Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Anyone ever have a hair raising experience with a Black Bear?

I like the look on the bear's face. "Oh, sorry. I will leave, my bad."

I know two women in Fairbanks that have chased black bears out of their trash with a broom. They aren't magic. They are among the shyest of critters, IMO.

If you want a good brown bear story, search up the one bearhuntr posted about 2-1/2 years ago.

I have had multiple incidents with black bears, but 2 stick in my head vividly. It was Opening weekend for CA's archery deer season, and I was out on some familiar land. I was slowly moving into a meadow, through some brush, when in front of me AND behind me I hear a lot of rustling. I stopped trying to figure it out. Heard some more rustling, some low growls, then 2 cubs went up a tree in front of me.... I was gone. I moved out quickly to another area. As I was creeping up to the other area where I was working my way to a dry pond that deer love to be in, I came up over a low rise and just on the other side was another bear, about 10 yards away. I said screw it for hunting that day and went fishing.

Can't seem to find it for some reason.

JJHACK posted an interesting story about a black bear attacking him from behind. He was working for a lumber company and was feeding the bears in order to minimize the damage to trees they did in early spring.

dang don't know how these slipped my mind about black bears, had one jump into my boat this summer, we weren't in the boat.

and floating a creek choked full of kings and rainbows, two canoes, in one me a chick i work with and her kid of about 10, in the other her dad, her brother and his oldest boy maybe 11


we're fishing a hole on a point and the two boys and her brother are farthest downstream by a few feet, I'm back with the chic and her dad, canoes behind us further upstream.

suddenly her brother yells BEAR, and goes racing past us back upstream, as i went racing past him to get between the bear and the boys, told the chic to toss me short barreled shotgun in the boat,

the bear had twin cubs and they went bawling up a tree, fortunately she didn't freak out and charge the boys, but she didn't move off either for a few minutes.

it sure felt a lot better to be between her and those boys with the shotgun finally in my hands

her poor brother, I'm sure in retrospect he'd have just as soon been eaten by the bear, his sister was not kind in her retelling the event of him screaming like a girl and running away from their kids

while not hair raising, it certainly got the adrenalin flowing I'll admit i was a bit concerned at first when it was in order bear, boys, running dad, felt better when I got between the bear and boys and mucho better when I got the shotgun passed to me.

in truth if she'd have come after the "threat" I'm not sure I'd have got between her and the boys fast enough, made some changes in what order we fished after that, and kept the shotgun a wee bit handier too

Black bears are usually shy and avoid human contact, but that is by no means a certainty. I have met people who think black bears are nothing more than big dumb dogs, who will chase them off with a broom, etc., and pooh-pooh the possibility of a black bear ever hurting a human being. I have met others who are deathly afraid of any black bear. Both positions are extreme and irrational.

Gary Shelton's bear attack books (all published since the mid-90's) document multiple attacks by black bears, many of which were fatal for the people involved. These attacks may be of various triggers: stumbling upon a sow with cubs; stumbling upon a bear defending a carcass it's feeding on; and predatory activity by hungry bears.

Documented cases of bears preying on, killing, and eating humans have become more common in the past 25 years, it seems to me. Likewise, bears attacking hunters to claim a deer/elk carcass are really becoming more common (see Shelton, again). This is one type of attack you really need a firearm to survive. Steelhead's story of his buddy being charged by a starving black bear is a frightening but not unlikely scenario. Hungry bears will drive off another predator to claim a carcass, and as far as bears are concerned, a human hunter gutting his deer is no different than a cougar or coyote feeding on a carcass. The bear will charge you and if he can't drive you off, he'll kill you and add you to the menu.

Although I've had dozens of non-threatening black bear encounters over the years, I did have one experience with a predatory bear that scared the bejabbers out of me. I had read Herrero's book, and even spoken with him several times while he was at U of Calgary. Based on that I took to carrying a shotgun slung over my shoulder when flyfishing in remote streams in the eastern slopes in Alberta. I was fishing for grayling on the Freeman River in the Swan Hills one autumn afternoon in 1987, and had a creel full of brookies and grayling that smelled really good. As I was getting ready to leave the stream about 4 pm I saw movement in the woods on the north side of the river. I was concerned it might be a bear, so climbed out on the south shore. The bear broke cover about 50 yards from me. It was looking directly at me, and it seemed to me it was looking at me like I was a pork chop. It advanced directly at me, never looking away from me. I unslung my shotgun and when he was about 30 yards out I put a 1 oz. rifled slug into the dirt in front of him. He jumped back, clearly surprised, but didn't run away. I put a second slug into the dirt right at his feet, and at that shot he turned and walked back into the woods. I have no doubt that without the shotgun I would have been in serious trouble. As it was, I took the most direct clear route back to the highway I could (the highway parallels the river, and in this area it was about half a mile away), keeping to open terrain as much as possible, instead of following the stream back down to my car.

Bottom line, if there are bears around, I always hunt/fish with at least one firearm on my person. If you are gutting out an animal in bear country, you're better off having a buddy stand guard over you with his rifle out while you do so. If you're solo, you should have your pistol where you can reach it instantly with either hand (a bandolier holster on your chest is best, a belt holster slung around the front of your body is also good) and keep your eyes on the area around you, especially downwind where the gutpile scent will be drifting. Better yet, drag your animal out to the road before gutting it if you can.

Doc, nice write up. Thanks.

I have talked to several older hunters who tell me that guys
that have never encountered a black bear in the wild, usually
dont see them as they will lay low or sneak off when people
are in the area. They also tell me that the black bear you
see cross the road in front of you tonight will be 5 to 10
miles away by morning. They have a very large home range.

I had one in my house a few years ago,I yelled and she left.

