i have only faced a griz and her cub once on a narrow trail to clear cut.My friend had a 308 win and i had a 7Rem Mag, this was 19 yrs ago. We were 40-50ft from them when they popped out of the brush, i whispered head shots only as the scope was full of the sow bears head. we waited them out and after some chomping licking the air and standing on tippy toes they went their way. The next season we had 338 winchesters with 250gr bullets and feeling a little better when walking. After thinking about it, i do not rush down a trail at dusk anymore, I leave time to walk slowly and observe my surroundings on the way to the hunting spot. Short , light, big bore, scoped down to 1.5 or 2x, slick functioning rifle is what will see you through these encounters, plus learning not to shoot unless absolutely neccessary as all hell breaks loose when you pull that trigger. A 35 whelen is good for this activity as are the various 9.3's. 375 HH generally need to be modified to foefill this function. Whn on the ground i like a good medium , when traveling from place to place a 3006 is good as well as for November deer hunting as the bears have gone to sleep. Your experience may vary.
Good post,FP!
That is exactly what I had when I had a guy from California and one from the Prairies hunting Elk near White Swan in 1979. A really gorgeous Grizzly came up to within 10 yds. of us, their rifles were in the Suburban and I had my Ruger 77-7mmMag. with 4x Leupy shooting 175 WW PPs in my hands.
These two gents were solid but neither had ever seen a Grizz before, especially that close and the Yank had worked in Yellowstone quite a bit, while the other chap had only hunted deer. The besr was just curious and very calm, but, still, it does tend to make you kinda AWARE, you might say....I never went elk hungting again without one of my .338s and still don't.
Last season, we were in the Chilcotin, about 20K into South Chil. Park., packed in by one of the worst losers I have ever met and there were fresh tracks every morning, all week, at the waterhole about 200 yds. from our camp. I had a matched pair of P-64 .338s and my buddy had his custom ZG-47-9.3sx64 in carefully selected spots at the camp and all was cool.
So, I agree with you, FP, I do exactly what you do and I am quite confident in the .338, 9.3 or .375, any of these will work. It CAN be hard not to just shoot and kill the bear, but, that's not what I consider acceptable, just like killing game and leaving the meat to rot.
