

quit moving to and and so. But this year it stayed warm, the hunters were active and the bears were active, and uh had a lot of opportunity. We harvested a lot of big boars this year, which was great because that's our target animal there animal and so we haven't got the ages back on the on on the bear yet, uh, but we just from seeing the bear. We saw several big boars three hundred fifty four hundred pounds. Then yours was huge, and we then we had a I believe

it's six hundred and eight pound harvested and Pushman Tall County. Wow, that's a monster. Monster. People don't realize how big they get. So to talk a little bit about so we've established that there's been a bear season in Oklahoma for ten years. The kind of the broader story of these bears, to me, really it's fascinating and it is the it's it's a hallmark story of the conservation efforts of hunters and biologists really across the country for sure. But you know they

in Arkansas. They say that the reintroduction of Arkansas black bears, which which happened between nineteen fifty four and nineteen sixty four, they brought in two hundred and fifty four bears into Arkansas, released them in three different places. The closest, which of one of those places would have been Dry Creek over in uh Yale and Scott County, I think in Arkansas, which from right here would probably be close to fifty

sixty miles from here in Arkansas. So that would have been the closest relocation place to where we're at right now, and here fifties sixty years later, those bears are here now and and and the reason being is because the habitat for bears is excellent right here and and if you looked at the topographic map of western Arkansas, you'd see southwestern Arkansas. You'd see a block of east west running ridges called the Washingtah Mountains spelled O U A c H I t A looks like Oha cheetah. Yeah.

Stephen Renella says Oha cheetah uh um uh, but it's pronounced Washingta with a W and. And we're the Washington Mountains tail into southeast Oklahoma, and we're really in some spectacular beautiful mountains under three thousand feet most of them. Um. But that's why the bears are here, right, Jeff, I mean just a habitat. It's perfect habitat from National Forest.

And that's where I was gonna go, sitting right here in Hodgen that your office here, U Gaming Fish, Department of Wildlife land here just about any direction you go is gonna be National Forests two hundred and forty thousand acres in the Floor County. Wow, isn't that much of Washington National Forest? And then around the hundred hundred and thirty thousand in McCurtain County. And then you have timber company land also and so and those are also a couple of w MS we at least land from Warehouser

and a couple other timber companies. So there's a lot of country that with without a lot of humans in here, which there's lots of private land that's great habitat too. So these four counties would have kind of been the hub, but they're bear is way outside of these four counties. That's correct, now that I don't have a ton of

insight into I mean, I've hunted. I alluded to it, and some people might have known this, But I've hunted Oklahoma the last four or five years, and I live kind of in Arkansas, on the western edge of Arkansas. So I feel like I'm home when I'm here in the Washtalls in Oklahoma, But really I don't. I don't know this country that well. Further west of here, how big is the bear range? Jeff, Well, we've had bear show up just south of Oklahoma City, which is two

hundred miles west of here. Now they're not they're not a resident bear in that area. When the draft was going real strong, you on, they were following those watershed looking for food and staying on water. So uh, But we have excellent habitat west of here too. Down just say McAllister Calvin area. You can get on a map and look at that, and it starts getting in, It starts running into cross timbers habitat, which black bear prefer

more of a heavily cross timber habitat. A cross timbers is where you're looking at large tracks hundred sixty two hundred acre tracks or more of hamed is cattle pasture and then just hardwoods on the creeks in the fence rows. And that's man man induced habitat. I mean, like when you're talking about hundred six decres that like the blocks that people were homestead in the timber off something cutting timber using it for cropland or or hay or cattle grazing.

In some of these areas. You know, the only timber is in the ripe arian areas. Now does the cross timber? I always thought that had to do with the short stubby post oaks that they made cross ties out of. Well that also, but it's considered cross timbers habitat, and so yeah, you're looking does that does that word cross timbers? Is that referring to the type of timber or the

mishmash of its crop and the habitat? Okay, okay, So anyway, that's the bear or are in there, and we know they're there, especially with everyone has trail cameras now on there whatever their feeders out in the back forty or whatever. So we're getting a lot of a lot of so the bears would range almost all the way down to the Texas border. That's right. Yeah, we've had them down

right on the Red River. I'll be done. And now whether they're staying there year round her or not, but some of the research bear you know that we've caught right here, ten miles from my house. Once the mating season is over, they go seventy miles west and right on the edge of the Washingtall Highlands and they'll stay

there all summer, all fall. They'll don there and then come back here during Tell me about that specific bear, like just like where you don't have to give specifics of the names of the places he was at, but just like, because that's fascinating, and you've told me about this before. But this bear, yeah, we uh caught this bear. He was a problem bear eating cat food. You o,

lady just kept poor. You know, I don't know who would think cat could eat ten pounds of cat food today, But she's putting out that more and the typical you know, she comes out one day and you know, the bear is there, large war and she calls me in this this bear was there and and you know we're busy with nuisance baroness. But anyway, I it was on June was the day that I called him. I remember that day because a great friend of mine retired that day.

But I caught this bear on the six of June and put her tags in him, you know, done the whole thing, and and released him and him took him miles away. Yeah, I took him down close to Broken Bow Lake to the war from here you're looking at probably forty five miles. Took him away and released him and released team. You know, even though you know a lot of bear all, they come back normally, but once we handle him and everything, you know, then they're they're

pretty intelligent animal. You know, they'll they'll stay away from us. So we released this bear and nine days later our research team caught him in Daisy, Oklahoma. And you can get on the map and look, that's probably sixty miles west. As a crow flies he I mean, he from where you dropped him off, from where I dropped him off.