Was calling elk while bow hunting. I used a distressed cow and calf combination to try and get some cows to come to help. Sometimes they do that and a the bull follows. This time it was a 350 or so pound chocolate brown colored black bear. He came in at a fast trot because I'd just rung the dinner bell.

When he came into view I'd just called it quits on the setup and put away my arrow. My partner had one ready on his bow but to be honest I don't trust his archery skills...one reason I no longer hunt with him.

The bear stopped at 20 yards when we started yelling at him and barking like dogs (which only works in states that allow hound hunting). He looked plenty confused. He couldn't see us because we were in full camo, makeup and all and in the deep shadows. Good for killing elk but not so cool if you want to be recognized as a non-food item. He left. I wasn't really scared. I'm probably too dumb to be afraid of stuff like that. I was just irritated that Oregon charged so much for a non-resident bear tag which is why I didn't have one.

+1!

Here are my Close Encounters of the Bruin Kind.

Steve

Second Saturday of Minnesota's deer season several years ago and it's very warm. It was a very foggy morning when I climbed into a box stand (open topped) before sunrise. About 7:15 I hear something rustling around under the stand. I look over the side expecting to see a squirrel, and there's a bear cub right under my stand digging in the duff. I hear another noise back behind me and turn to see another cub about 10 yards behind me doing the same thing. When I turned on the seat, it squeaked, and all of a sudden, from back behind the second cub, comes the most guttural, hair raising WOOF and growl I'd ever heard. The sow was behind the second cub, and smelled me, saw me, or something, but she wasn't happy. When the sow woofed at me, the cub under the stand took off as if shot out of a cannon-problem was the second cub ran over and started climbing the tree I was sitting in. The sow came on a dead run, flat out hell bent on protecting her cub. The cub bailed out of my tree, and the sow started up. I shot right through the bottom of the stand, and luckily she bailed out and took off down through the woods. I was lucky I didn't shoot my self in the foot, and more lucky she bailed, because I'd have never got another shell in the chamber. She barreled down through the woods and must have either swatted or run over her cub, because it made a loud bawling sound as it tore away. That sow ran over a birch tree as big around as my wrist like it was a toothpick. I have never been so scared in my life. There would be zero chance of outrunning one of these bears, none whatsoever. I'm sure the only reason she charged was to protect her cubs, but it was a very scary experience nonetheless. It gave me a whole new respect for how quiet, and how fast these critters are when the want/need to be.

You obviously weren't married to your one, the one I had in my house took more than yelling to get rid of her and when she left she took most of my stuff with her.

Nothing that compares to some of what has been posted.

With a bunch of guys riding dirtbikes. Were on a dirt road going from one trail to the next. Come up over the hill and heres this bear on the side of the road. It takes off an we all stop an watch it moving out. THen get on the the trail and start hauling azz. The trailruns through a section that is very open except for all these big pines that it weaves around. Theres a tree maybe 8' or so off the trail. As were coming up on it this bear thats maybe 6' up the tree on the opposite side, kinda leans around the tree to see whats comin up the trail. Do the whoaholyschititsabear at about 30mph on this lil trail while tryin to look behind me to get a better look at it. So busy lookin at the bear I end up hitting a goodsize log head on.

Now all amped up on racing each other, an the bear statling the hell outta me. Get the bike up an start trying to kickstart that hot flooded 4stroke ktm (yea right) Bout then the 2nd guy comes hauling my way lookin behind him and eats the same damn log with his honda Nobody else in our group saw it and claimed it was a weak excuse for us both crashing itno that log lol...the day went downhill from there.



Heres the first bear I ran into on foot. Came up over this lil rise and see him. THen he walks onto the trail I was on and heads my direction. I back down the trail a lil bit but here he comes ambling my way. Step off the trail a few feet and he just passes by. Still dunno if he didnt see me or just didnt give a schit.

I got between a sow and her cubs in the dark one morning. I was headed up to the top of a mountain in PA for a roosted gobbler. Left the truck at 4am, as I neared the top, I heard a strange sound, clawing of bark. Turns out she must have shooed the cubs up a tree and was on the other side of me woofing. Didn't take me long to load up the 870 and head back down the mountain in search of another bird. Those cubs made the strangest bawling sound for over an hour.

I did kill a bird soon after daylight.

Never had a problem with Black Bears; I just watched them and they left me alone (and I didn't bother to annoy them). I�ve had several hair-raising encounters with Grizzlies though. In 1960 and 1961, I worked in Glacier National Park and we'd see Grizzlies occasionally and generally had no problems. Following one bad bear attack, I started working in the back-country armed.

In 1960, I was treed and killed the bear. In 1961, I was fishing and heard �someone� behind me in the brush. I'd left my pack (with the Ruger 44 Magnum) hanging on a tree. When I smelled the rotten meat odor and saw the brush shaking, I knew I had a problem and waded into the freezing lake to above my waist. I never saw the bear, but we found bear tracks.

I've been fairly close (within 40 feet or so) to several Blacks and never had any problems, but I didn't go out of my way to annoy them.

My most recent hair raising event took place in mid July. My neighbor came over and said I had a bear under the deck, okay, fine. It was raining and being the curious type, I wanted a closer look. Sooo, I quietly open the back door and lay down on the deck and start lightly making some small noises. After a few minutes, he looks up at me and puts his nose to the bottom of the deck, mind you only a short 1 1/2" from my nose, sniffs and looks back down. After a few more minutes I lightly made a "get outta here" whisper, holy smokes, he turned and hit the bottom of the deck with both front paws and mouth wide open(amazing how fast he moved) and started growling, needless to say it made me jump up quickly and just go in the house and let him be.

My lesson learned: don't agitate a bear trying to catch some zzzz under the deck when it's raining.

This bear has definitely made for several interesting stories around town since July.