Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Bear spray

Having recently moved west, and being I've got apples, pears, service berry, and raspberries in my yard I'm trying to read up on bears and I find this comment:

Rich K. says:

November 5, 2015 at 18:26

Park rangers say you should wear little bells and carry pepper spray when in bear territory. THe bells are to keep you from accidentally surprising the bear napping off after stuffing itself with berries, nuts, or whatever. They also say you can identify what kind of bear is in the area by looking at bear scat (aka turds – yes, they DO sh*t in the woods!). Black bear scat will be full of seeds, insect parts, stems from berries, etc. Grizzly bear scat will be full of little bells and smell like cayenne pepper…

Reply

It's down in the comments.

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/11/dean-weingarten/two-more-bear-spray-failures-in-montana/

I realise I'm not right in the head, but I keep going back rereading it and lmfao. Is it this IPA I'm trying or is that some funny [bleep]?

Old joke, but still funny.

It's new to me. Any others I should be prepared for? I didn't move far but it's like a different world here. South end of the valley.

Near Victor?

I work between victor and hamilton. Wife works in hamilton. Both in the sporting industry. Renting a place south of Conner. D2. Still trailer trash. I own my place in ND and refused to sell it in case this doesn't work out. Going better than expected so far.

Been through there 3 or 4 times. I have friends/ former l
clients that moved there. Nice place. Good luck with your new endeavors!

Lovin' it so far. Elk in the back yard most nights mule deer in the mornings. East fork bitterroot river ~100 yards off the front porch. 270 is a trophy mule deer unit (We live in it) with slim to none draw odds from what I read. Never was a trophy hunter and never will be anyways. I see idaho almost gives away leftover bear tags so probably try that first. I'm a nonresident according to montana for another 5 and a half months so not really seeing any hunting here as affordable this year. I'm actually going to miss the trapping more than the hunting. Seems almost impossible without knowing someone. We're just concentrating on work for now. Cost of living is low, and we can make it work with what we're doing if nothing changes. We stayed out of the seasonal jobs and have high hopes.

It is a different world from the rest of the states, except Wyoming.


Another you'll hear quickly is to save the last bullet for yourself in a grizzly encounter. Once you've seen a couple up close ( they skeer me... ) I'd opt for the opposite....shoot yourself with the first five, and if that doesn't work, try shooting the bear.

You might consider the same with bear spray...that way you wont be able to see whats about to happen to you.....

Don't forget to file off the front sight on your handgun. That way it won't hurt so bad when a griz shoves it up your backside.

I thought you spayed the bear after you shot it......

funny how much bear 'wisdom' comes from people that don't mingle with them much.

Real men do it first.

Not a bad joke but I'd not venture into grizz country without spray.




Dave

A friend of mine had a habituated black bear come into camp. Two problems w/ bear spray for him were wind and range. When they shot it at the bear he simply side stepped the pepper cloud and kept bothering them. Then the wind blew it back at them and they all suffered. Definitely has it's limitations.

My daughter has precious video of the son-in-law carrying bear spray in yellowstone. He had it in the pocket of his shorts with the safety clip off in case he needed it quickly.

For him it quickly became bare spray...

Reading the can helps.



Dave

Did he spray himself?



Clark

Oh... Yeah....

Soaked his shorts and shirt with it...

Having wasted two industrial size cans on two different brown bears at staplegun range I cannot develop any trust in the stuff beyond making curious bears go away.

Guns work far better...

It apparently works. I talked to a guy who was putting pepper in his bird feeders to keep the bears from tearing them down.

If memory serves you were one of the guys advocating IPA's. So far I've tried Big Sky and Moose Drool. They definitely slow down the rate of consumption. Any recommendations on that subject?