He just hit got the mountains and went home and stayed the rest of the summer there, Denned There we went and worked in the den and the next spring he came back and uh, we had a malfunction on his collar. Last known location of him was a corn Arkansas down near a Mina. Wow. So he went from Daisy to Mina correct, Which how far is that sixty miles? Would you say as a profes something. So in the in the research that I've done with bears in Arkansas

are the research I've read in different things. You know, they say there was a bear that was captured and tagged in the central Ozarks, that was killed on the interstate in Salasaw, Oklahoma, back in the nineties. I mean it's back when that original research was being done. Yeah, I still have that. We had that bear amounted. Now he's in Yeah, he's in rough shape, but yeah, yeah, we we took that bear. This is in the early

days of doing our bear programs. Some schools go education, you know, how do what to do to keep bears from staying in your yard there. They don't come there because they like being around humans. They like what we put out for them to eat. So this bear we had he mounted life year was that Jeff. That was probably ninety two or ninety three. That bear was a hundred and fifty six miles away from where they captured him. That's what I remember from the research. And so he was.

So we had him mounted life size and we had it. We had it the taxidermist. We said, ask him if he could build us something for this bear that we could bolting too, so we could haul him around the schools. And he builds this huge platform four him with handles on it, and so we'd throw him in the back of the truck and just take off down the road and boy, we'd get the looks three anything. No, we we never uh. He was just the bear, just the

just the bear. Yeah, we we may have come up with the nickname back then, but I'd rather not say I don't. But but yeah, we used that bear in a lot of schools and he just finally wore out. We started his hide, you know, from riding in back. The truck got dried and cracked and pieces come off, and we'd go down and buy some like black throw rugs and glue to the bald spots. But we got we got a lot of mileage and a lot of good education. Now that bear. Well, it's pretty amazing how

big these bear home ranges can be. And those would probably be exceptions, but there it happens. Often what would you say, average bear home range would be here in the in the mountains there in Oklahoma. Do you have any idea well on on the research that we've done and with the collar the bear, you know, the a boar may he may be ten miles in other direction

any time move around and during the mating season goal more. Uh. Females normally stay pretty close within ter three miles of where they're born, but a big boar, they get older, will will range out. You told me one time that you guys for us for some period of time you were doing tissue samples from all the bears harvested or from a lot of bears harvested, and they were doing DNA sampling, and you would see that these females, they were like family groups of females that were stretched out

in different areas of the mountains. That was pretty consistent. Yeah, that's correct. And they would one just one family group on one mountain five miles south of there, totally different DNA string mitochondrial DNA just no relation at all. Is far wow, you know, and and sometimes even even closer than that. So these so what that is indicating was that the females were staying close to their home range of their mother and the males were just dispersing like crazy.

Is that that's correct. That's the natural way for for a bear to do. The females stay close, even though they won't tolerate each other, you know, unless they're both on the same food source. But but even then, you know, they wait their turn. But but then the males disperse, and you know, the younger they are and the weaker they are whatever, uh, you know, they just keep getting kicked farther and farther away until they end up. You suppose it probably what this big boar that was going

to Daisy every summer and spending all year. You know, he was probably dispersed away from when he was a young guy. And then even though he was large four hundred pound bear, um, you know, he had come back here during the mating season and go back home. How long did you have that collar on him? He did that more than once, in I correct, a couple of years. Okay, I'm not sure we said that earlier, but it wasn't

just a one time deal. You caught him over here, and then he went to say he did that multiple years. And then the collar malfunctioned over in Arkansas and he's probably still alive over that. Now, that was a big bear. That was a large large How big do you think he was when you caught him? Well, we weighed him and he was four hundred and twenty six pounds in un man. That's a five hundred plus pound bear in October. Yeah, he's easily we've caught now this year we have it

on on our research lines. But we catch bear every year this time of year, been or over five hundred pounds and recapture this hang bear. Almost one bear we've caught four years running. Just just a big guy and uh and he lads lads of the hunters, you know, and the big ones are smart. Man. Yeah, since we're talking about bear weight, talk to me about the weights of some of these big boars over here and and even sALS like what give me a range of what

you're seeing with bear weights. Well, I'll start out with the heaviest weights, since that's what everyone's here. Yeah. The heaviest bear that I've handled was a problem bear that I caught near Tallahina and he uh, he weighed seven hundred pounds. Even now, you know what what we were doing then and we can still do this is the

feed meal and heavener. We knew how much our trapped wade, so we would catch a bear if it we thought was more than five pounds or scales only went to five, so we would run up there and get on their truck scales and the yeah, unhooked from the trap, you'renna pull our pickups off. We knew our trap was twelve hundred pounds, just a big old heavy thing, but ye know, so nineteen hundred pounds him and that trap filled that culvert trap up. He did. He was laying on his

back when I pulled up. I'd never seen one do that, and it was just because he was so big. He couldn't. You know, they'll lay on their belly and put their heads on their chins. He couldn't do that. He was too big. Oh boy, now you're gonna get me to guessing. But that was probably five years ago, and I caught him on Labor Day. Okay, so he's potentially still around. Yeah he could, yeah, because he was a young bear.

