Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska The virtues of Marston matting...

....in bear country.

In another thread, Phil Shoemaker refers to Marston matting as a useful bear deterrent for protecting food supplies.





Any questions?

Bears have no trouble ripping normal steel roofing if there is meat or fish involved but as long as the Marston matting is bolted to something solid it works well as a bear proof screen.

We also keep a few sections handy for what it was intended for - taxiing aircraft across soft, mucky areas. Or extracting those that get stuck.
And it doesn't take many in a stack to make a pretty solid tiedown

...and the 3/4” spruce, smoke barrier smokehouse walls were nothing but matchstick kindling for the bear(s).

Of course, that wall was never intended to keep the bears out, but the radio batteries last about a week, and it was longer than that since the boat motor started showing oil, so we were gone a bit too long. Borrowing another fellow’s boat seems almost akin to borrowing his woman, so, though I had a couple of offers - boats that is - I waited hoping the parts would show up so I could get my motor running again.

With time running out, last night I decided we better borrow and go check. About a half mile out, I asked my son what "that dark thing” was on the side of the smoke house. Bears are never out of the question of course, and once in awhile, moose even come down to ‘taste the shoreline delicacies’. Not really surprised on the new doorway however. The scraps they left behind weren’t too bad, though they were a bit dry.

The situation did remind of the recent thread where Marston matting was brought up.