Thanks Dwayne and at the moment if he does come back around I'm not sure yet as to taking it. We can't have feeders in the woods so my thought is he was roaming looking for apples as they are dropping.
He’s probably 150-175 live weight. If there’s any apple trees around, he won’t wait for them to drop. He’ll be climbing them trees and destroying them. I’ve seen apple and pear trees around old home places that similarly look like they were blown apart by a lightning bolt, but it was bears climbing to eat the fruit. They have a bad habit of breaking limbs off and dropping them down to the ground so they can roll around on the ground and eat till they’re full. They do the same thing with white oaks and other oaks. Bears are fun to watch and they are beautiful animals but most of the time when they move in, the deer leave. I would shoot him in a heartbeat, you won’t forget the experience. The meat is fair table fare and really no different then other wild game, dang sure better and healthier than what you’ll find in the grocery store. +1 on getting the meat above 165, you don’t want worms. Have the hide tanned and hang it on your wall, it’ll make a beautiful trophy.
