Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 22 Hi-Power goes hunting

Friend Liam showed up in camp on the second day. He already filled his bear tag




and so decided not to get another one due to freezer space limitations, wanting a deer instead. He had real reason to rethink that on day 4.


Leaving camp at daylight he walked the swamp road out hoping to catch a buck leaving the swamp headed to "the butte" for the day. After rounding the top end of the swamp he walks up the road around the other side of the swamp to his right, encircling the swamp. As he walked along he looked for tracks coming off the "south butte" towards the swamp. When he reached the SW corner of the swamp and south butte, he stopped on the edge of the road and looked down the canyon headed south. We've seen alot of bear, deer, and even elk coming from the south canyon and stopping in the swamp for a break.

This time as he stood glassing the canyon he hears noise in front of him and as he lowers his binocs spots a bear just a few yards away headed straight up the draw at him. It was another jet black bear, another "every bear". He was close when Liam first saw him so he immediately started talking to it. The bear ignored him and kept coming, so he began yelling, "Go away bear, you're going to ruin my hunting!"

The bear was 40-50' away and kept coming uninterrupted. He raised his rifle and fired right over the bears head. The bear didn't even react and kept coming. When the bear was about 40' it veered slightly to Liams left and walked around him at 40'. Liam fired another shot just inches from the bear into a tree, hoping the impact would startle the bear. He jumped but walked right around Liam slowly, looking at him as he circled around him. Liam began backing up to the gravel road to give the bear some space. The bear crossed the gravel road and went over the bank towards the swamp, and out of Liams sight.

Liam was shook up that the bear had ignored all his warnings and even two gunshots at 40'! He decided to head back to camp and settle his nerves. As he started down the road the swamp was now on his left. After a few yards he realized the bear was not far off the road, maybe 30 yards, and was looking at him. As he walked along the bear paralleled him from 20-40 yards out, watching him the entire time.

Liam was cautious but not really nervous. The bear continued following him for over 1/3 of a mile around the south road around the swamp to the intersection that led downhill into the thick brush and camp, about 1/2 mile downhill in the swamp. It was as Liam approached this intersection to camp that he lost sight of the bear in the alders. As he walked downhill towards camp his path would cross the bears if the bear continued his trajectory. Having lost sight of him now Liam was really getting jittery.

He made the turn and kept and eye out for the bear as he headed down the swamp road towards camp. He stopped several times to scour the swamp to try to relocate the bear, but the bear had apparently stopped in the alders, which were literally just a few yards off either road, and only 8-10' high, and few in number. Enough to hide a bear but why in the world would a bear act like that? He wasn't sure where the bear was so he beat feet back to camp through that thick schit as fast as he could, keeping an eye on his backtrail the whole way.


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When he got to camp and told me the story I told him that was NOT normal bear behavior and that I think that bear was going to be a problem. Sooner or later that bear is going to end up in our camp. We cook on a grill over the fire and there's all kinds of bacon grease, sausage, bear meat, you name on that grill. What if the bear finds our whiskey?!!! I told him I would have shot that bear, tag or not before I'd have had that experience.

After thinking about it, he realized what a potentially dangerous bear that could be and that I was right, he probably should have shot it.

A bear that ignores being yelled at, shot at, and follows a person for a 1/3 of a mile is not a normal bear. This is wild and remote country, this isn't a habituated garbage bear.

After his and my encounter we started hashing alot of information over from past experiences and we both wonder if perhaps bear have a behavioral mode that "triggers" in a bear that shuts off normal behavior and another script kicks in. Hard to explain but something happens in a bear that turns off "normal" and turns on some alternate pattern of acting. One or any number of other modes of behavior.

Anyway, now every time we hunt the area we'll have in the back of our mind that there could be a bear close by that has zero normal fear of humans.


He should have shot that bear.