Chuck Jonkel, a long-time bear biologist in western Montana, once killed a radio collared bear he was looking for and got accidentally too close. She came boiling over a log pile at him at close range. All he had was a fully loaded Colt Woodsman .22 pistol, and she dropped on his last shot through the eye into the brain. I never heard the size of the grizzly.
I remember Chuck, I remember he spent some time in th B.C's Flathead Valley( north fork). In the 80's
I got to know Chuck some when I was a wildlife biology major at the University of Montana--where he taught, along with being a field biologist. He spent more time around bears than most bear guides, and among other things was one of several biologists made a pretty long trip into northern Mexico to see if any grizzlies still existed there. They did find one bear that had the appearance of a grizzly, but without a biological test could not be certain. (According to most sources the last Mexican grizzly was killed in 1976, but there's an awful lot of very empty country in Sonora, and other parts of northern Mexico.)
His son Jamie has been the bear management specialist for Montana, Fish, Wildlife & Parks for many years now, and in fact is nearing retirement age. (Apparently bears are in the Jonkel DNA.) A cousin of mine went to high school with Jamie, and knows him pretty well.
