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Being able to deal with a variety of bears at short range and still keep both bears and clients safe is the mark of a professional with a cool head. Bonefish has been there and done that.

There are always those who are in favor of shooting any and all bears under just about any circumstance. That is not usually possible nor is it advisable.

As mentioned earlier in this thread by John Barsness, dealing with the aftermath of even a justified bear shooting is a major headache at best. Far better to avoid that.

So the best thing to do is to be smart in your decision making when facing a bear, and keep a cool head. With a little bit of luck, everybody will be just fine.

No harm, no foul.

It doesn't get any better than that.

WyoM70

I don’t think Bonefish is incorrect in this observation. Nor do I think he lacks personal experience just because he presently resides in Tennessee. His statements of personal experience ring true, and appear to make him something other than the “armchair quarterback(s)” he is referring to in his second post.

Case in point is one of the most recent fatal grizzly attacks in Wyoming. This was the 2014 death of the forest researcher, Adam Stewart, killed by a grizzly near Brooks Lake (well known for its grizzlies). The map below derived from the incident investigation shows a scenario exactly like Bonefish’s description. The young man was reported to be a swift walker, which probably exacerbated the effect of the physical circumstances. He was carrying neither bear spray nor a firearm and was solo. He was reported to have been concerned about the potential of meeting bears at the time of the year – early September – when they are very active in their search for food. He may or may not have been mentally prepared for, or actually even expecting, a bear encounter. He had worked all over the world on different projects and had spent some time in Wyoming previously, and apparently had never had a close call. That all changed when he walked into a grizzly guarding at least one cached deer carcass. When it was all done, the bear had two cached deer, and a human cached as well.



As you can see from the map, the location of Stewart’s death was a setup for a disaster. Not only was the vegetation thick and the sight-distance short, but according to local information, there was a rise in the terrain ahead of him, presumably where the first curve in the trail was, that would have prevented him from seeing even a few yards ahead. The point at which the bear hit Stewart was determined from the location of his hat and sunglasses. Judging from the sketch map scale, at the contact point Stewart was probably about 37 feet (12 yards) from the bear’s daybed. If the bear had been in that daybed, it would have taken less than a second for him to reach the victim. Even if he had had bear spray or a firearm, likely he would have had no time to deploy it. That is where a second person might have had a chance to save his life, but no guarantee under such a circumstance. The article in the link below gives more detail on the fatality.

http://www.ishn.com/articles/100727-field-worker-worried-about-grizzlies

Another incident comes to mind from a number of years back. This was in Moccasin Basin, not at all far from Brooks Lake in Togwotee Pass, WY. In this incident a hunter was badly injured when he walked into a grizzly in thick cover where the bear was guarding a couple of gut piles. The bear slapped him around and “neutralized” him (if I recall correctly he was knocked unconscious for a bit), then departed, only to run into the man’s companion, who was quick enough to shoot. He killed the bear. The resulting inquest eventually determined self defense in the killing of the grizzly. The injured hunter recovered.

This is exactly the type of scenario that we elk hunters face come hunting season. As gut piles and carcasses start to appear, the grizzly bears start to claim them. One must remain vigilant and alert to the possibility that someone else may have left a carcass. It is imperative to pay attention to the bird activity, smells, drag marks, dug up vegetation, and any other abnormal cues. Even returning to your own kill, knowing its location, may be marginally less risky. Look again at those photos provided by Timbermaster. Those nighttime infrared photos may be spookier than color daytime photos would have been, but that is a substantial bear, and he owns that carcass, not you as the returning hunter.

Remember, this is what we are hunting in. A stationary bear on a carcass has all the advantages if you are walking into it.

Having read the article link from the post by Jaguar, I have to say that the comment by the Board of Review of there being no radio-collared grizzlies in the vicinity of the fatality site is likely true but also rather disingenuous, whether by intention or not.

The inference might be that only radio-collared bears are likely to be a problem. Radio-collared bears have already been in trouble somewhere, and might reasonably be assumed to be at higher risk of being repeat offenders. However they are not the only bears that might cause a problem!

The Cub Creek area is very well known for its presence of grizzly bears, whether any of them are wearing radio collars or not. Any person with reasonable experience in that area would conclude that the likelihood of there being grizzlies in the Cub Creek drainage would be very high.

All that aside, the situation as described was about the worst possible setup. Quite possibly no scenario of bear spray or weapons would have saved that young man.



One of my outfitter friends has sustained several full-on grizzly charges. He describes suddenly seeing a grizzly at about 50 yards, and having maybe 3 seconds elapse before the grizzly reached him in full charge. He survived because of the bear spray already in his hand.

Having looked at a grizzly at 50 yards myself, I can tell you that the bear looks too close. If anything is going to happen, it will be really fast.

For this young man, at those very close distances, there was simply no time to make any choices at all.

When things are that close, the bear makes all the decisions.

WyoM70

The salmon eating bear may not be fair to compare to the interior Grizzly. When there are no salmon, they eat squirrels, berries and clams. They are arguably less statistically dangerous than the interior Grizzly that makes a living as a top order predator. This is a guess on my part. I have never seen a bear outside of Alaska.

^^^^ Knowing this is disquieting, particularly so when the G&F chase plane is circling immediately above you when you cut the track so fresh in the new snow that the pad cracks and wrinkles are still in sharp relief. Five minutes old, maybe. The plane was centering on exactly where I was heading to look for a bull, within +/- a quarter mile of me. It happened very close to Cub Creek, even closer to Brooks Lake, and across the highway from Moccasin Basin. I made tracks in the opposite direction. Why reinforce training in an already problem bear?

for reference, this is how fast it happens:

the action starts about 1:50

Someone mentioned using a rifle capable of stopping a grizzly....how about us bowhunters? Yikes. I will be carrying bear spray in NW MT this fall while archery elk hunting. I have also been practicing tripping people ... I figure it will be really easy to outrun my hunting partner if he is laying on the ground!

In all seriousness, it is something that everyone needs to be always aware of.

You don't often hear of an attack on 2 people, that does make me feel a little better.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/06/3...-glacier-national-park.html?intcmp=hpbt3

Yet another reminder that grizzly bears are what they are. Death by grizzly bear is very rare, but the potential is always there when people are around big bears.

Personally I do not think that grizzlies are really trying to kill people most of the time. The bears just explosively react, and the puny humans can not stand up to the punishment that the bear gives out. And we are not fast enough to get out of the way either.

So a violent reaction that would mean little to another bear might well be fatal to a human being.

Startling a grizzly is never a good idea! And no one would if they could avoid it.

I have found myself within 50 yards of a grizzly while elk hunting, and I had no way to know that bear was there before that point. Fortunately for me, the wind was blowing from the bear to me, so the bear never knew I was there.

I simply let him go on his way, while I quietly pondered my options and stood ready for whatever was going to happen. Luckily nothing happened at all! Big sigh of relief on my part!

More than once I have wondered what would have happened had the wind suddenly reversed, and the grizzly realized that a human was unexpectedly right behind him. Really glad that scenario did not play out.

Be careful out there.

WyoM70