He was actually when I washed the trap out, and I didn't find it at first, uh in there, but I found the ear tag where i'd caught that bear three years earlier. Yeah, and I when the research started going on, they were they were putting him in in the right and the left ear. So I thought, well, I with the nuise and sparre, I'll just put one ear tag in in the right ears. And this was your decision. You were the nobody. You were the only one. I mean, you and maybe a couple of other biologists

around here, we're the ones trapping. We were, you know, we were all doing that. So but anyway, when I caught this bear and worked him up, have video of it, actually of the release, and just because he was so huge. And anyway, when I got back home and was watching the trap out, I found the ear tag from where i'd put one any where I'd caught him three years earlier. Had some beehives over here on Poto Mountain. I'll be down. And so this this bear was a five six year

old bear. Yea. And these these bears can live up to years. Do you have much history on the I mean, I guess you've only been doing bear research for about ten years. Do you have any super old bears? I know in Arkansas the research says that the oldest documented bear at the time, and in the research in Arkansas, it's kind of spotty, like there's not been this continual research project. It's like they do research projects for sections

of time. But the oldest bear that they had ever recorded was like twenty three or twenty five year old. Do you have any info on that? We the oldest bear that we've had harvested was eighteen years old now wed and that's from tooth tooth aging by annually cross section of the two sent off to a lab. They count the rings on that tooth like a tree basically. And we had in two thousand, two thousand one or first research project, Um, we'd tagged some bear and then

we've recaptured a female bear several times. Actually that's still alive from that original research project, and she's twenty one years old and she's still having cops having I guess it would make sense inside of a new region where the bears were repatriating like that, it wouldn't necessarily be a super old age structure. But now they've been here so long, it's starting to be an old age structure,

am I right? Yeah? And they're and they're healthy, and they're like domestic animals similar as far as having babies or reproducing, they all do it until they're till last year or two of their life, and once they get to where they can't produce young, they're so they're so far gone usually by the end that they die pretty que natural causes. So let's do some math on our feet here. If that how old do you think that

bear was when y'all caught her? She's probably three or four years three or four year old, Okay, So in two thousand one she was three years old and she started having cubs. She pretty much had cubs every other year until in twenty nineteen, say eighteen years cubs every other year. That's nine litters. Yeah, and you know some bear don't have bear every other year, even though they can somen't go three four years sometimes they don't know for what reason, but some some bears. Do you recall

that do you believe this bear? And I don't know if you kept that much track on her. Did she have well during those years in between two thousand one and two, I was in thirteen. We didn't have research project going. We don't know how many years she's had cups, but since then, you know, every two years and this did she ever have Do you recall if she ever had as many as three cups. Three cups. Really she's

a good mama. So let's just say we could speculate and say she had nine nine litters um and they were as many as two or three cubs each, So she could have had seven cubs, could have could probably maximum, Yeah, she could have and and don't cut mortalities about thirty Okay, about like whatitetail dere or you know, well white tailer actually higher than that as far as fun mortality, but

they have a lot more predators after them. So but yeah, so what what they say about bears is that you know, when you're talking about when you're compared and the other big game animals that that we hunt and use, you know, white tail, a white tail doe can get pregnant her first year of life and immediately begin to reproduce. These bears are not reaching sexual maturity till they're three years old at least. And we're some of our harvest status shown.

These three year old female that are harvested have not had a litter, and you know, so some of them maybe, and again that is something that research hasn't figured out why some go a little longer than others before typically it might even be four years old before that. So when you when you look at that from a a recruitment standpoint of how much how many new bears are on the landscape every year. If a female is born and it's four years before she reproduces in the animal world,

that's that's a slow reproducing animal. But I heard, uh, the Bara biologists in Arkansas, Myron Means, say this recently that they've really been amazed at the last ten years in Arkansas how much Well there's there's sALS reproducing that are young. I mean, like I think it's pretty common for him to be three years old when they start having large litters. And just how fast they actually can reproduce. Yeah, when when there's plenty of food for them and uh

weather conditions are right, Yeah, they really really produce. Yeah, and there's yeah, there's plenty of room out there. You are bear uh populations even with the hunting seasons going on, our our population still increasing that about six percent a year in this in this area where the hunting seasons are going on. Really, Now, that's that's I want to dig into that right there, Jeff. Populations of the natural natural population of hunt bears would increase by about ten

percent per year. Yeah, it showed around eleven percent here, but you're talking about excellent habitat. Yeah, you know, in in eight months of the year at least with a good food source. So even with us taking out ten percent of the bears were still reproducing, reproducing at six percent. So does that mean that the reproduction rate would have been about seventu You may not follow my math there, Yeah,

I don't, so, yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, we're still doing really so we're still increasing by six percent despite us taking out all these bears. Is that what you're saying? Yea, Our population isn't isn't being It's still growing. It's still growing. It despite us taking out and you know, the world heard could be healthier, you know when whenever you know, we're not overpopulated with bear are Our studies show that there's still a lot of

room for expansion in this area for bear. There's food sources unreal. So but anyway, still we're still our population is increasing even with so really, even right here at the probably the hub of some of the best bear habitat, the population is not saturated the habitat. That's correct. That. That's that's surprising to me. Yeah, we're still in really good shape. That's a good sign because there's a lot of bears right here. Jeff Wynn told you this. We

saw a bear today. We did well to Kolby. This is Kolby's first time you've driven through Southeast Oklahoma, but this is the first time we We came over here a few hours early and went to one of our places where we bear hunt, and a few hours away long ways from there. Don't get too far until this until this year. You know, we're driving down the highway and uh over there by the dumpsters, there was a bear there at twelve was at twelve noon, it was

around there, you, I mean, it's hot. And I was telling Cobe when we were pulling up close to there's a there's a place where there's some trash barrels sometimes a tract to bears, and uh, I said, I said, this is a place where you can see a bear sometimes. And I was gonna show him. Well, anyway, there was a We pulled up and there was a bear standing there were in the hot on the highway. Anyway, I said, man, it's a good day in Southeast Oklahoma. And you see a bear and I call it a shooter. It was

a nice bear too. But you know, you can you could drive around in this country for weeks and never see a bear. That's what's amazing to me. I mean, this is densely forested. Most places in these mountains. If you just got out of your truck or walked out in the woods, you couldn't see more than forty yards like yeah, that's yeah during the summer. During the summer,

