Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Grizzly killed 'experienced hiker' in Yellowstone.

Finally checked out this thread to see why it was going on so long, and it mostly turned out to be the SOS about bear spray vs. firearms. The exception turned out to be Travis's posts, which tend to rescue Campfire threads from being the SOS.

Udap, the ~$40 stuff from Bass Pro or Cabelas, whichever was more convenient.



I've carried it (almost daily for 12 years)/used it more than most, albeit on dogs.

Seen it work equally well whether it actually hit the charging dog (once) or not (seven times). Seen it have little or no apparent disabling effect after startling that one dog even with a solid full face/close range hit.

I never said bear spray didn't work. Just suggested the blast effect might be what startles the target, and then gave the empty beer can on the nose example of the same.

Dunno why you find that faulty reasoning.



Never said it was 100%, never advised against carrying it.

It worked fer me 100% on dogs (8 for 8) and saved me a bunch because shooting eight dogs inside the city limits over a 12 year period would have required me having an attorney on speed dial.

I would and have carried it in the woods in bear country because I figure I'd have a better chance of it working than with a handgun, but would want a handgun as backup anyways.

Birdwatcher

LMAO..Too bad this wasn't on video.

Is this a cryptic way of calling me an ass hole?

Side note: IGA is all out of Tumbleweed. Wife tells me somebody in Havre keeps buying and drinking them all.




Travis

for some damn reason you were trying to wrangle in that it doesnt work on birds.....for what? it has no bearing on anything cause a bird has lil in common with bears.....course it doesnt work on birds....wild peppers use birds not mammals for seed dispersal....

the blast isnt what works on most bears anymore than a beer can works on most bears....you admitted your aim sucked and then wondered why your results werent all that good....

We did try to get the second encounter recorded or at least a picture. But the lighting is so poor you can't see the bear.




Travis

Buy some cans of wasp spray and go practice under the eves of the barn...

Useful when Dances-With-BF-Bears (Phil Shoemaker) isn't here.

I've always wondered why some here seem to be so confident that they could stop a bear attack with a handgun, other than the fact that they know they'll never need to.

I'll bet almost every one of us has seen a small whitetail deer have both lungs blown out, and then run 100 yards before it drops.

Think about a grizzly closing on you at 45 ft. per second, giving you maybe a couple of seconds to aim and shoot, knowing you better hit the skull or spinal column or you're gonna get mauled.

When a person shoots a grizzly bear in a self defense situation, somebody's almost certain to die. Not so with bear spray.

Forget about guns or bear spray and follow Travis's lead. Empty beer cans will work better, especially if you are the one that emptied the cans.



Moral of the story? Not all encounters with wildlife justify the emptying of your .44 Mag. If you're going into bear country, buy some fugking bear spray.

Too much time spent teaching I guess.



No, I said even though my aim sucked my results were 100%, including on four inbound pits, which generally scare the heck out of me. Every time the blast WAS close to the dog, and startled them into fleeing.

Might be the sudden strong odor startled them too, but I definitely didn't hit them with the spray. They all turned on a dime and ran.

Understand this is eight times the spray was used over literally hundreds of encounters with loose dogs. Most dogs bark from a distance, a few charge but can almost all can be bluffed off, those eight were when the dogs were still inbound anyway, ignoring me. Seemingly intent on attacking my dogs.

The problem is with bear spray is that the jet angle is like 90 degrees from the axis of the can. IMHO the natural tendency is to tilt the can towards the target, hence shooting low. That was my experience.

That last rott where I actually hit it was like six feet away while I was holding my dog close by the collar, it got sprayed full in the face, you could see it on the face of the dog afterwards. Minimal visible effect on the dog besides a brief rub in the grass once it got over the shock of the sudden blast. No whining, no sneezing/hacking/coughing, no apparent distress, just sat there next to the owners who had got it on a leash.



The hard part is trying to find a study where that was demonstrated, if you can find one, please post it here.

Only one I could find was from 1985, on black bears at a dump. The spray application seemingly gentle enough to avoid a startle effect. The reaction of like five bears hit in the eyes was to walk away. One bear kept returning and had to be sprayed point blank three times before it walked away.

I ain't saying they enjoyed it, but they didn't react much like humans would have.

Capsacin works by triggering the pain receptors in mammals, I ain't saying that bears don't have 'em but we're talking about animals that can literally stick their faces into beehives, repeatedly, and chow down on honey and larvae while the enraged bees are launching a full court press.

My experience has been the blast alone appears to work on dogs. And a good thing too, pit bulls are famously indifferent to pain, I ain't at all interested in knowing if they can ignore capsacin too.

Birdwatcher

COCKwatcher,

At then end of the day, your only concern should be all those loose dogs Mexicans are so prone to not GAF about.

No need to sit and worry about a grizz.



Travis

Rattler, I know the point you are making and am in agreement. But my one story using bear spray against a bear shows that there's not many hard and fast rules when it comes to bears.

I was hiking in the Sangre de Christos when a black bear cub ran across the trail in front of me. And sure enough, a few seconds later his mom and another cub that were following him stopped on the side of the trail that the first cub came from.

I was carrying a revolver but did not want to use it unless I really had to, so I took out my bear spray and fired a blast at the ground just to make sure it was pressurized. Momma heard it and ran back in the woods, and let me pass by in a hurry. So in that one case, the noise of the blast did save me from a close up bear encounter.

Black bears are thought to be less sensitive to bear spray. Thankfully it is supposed to work better on grizzly bears.

I know a guy who's used spray on two black bears, one only three feet away, and a blast in the face turned them right around. Dunno if it was the noise or the spray, but neither came back.

While momma bear may be terribly alarmed by a solid blast of keyboard cleaner, I'd not bet my last beer on it.

I'd wager that the olfactory senses of a bear are bit more amazing than most people realize. There's also a very real possibility that the bear you encountered caught the jalapeno-money-shot in her previous life, and had a full recollection the moment you pressed the test button.

Lots of things to consider in a variety of situations but I'm fairly confident a huge dose of cayenne will make a bear sneeze. I'm also fairly confident a 250gr. Keith to the spine will make a bear more tolerable.



Travis

That is fugking AWESOME.

Please sit next to Birdwatcher so you two can spit ball some more material before tomorrow evening.




Dave

The attack occurred in 1960 on the Otokomi Lake Trail (4 miles or so from Rising Sun Campground). The ranger was Al Nelson and the boy was Smitty Parrot, whose father was a ranger. Nelson was up in a tree and saw Smitty being mauled; he jumped down and pulled the bear off him and covered Smitty with his body, suffering horrible wounds.

Im thinking a blast of wasp spray to the face of a black or bear may be more effective than pepper spray.

Have you considered that and what do you think about it Col. Travis.

PS. With respect to your esteemed reply please consider this also as an invitation to GFY.

Dear Texan,

Your logic is sound. For a Texan.

Those that disagree are advised to sniff a cup full of wasp spray, and record the results.

The following day do same with a cup full of OC spray, and record the results.

I'll be right here, at the edge of my seat.



Colonel Dave

(Retired)