irfubar;
Top of the morning to you Brother Fubar and an official Happy New Year from the still dark south Okanagan.
Thanks for your thoughts, I suspect you're not wrong in your theories.
Hopefully it goes without saying how much it galls me that the powers that be in Ottawa have such blatant disregard for the lives of citizens out west and up north that we're prevented from carrying the best tool for the job in order to survive some of the wild encounters.
In one of the James Gary Shelton books, he details the investigation of the killing of two BC hunters just out of Radium in the mid '90's. They'd killed a bull elk, were taking it apart and had two loaded rifles propped nearby if I'm not remembering wrong. The grizzly got the first fellow, then the second fellow's gun jammed I want to say and it got him too.
The CO's killed a sow and either one or two cubs on the kills, but locals and Shelton believed it was actually a bigger male who'd done the deed as there'd been reports of a big male bullying hunters off of their kills in that area for years. When a big male was killed - we could still hunt them then - the next spring, the problems with hunters went away.
In another case of how small the world can be, a good friend and hunting companion used to play rec volleyball with one of the deceased hunter's sister. She said he was not inexperienced by any definition by the way.
Having handled a carcass or three in reasonably tight quarters in bear country, I'd absolutely prefer something on my person in a chest rig rather than a long gun propped nearby. I mean just because I'm a Canuck doesn't necessarily mean I'm stupid....
Necessarily being the key word there one might observe.
Best to you all in 2024, may neither of us need to use what we're packing on a recalcitrant bruin anytime soon.
Dwayne