that's stretching it even. Yeah. So the first twenty years i worked for the Department of Wildlife, and I'd kept up with the amount of bear I'd seen this hidden caught counting our problem bears are the ones that was harvested. But I'd seen nineteen bear in the wild just crossing the roads, crossing the road. That's it. And I'm spending, you know a lot of times forty hours a week

in the woods and live here. So and I have until year before last, had never seen any bear in the woods while I was hunting, and and jumped one a mile from here. Yeah, you know, so that's that's I want to stop right there, Jeff, that's crazy. What what I mean, Jeff, is a is bow hunting a lot around you, and some of your hunting this out of probably the less sir, not in the heart of the bear areas. But I mean, you just said you hunted all these years and never saw a bear while

you were out actually hunting in the woods. It just shows you how elusive they are because there's no shortage of bears here. I mean a good bear density and and we could I want to ask you a question about bear density and total population of bears. But as much time as you've spent in the woods, you've not seen And I would say the same thing about my hunting growing up in the washed All mountains, you know, not far from here. Um, you can hunt your whole

life and never see a bear. Hunting in November October, November, which is is the time when these bears are starting to slow down their home, their ranges are starting to to narrow down in preparation for dinning. So you know, if you're in the deer, if you're just going rifle deer hunting in Arkansas or Oklahoma, yeah, you're you're probably not gonna see a bear. You could, but you're you know, like right now through October is probably peak bear movement.

I mean, bears are you know, we just saw one at twelve noon and eighty five degrees outside. But anyway, I just think that's remarkable. It's remarkable how elusive they are. Yeah. Yeah, and you know what, I turkey hunt saw him in the woods in the spring in the spring too, and you know, squirrel hunt not as much as I used to. But you know, you just a lot of people are amazed. And I tell them, you know, even though you haven't saw a bear, there's chance if you've been in the woods,

bears saw you. And I mean lud before you ever knew. He was around a lot of people in the woods in the fall. And you know, it's we just people just don't report seeing them that often, you know, unless the hunters. I've never seen a bear while a turkey hunting in the in good Bear country in Arkansas. Uh and even turkey down in Oklahoma last year or some never seen a bear. Watch again. Yeah, it seems like

you would, wouldn't it. Yeah, they're because, yeah, it seems like you would, because there's not a lot of food then and they're definitely out first April there, most of them by the end, so it's just let's go back to what I've said before. Do you guys have a number that is you believe is a good estimation of how many bears are in Oklahoma. With what we've done with the research and then our capture release recapture, we're looking at around eleven in southeast Oklahoma, Okay, And so that's, uh,

that's good math. There a good math lesson on bears because if you want to stay but this is something that bear managers talk about, if you want to stabilize the bear population, you take out ten percent of the bears per year because they increase by ten percent, and so ten perent of eleven would be a hundred and ten bears. So in theory, you could harvest hundred ten bears and wouldn't affect the population. But we're harvesting a lot less than that, correct. So that's why the I mean,

the population is still still growing. And it's not only it's not only growing, it's expanding. I mean it's kind of like a pouring water into a vast open space. I mean it hits and spreads out. I mean it's like there's a I mean, that's the way bear bear distribution happens, right, Jeff, Like like bear pop bear begin to get get pretty dense and good habitat and then they begin to just fold out. Males begin to disperse and gradually females begin to disperse. Secondly, is that correct?

We're in our far western areas that we tramp for the research bear. It was several years before we caught a female in some of these areas we'd catch and you know, and there's not a lot of bear in the far west areas of where are bear where we figure we have a bear population that stays are year round. So we were catching seven or eight males and and no females. And just the last couple of years we've gone to catching a few females in those areas and had a female dn UH in one of the areas

and had cubs this year. Well, and that's a that's a powerful sign of that the habitat is good. Would you say? I mean it. It just means that it's working. Mayors are spreading. They're starting to you know, when you start seeing females show up in in Uh in the Gulf coastal plaine of Arkansas, um like kind of where the washing tolls stop the southern edge of the Washingtalls and the you know, the net geographic feature they called the Gulf Gulf coastal plane, which is kind of flat timberland.

I've got some buddies that have deer leases in the northern part of that area, which just happens to be the very southern edge of the bears. On week in bait bears on private land. I've been keeping track of this buddy mine and and for years they would put out bait and they would get boars. That's all they would get. They would never see a sole with a cub, and just twenty miles north you would get sALS with

cubs all the time. Last year it was the first year that he texted me and he said, finally got a sow and and and to me, that showed what was happening. That's kind of on the edge of the bear range and uh and and finally they're starting to be they're starting to be resident, soals that must be

close rear and young. Yeah, she was. You know, it's just like a dominoes fallen or whatever ever what you want, stair steps, you know, just finally they'll get in an area and then those souths if they if they have three cubs, you know, there's pretty good chance to him maybe females during that and uh, you know, because that's

just how God made him. Yea, if are he doesn't have a lot of bears, you can have female cubs and uh you know they'll then those cubs in three years will have cubs and you know, it just goes goes from there and then you know, usually if there's one female in there, there's some more that you're just not seeing. But but it does take several years, you know, the from what we've seen, it takes about eight years

for the females to catch up with the males. That would that would almost line up perfectly with what my buddy saw with his just and obviously he wasn't doing any research. He just was putting out he just putting out a trail camera. But that's pretty amazing that what what about bear density's Jeff right around here? Do you have idea on like square mile that's kind of that's a good figure that kind of somebody can understand like

how many bears per square mile? I would it would be a good guess for me to that maybe something, yes, Sarah, because those density numbers are you know, cause areas really trap. It's it's hard to get a really accurate density number in there because there's so many houses, yeah, in there, So you probably need to talk with her about that. Well, I can relay the information that I know from research done in Arkansas years ago. I mean it's old info, but basically, you know, a bear per square mile in

