Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Brown bear attacks hunter

I hope he fully recovers from the attack, sounds like the bear was lying in wait for them.

http://community.adn.com/?q=adn/node/157040

Wish him all the best.

Prayers for a speedy recover with no side affects.

Hmmmm.... "The three had spotted a large brown bear and were tracking it via snowmachines."

Spotted and tracking via snowmachine in the same sentence... Thinking the bear may have been made unhappy...

It was a Grizzly. I've met one of the guys, (Dr. Dan Stang), a few times while up hunting with my brother. Both are extremely experienced hunters and both have killed a bunch of Grizzlies. Obviously something didn't go according to plan. Good thing they had a radio.

I'm praying for a successful recovery.

Mighty fine line 'tween brown and grizzly... Generally the brown bear title is the catchall, and not really wrong... whereas calling a coastal brown bear a grizzly is wrong...

Yep your right. Wouldn't want either pizzed off at me.

I believe chasing or "stalking" a grizzly by snowmachine in that area might attract the interest of F&W protection and even further his woes.

Sounds to me like hey were running it down with snogos. It got tired and pissed and decided to stand up for itself. This sounds like a problem of his own making to me.

It says they were TRACKING it, not chasing it and yes, there is a difference. The regs say that they can use a snowmachine to hunt bears but can only shoot when the machine has been shut off and has stopped moving. I know a few guys that live in the bush up north and they do the same thing and have never had any trouble with the F&W cops.

I even saw a video on Youtube where a hunter went after a grizzly and once he got within range he shut his sled off, got off the machine and promptly killed the bear with 1 shot with his Mosin Nagant.

Sure sounds like chasing to me. Not much difference (except within the law) shooting from a snowmobile or turning it off, jumping off and shooting.

When I think of tracking I think of spotting one from a snowmobile then getting off to glass, and stalk and shoot it. Sounds like they were running the grizzly down with their snowmobiles. Of course since it's legal, they'd be putting themselves at a real disadvantage not to "track" grizzlies on their snowmobiles. I don't blame the hunters a bit, I think the state rule is sketchy to say the least. That being said, I hope the hunter recovers soon.

Yes, there is a difference, maybe not in Colorado but here in Alaska, it is perfectly legal to track a bear on sleds, shut it down, step away from it, then shoot. Kinda like what this guy did. Follow this thread and you'll see where the OP did this very same thing and it was perfectly legal.

http://forums.outdoorsdirectory.com/showthread.php/97830-Same-ol-Spring-D/page2

I would not be too fast saying it is legal to "track" a bear on sleds... The whole thing comes down to details. If the critter senses you and starts moving away you may NOT pursue on sleds. That becomes chasing and by the wide, wide, incredibly wide definitions of hunting (to chase, kill, capture, or pursue) that becomes hunting from a sled.

Just because the video is posted does not mean it was legal... But in that case the bear came to them when they got out in front of it... Huge difference between that and running a bear with sleds.

You can armchair this thing all you want, until the F&G troopers release their findings we'll just have to agree to disagree.

From reading the subsequent articles regarding this, it does sound like perhaps he just accidentally got too close to a bear that was bedded down by the creek. I certainly hope that was the case. I've just seen, and heard enough about poor behavior on the part of people pursuing game that I guess it's made me a bit cynical.

Reading some sign is not that tough... The line I quoted says they had spoted the bear and were tracking it... Hard to call that too close on accident.

They were aware the bear was there...
They were following tracks if they use "tracking" the same way everyone else does...
They were not moving out ahead or from the side to begin a stalk...

Not looking to armchair it, but the odds are against them not having run the bear at least a little...
YMMV

It's just road hunting without roads. As long as it's done legaly it's just a matter of choice.
Praying for his quick recovery.

It'll be interesting to hear how the legal stuff plays out in this one. I hope he has a speedy recovery.

A snowmachine griz hunt down in the koyo is on my "list" and it'd be nice to know exactly what the rules are, to stay on the good side of the law!

Don't track at 30 mph.

Might want to go around cover and pick up the tracks on the other side, too. If there are any.