the good areas was what it ended up being. But that really isn't a real strong functional figure of how many bears there really would be there, because that's like taking this massive geographic section and you know, barrel bear home ranges are overlapping, and at any given time in a square mile there might be four or five bears. But when you when you statistically run that out, you know, for the good bear habitat in Arkansas, they were saying, basically a good bear density would be one bear per

square mile. You compare that to you know, guys, you know we're white tail hunters too, you know, good white tail density. What's that gonna be here in Oklahoma? Well, on the national force, you're talking about maybe eight dear

per square mile. It didn't real hie, that's about to encouraging yeah, so, uh, but on on other areas, you know, you're looking at fifteen sixteen dear per square MILECA, so it's a lot more or it's just yeah, are we have such a mature forest under the floor county portion that even though it's beautiful to look at, you know, big trees open, you can see and that's why a lot of people look for But we're at the sunlight isn't hitting the ground. That's not going to support a

lot of animals. Yeah, so you and do you think these bears do better in the timberland like areas that are being clear cut south of here? And that's that's one of the reasons about your bear per square mile. When we're doing our research, it's during the best time of the year for bear to be up and moving, and so they're congregating on food sources, whether it's uh,

someone who has feeders out year around. You know, some of these people bring in just tons of food and so there are a lot of bear in that areas. And then you go to a clear cut area where there's just poke berryes, some blackberries and and everything. So the bear numbers really, the bear really get concentrated on these so yeah, so I couldn't. That's why, you know, as far as the bear for square mile thing, yeah, it's it's kind of its arbitrary number. And yeah. So

so something you did say that surprised me. I've heard you say before was was that some of the more denser areas are in the private timberland. Is that correct? Yeah, and it's public hunting, but no no abating allowed in there. But yeah, it's just unreal the number of bear that stay in those clear cuts all all spring, in all summer. There's if just like all animals, if bear had to depend on acorns to live, there wouldn't be any It wouldn't be any bear, there wouldn't be any deer if

that's all they had to have. And that's just a short window they're in the fall when that food sources available to bonus get acorn. Most oak trees average four years with acorns out of every decade, so four out of ten years they'll have acorns six years they won't. Just drought or too much rain in August. That's what

was the problem last year. Are trees were really loaded and we had twelve inches rain in August and acorns swoll up in the caps and quit raining and they shrunk and fell out, so all the acorns were gone by basically by the first second week in October. So what's some food sources that these bears are using throughout the year? Here, well, it in the spring and somewhere they're on just forbes, everything greening green up early in

the year. And right now they're on berries. They've been on berries, all sorts of berries since the first of May. They'll stay there usually by fourth of July, middle of July, all the blackberries are gone. Then they just then they go to what I call scavenging. They're just ripping up rotten. So the last berries are gonna be the uh gonna be the BlackBerry blackberries. When did the blueberries come out? Jeff? Like rackleberries there's right now they're doing really good. Yeah,

and the wild raspberries, you know, the black blackberries. I've always heard and believe that the uh service or service bearris was the first berry ripe in the spring. Is that that's what? Yeah, Everyone the bears eat those, they do go through those. And right now there's also plums, you know, the chicken saw plums. There are those native trees really oh, those are those little thorny, small bushes,

little plum trees. Let me ask you something. You you probably would know this the first native flowering tree in this part of the country, it's going to be the service berries. Is that the serviceberry in dogwood or the two earliest flowering trees? Okay? Now is the service berry not the ones that you see flowering when the leaves aren't even out? Okay, Okay, that's what I've always heard, the easy to pick up. Yeah. Yeah, Now there's a lot of non native flowering pear trees around here that

you see in agricul along the roadways and stuff. And because I tell the kids, hey, the first flowers that you see are gonna be service berries. And but then that's not always true because there's all these flowering pear trees along the road to which aren't native. But yeah, in the mountains you're gonna see those. And then there's there's a So there's service berries, huckleberries or blueberries, blackberries, wild raspberries, uh pawpaws which would come in the fall,

which is a big fruit. What other kind of berries are there? Jeff, Well, there's uh gon dewberries. Now what's to do? But I actually don't. Dow berry is actually through what most people they call them blackberries, but actually they're they get thorny bush. It's like a black like a BlackBerry, and they'll be right around the first of June. They're big, they're not very many seeds, okay in them.

And then there's uh, huckleberries like you mentioned, yeah and uh and that's a that's a low bush around here. We have the some type of using air quotes low bush blueberry that's like eighteen to yeah, am I right? And they do really good in areas that do get a lot of sunlight, like on the south side of hills.

You'll notice if some fine big pine trees style, those areas will just cover up with those real quick in the bear really all wildlife go go in there in there for those and uh, but there's just a ton of different kind of little berries growing out there. But

they'll they'll stay on the blackberries. They'll have those for two months long and then they'll in towards the end of July is when the poke berries will start getting ripe, and they really poke berries would typically be in regeneration areas like clear cut sides of roads right or the edges of mad is, you know, and everything you'll see them growing, and they really go after those and red yeah.

And after after that you'll start in the middle of August, you'll start seeing some wild grapes, especially a high That's why Talamina Drive is such a good place to drive in the evenings or early morning if you want to see a bear, because all the grapes. They're usually the everything low in there is covered with grapes. On a year that they make, they'll speak barrels and barrels of them. And then what time of year did you say, early August?

The middle of August when we're doing our bear surveys is when we go to finding there grapes, so they're they're really on them. Then they'll start on you know. Shortly after that, some of the acorns will start casting off and they'll climb trees. They'll climb trees and get them. Yeah. So but usually you're you don't red oaks will go losing a few acorns, especially they'll be big and loaded,

and they'll go to dropping a few in September. Then then the white oaks, which is the preferred food source of fall wildlife out there in the fall and then then they'll have acorns through December usually so uh, you know, so you'll see our bear. The big boars or usually stay active until around Thanksgiving, and you know, the more calories they burn looking for food. If they're not finding nfl going to den. Usually they go to den earlier

than the females. Females usually around New Year's before they're going to Dan big boars to see. I would have heard different. I would have heard that the boars would have stayed out later. A four hundred pound bear needs a lot more food than in one hundred pounds. That makes sense, so um and our bears den based upon food availability, correct, So if there's if food is scarce, they go to bed earlier. Food is abundant, they stay up and eat if the party. If the party's still gone,

there's plenty of chips and sauce that they just stay up. Yeah, areas people I know who keep game feeders up here around Now all bear slow down, you know, but every week or two they'll they'll have a bear come to their feet. Are that then close bear they don't like, even though they'll spend all summer right behind your house. When it comes to din and usually they like to get out away from people, you know, where they're feeling a little safer if they know, you know, they don't

all have a d n so just lay on the ground. Yeah. Wow, that's something I'd like to talk to to the where did these uh well, okay, there's a debate, and I've heard it's not a debate, it's just a different way of categorizing what bears do. The typical like a kindergartener, You say, does a bear hibernate? And they go, yeah, bear hibernates, It goes to sleep in the winter. But a bear doesn't really hibernate, It's correct. Tell me what it does. Torpor. It called state of torpor. And there

they sleep, but they don't hibernate. Their body temperature stays sane, their heart eight stays. That's the definition of hibernations that the body temperature dramatically decreases in their heart rate. Like and I've heard it said like a wood, like a gopher that would go down in the ground. I mean if you dug him out in the winter, I mean he would just be dang there. I mean you couldn't hardly wake him up. They're barely alive. Yes, they have

to do that to survive, to keep from starving to death. Uh, you know. And and a bears is awake every time we go to a DN, you know, they they know we're coming way before we get there, you know. And and uh, you know, so they're they're just they're they're not active, you know. So they're trying to maintain keep as many calories as they can during during that time because they're gonna stay inactive until it starts screening up,

whether that's the middle of March or the middle of April. Yeah, So that is the most sinating thing about bears, and I always default to it on this podcast talking about uh, bear reproduction and bear denning. But it's such an amazing biological strategy. I mean, just fascinating that they they you know, they eat groceries for eight to nine months a year here all right, from let's just say they go to den around Thanksgiving first of December, and they're in the

den till April. That's four months. So they get eight months worth of groceries or a year's worth of groceries in eight months. And and that's they're eating. They're they're they're storing up that fat. We uh hey, this is this is a good place to uh. We brought you some bear fat Jeff, Oklahoma, bear fat from the bear that I that I killed last year. We that big bear we rendered down. Uh yeah, I get it out your magazine. Yeah yeah, yeah, this is from that batch.

But now you can to set this on the window seal of the uh of the office there, Jeff, and forecast the weather or fry some fish in it. We fried uh flathead catfish. Jeff. It that's incredible stuff right there. Now you guys made bear uh well, you were telling me how to make lye soap from fat from fat, you know, we were using pork fat, beef and pork fat. Yeah, we've it's uh what we do around here, first couple of days of bear season, when you know, there's we're

busy working. But you know, yeah, we'll make some homemade lie soap. It's good. Yeah good. I gotta get in on some of that sometime when you are doing that. I want to I want to use bear fat, well safe safe something it uh you will sell how see how it works, you know, because I'm I'm just gotta stand there and stirs, you know. So but the other guy, uh from over on the Wister Wildlife managementary comes over. He has the red spe we'll see. I talked to him.

You you hooked me up with him, and I tried to follow his recipe and I didn't really like we're trying to make lye soap, which have been like a hard bar of soap. What I made ended up being more like shampoo. Like shampoo. It never it never fully solidified, so it was just kind of this gooey liquid. And uh, you know, so anyway, I gotta perfect my recipe or I could start, you know, just making bare fat lye shampoo. Yeah,

but you know we we have that problem. Well okay, and then yeah, and when if it doesn't get solid, we turned fire back on and and boil it longer, you know. And the the longer you you bowl it, the darker it gets, you know. But it's it's good. We had some out one year and you know, you

just cut it into squares. We'd put it in a sheet pan and then cut up and I'd put money into it and just a little cookie tin like you get these Danish Christmas cookies in and had it set in in the office and we were having a meeting around Christmas and one of the guys walked in and grabbed a piece of that. I thought it was fudge, and yeah, he I don't know if he ever got that. Yeah, he talked clean the rest of his life, so it

probably cleaned him out head to toe. But yeah, I mean, I'm thinking, you don't walk into our office and just grab something and think think it's addible anyway, you know. But because there's no talent, how long it may be laying there, even if it was a piece of fudge. I mean, looking at me, there's not a lot of

food laying around. Oh that's funny. Well, Jeff, what would you to me these this population of bears is so special, Like, for real, I've been able to hunt all over North America, and I love hunting right here as much as anywhere on the planet. And and part of that is because I feel like this is my home, and it is my home turf, I mean really in Arkansas, but you know, pretty much an extension over into these mountains, So that

that's part of it. But the other part of it is is, uh, I mean, there's some incredible there's some incredible bears over here. There's some incredible opportunity. But to me, the foundational coolness of it all is that this is an absolute success of modern conservation and hunting working together. I mean, there would not be bears here today because we didn't say it before, but this is native bear range. I mean, these bears came in from Arkansas from the

nighteen fifties and sixties and that reintroduction. We didn't say that before, but I mean the bears were here natively long before white Europeans got here, and and and and they were extirpated because of landscape level logging and uh in in market hunting, which I always make clear has nothing to do with modern hunting. I mean it's not even we shouldn't even call it hunting what they were doing. I mean they were they were farming for wildlife place,

they were earning, harvesting animals. And so so when we come over here and we see a bear driving through like we did today, man, that to me, that is a point of celebration that we've got these critters here, And we wouldn't have those critters here if we didn't have the incredible habitat in a million acres of public land right and even in these well, just in southeast Oklahoma.

And I mean that goes back to another thing we talked about all the time, is that the pub the land that we have available to us as an incredible feature of rural American living that most people on the planet in the history of humanity have not had access to. Is that vast amounts of public land where the wildlife there belongs to us, and we have if we can follow the rules, we get access to hunt this land. I mean, so this is a celebration of modern conservation, right. Yeah.

These the bear have always been special to us who have worked with them in Oklahoma. It's uh. Making a decision to open a season on him was something that you know, we just didn't get up one day and say, hey, you know, let's let's start a season. This was talked about for years before, uh, even before the first research

project in two thousand, two thousand one. And then after that research project was over and we knew about where our better numbers were in in the core areas or of our bear population, it was eight years before we

decided to open a season. And so it's something we care a lot about having the bear here and monitor bear health as the summer goes on with our research projects, you know, and it's we you know, if if something happens with our bear population, you know, we have a way that we can stop the hunting if we if

we have to. But right now that it's a great opportunity to be able to hunt this this animal that even today that there's a lot of people in Oklahoma do who do not even though that after animal in Oklahoma. It's I'm amazed I don't hunt bear. Uh. It's it's mainly because I'm working twenty hours a day during that time of the year. But uh, I'm amazed at the number of hunters who were die hard deer hunters who just don't even think about deer hunting the first five

or six days of archery season. They're just after after they become bear hunters. And I didn't. I didn't until we had a season. If you had asked me if we'd had people that would rather bear hunting deer hunting, I would probably said no, probably not, you know, just because everyone who lives here just about lives here because they like to deer hunt, because it's such a great opportunity, you know, and you can see on some of the large leases you know where they're you know, maybe growing

bigger deer and heavier deer and all. But if you want a good hunting experience, everyone wants to come going to these mountains and and try to get a white tail buck. And now it's turned that way for bear where I'm getting calls every year from hunters other other states. One hunter from Canada who just you know, he's going, Man, I've I've loved come down to fall and and harvest to bear down there. So and and he and when you think Canada, you think huge bodies and huge weights.

But he was just having a hard time believing, you know, opportunity to harvest three pound four there because they don't even have those where he was from. Mainly because you know, six or seven months out of the year those a bear hyberd nating, That's right, they don't. Yeah. Yeah, and a lot of hunting pressure, a lot of bear harvested, so they don't get to get the age either. Maybe, so Colbe, do you have any questions for Jeff River.

I didn't introduce River rivers here with it's my daughter. Yeah, uh, I guess I guess. My thing I was thinking was when you're whenever you're talking about moving or relocating, the boys like what their range looked like. Whenever you relocate a cell, Uh, do you take them out the same distance? And if you do, uh, do they stay in that area or do they kind of have a range like the boys do? We try if if a bear is a problem, we I mean, we won't go and set a trap and move a bear if it's just say

walking through your yard. But you know if if if this bear is getting on your porch or just hanging around your house for four or five days, you know, once that bear needs for the bear safety and the humans safety, that you don't need a bear of that's that's got so used to humans that they feel like they can just stay right there. So we will move them the same distance. Now they like I said earlier, they always come back. And we've moved a bear and

I know Clay no where Zaffrey is. We moved to her female sal uh just right across the river here from us, and took her to Zaphra and released her on a Monday afternoon. And on Tuesday afternoon and on Friday she was right here in this yard. You know, So even though her range didn't take her that far. They just they know how to get back to where they're from. And she had yearly cubs, and you know, we had done everything to try to catch the cubs

but couldn't. But it was on dire situation, you know, the same old story someone sees a bear and they put food out for it and want to get pictures this way for cell phones and everything, and and the person you always threatening to shoot to bear if we didn't come move it. And we caught her and stated at her and left the trapdoor, and so maybe the cups would go in there, but they wouldn't, you know,

so we couldn't release her right there. But we did take her and release her, and she came back and her cups were they would have survived, but they would have typically gone to the den with her one more time probably so, but they were definitely with her the end. So River got a question for Mr Jeff No question from River newkem Okay, it's good, wasn't it? River? That was really fun? Yeah, Jeff, anything that you would like to say, I mean, just any or anything we didn't cover.

I mean we I really just wanted to cover the nuts and bolts of bare biology. You know, it's it's rare that I get to sit with a professional that like you. That is uh. I mean you obviously you're doing more than just bear, but that's a big part of what you do and have done. And I know you really value the bear and and uh and and and that you're a hunter too, so you you understand not just wild life biology, but you under stand kind

of the hunter's perspective. Um. But any other general comments about the bear here in southeast Oklahoma, Well, one thing I'd like to touch on is that we've expanded open areas for bear hunting opportunities this fall. We're gonna basically everything If you looked on a map and you come out of Fort Smith, Arkansas and Interstate forty, once you get into Oklahoma and go west to where Highwi sixty nine meets Interstate forty, then everything south of there is

going to be open for archery and muzzload season. We still have a twenty bear quota on our muzzleload season. Uh, it's never been met during muzzload season. The most bear we've have harvested during a muzzload season was seven. So they're tough to get over bait by late October, and there they're really smart, you know. And by the end they're out in the mountains or they're out in the clear cuts. There. Hunters have been in the woods pretty steadily,

you know. For our muzzloed season opens the fourth Saturday in October. So by the end, the bear of pretty much gone nocturnal, you know. And we did, like I said, we have a few harvested every year with the muzzleloader, but those, uh, those are just chancing counters most of them, you know, they're most of the people aren't setting over there bait on privately and forbear during those times. So that's that's a big deal. So the bear range now is no longer the four counties. How many counties does

it entail now? Probably you're catching a bunch. There is several counties. I mean, you double tripled the size of the bear, more than doubled more than size. That's awesome, you know. So it and in some of those areas there may not be very many bear, but we've had a lot of truill camera photos. Were not doing researching in these areas, but our surveys, you know, we're we're getting some bear hits in there, and we just you know, want to offer the opportunity to people who live in

those areas. You know. I think when when people start hunting bears in a new region like Oklahoma, like all of a sudden there's a bear season and there wasn't before. I think one of the things that people are beginning to understand here and is that how good bear taste? Jeff, I mean, we had a bear chili at my house last night. My wife didn't I didn't tell her what it was, just, uh, we just had it. And she's totally cool of eating bear meat, but uh, you know,

it's probably not her preference most of the time. And my wife would be the finnickyst eater of anyone in our family. River houses the bear chili. No one knew that it wasn't. I mean, there's any way that you can cook beef, you can cook bear. Sure, if it's handled well, it's good. I had bear Ausabuco when I was in British Columbia. Assabuco is a I don't want to I don't know then, I don't know where exactly.

Shanks it's the shanks, but it's like a French dish or something that you they not French, Italian, Italian, but it's where they slice the the shank up. They use it for ox tails, use ausbuco. They'll they'll take an ox tail and cut it. But I promise you you could have set that in front of a king and given it to him and told him it was beef and he would have loved it. I mean, like, there's there's a lot of great ways to eat bear meat. I like to smoke it, uh, you know, use it

in chili. Uh. We grilled some on the grill last week. We were grilling some chicken and I've thought out some bear steaks and seasoned it up good. I like to season it up good. And I mean, it's just it's good meat. Yeah, it's I was surprised. I've never eaten any bear until we had a season and hunters asking me, you know the best way to prepare it, and I'm I don't know, you know, and uh, a friend of mine, who unfortunately has passed away since then, had harvested a

young bear. He gave me a like two steaks off of it. And we'd had fried hamburgers for lunch and just frying pan on the stove and and so I just cut that berry into little medallions sized pieces and through and there after we'd cooked the burgers and ate it, just mainly because so I could tell hunters, hey, here's what I've done, and I've ate it. And I was surprised. I expected it to taste like venison, but it was

nothing like venison. Was more like beef what I was thinking around steak and tasted more and uh, my grandchildren needed I eat it. But my wife, she she's from California. I'm not gonna say a lot more about that, but yeah, but she she eats deer and everything. But still that's kind of like my wife. She's even she's from Arkansas and she's still she she will eat bear meat, but it's not you know, there's something boy, you know when Yeah. So but yeah, I was surprised how great a table

fair it was. Yeah, And it's such to me. It's such a historical food and people don't realize it. But there's literature from Arkansas, um that that says if you ate meat on an Arkansas table in the Ozark or Washtall Mountains in the in the eighteen hundreds, there was a high probability that it was bear meat. I read I read that somewhere from a historian that I mean, it's it's great meat. But and then this fat, Now this is something we're really exploring a lot right now.

And I've been rendering fat for a long time, but uh, we're we're finding new ways to use it. And uh, it's good stuff, Kobe, it's solid, it's on the bottom, it's yes. Well okay, Jeff, oh man, you've opened up. Can we got a major research project going on right now about how to render pure liquid oil. Firstus this this thick pasty lard because we've done it, we've we've were trying some different ways to render it. And uh, anyway, that was a solid lard when we first did it.

I mean you could have like scooped it out almost with a knife. And now it's starting to solidify. But all that oil is good. Like if you were to be cook with that or something, I mean you just stirred up and put it in a frying pan, and oh man, it would it would be perfect. But well, hey, we're gonna close down. We've we've gone a little ways here. Jeff, thank you so much for it's Yeah, I hope I see you. Well, I know i'll see you again. This is en route to where I hunt, so I stopped

by and talked to Jeff. But I hope I see you this year with a big bear in the back of my truck. Yeah, that that's would be great. Last year was it was good getting to check your bear and yeah, and I know you were awful happy about that. And so we have three or four guys that we've come to know since the bear season that we're rooting for every year and hoping to see on opening day. And I think you had the largest one this year.

So well, so that the largest one checked here yest here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, well that that six eight pound bear down south, I guess was the biggest one in the state, the the biggest one I heard. And so I had another pretty good size bore four pounders. So you checked in archery kill. And but to finish up on as far as wait, we got off there just while ago, I wanted to say that we have checked in a three hundred and forty pound female bear. So that was the

second one I've seen that was three hundred or monstress. Yeah, that'd be hard to tell a big dry a sow without cubs. I mean, you kill a shoot at three and forty pound bear, you assume you're shooting at a male. She was huge, and I've asked those people to bring it back. I wanted to score, yeah, and they have it. I told Colby on the way down here, I should have brought my bear, sculled Jeff from that big bear.

Next time I come, I'm gonna bring it. Jeff's an official Boone Crocket scores, so he can officially score bears. But I don't think it's gonna make twenty. Yeah, and that was kind of surprising to me. That's for another podcast, Hey, Jeff, that's what we say on all that pod. Guess at the end to say keep the wild plaice as wild, because that's where I thank Okay, thank you