Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Bears , some funny stuff sometimes

Couple instances come to mind , at one time I lived back next to the Blue Ridge Park way , we had bears out the whazoo , black bears .
Went out on the porch and I had left a couple of bags of trash with intentions of going to the dump that morning . Hadn't seen any in a while so that is why I had gotten careless with the trash .
There up in the back of my truck was a bear getting a bag . Guess he wasn't comfortable eating in the bed , so he stands up and has the bag across his mouth and the truck is about twenty feet from me . He looks at me and walks upright to the back of the truck and steps over the tailgate , it was a GMC 1 ton and the bumper was lower than the bed , so when he stepped over he lost his balance and tumbled to the ground in a dust bowl , as it had been very dry for some time . He got up , shook it off , dust a flying and picks his bag back up and walks to the front of the truck , sets the bag down and looks at me like WHAT ? Turns his attention back to the bag and takes both paws and rips the middle out and sticks his head in and starts snooping . At this point , I decided this was enough , fired two rapid shots into a tree and he hauled butt .
Then another time I had harvested a doe , quartered it up and had it on ice in a cooler . Was sleeping and woke up to a noise , mmm that sounds like ice rattling in a cooler , then again , that is ice rattling in a cooler .
Got up got my pistol , opened the bedroom door real easy and there is this big black ass pointing at me , the cooler is on it's side with his head in the cooler and lid across the back of his neck . Tapped my wife on the foot and pointed to the door , she had a look and smiled . I stepped out onto the stoop and rapidly stomped my feet yelling what are you doing ?
Lmao , he let out a big bawl and scrambled , cooler still on his head and oh [bleep] ! Headed right for the side of my pick up .
Just as he was about to collide the cooler came rolling off and he saw the truck , not breaking speed but hanging a hard right you could see gravels kicking off his claws as he barely missed my truck , letting out another bawl and digging feet to the darkness .

It was hilarious . Any body got some bear stories ?
Kenneth

A teen son and I watched a black bear feeding 75 yards below us in an alpine meadow lush with a 3 foot high plant that had big pulpy stems and leaves. The bear would plop down in the middle of a cluster of those plants and eat all that he could reach without getting up. Then he would look around, sigh as if vexed by the effort it took, and roll over to get within reach of more of the choice plants, never getting up on his feet.

Once in awhile he would have to get up and walk a few steps to another patch, and he would sigh, delay and carry his body as if it was a terrible effort.

Those are good!

This spring my folks had mailed back to me a dinner triangle i’d made on the forge twenty years ago, and i set it on the chair on the porch momentarily. It was wrapped in pink bubble wrap. Woke up to a “Thud!” ... “Thud!” ..... Bear trying to eat my dinner triangle (and dropping it), probably after that tasty bubble wrap. Or maybe he just liked popping those bubbles - who can resist?

I can spend hours watching bears when they don't know that they're being watched. On one fly out bear hunt I located a bear and sat down to eat my lunch while the mosquitoes lunched on me. He was several hundred yards away and had no clue I was there. I determined that while he was a mature bear for the area he wasn't what I was looking to kill so I watched his follies and enjoyed the show. He would stop to eat and paw at something interesting and then for no reason other than playful he'd roll downhill or sit on his ass and "sled" downhill. I watched him for a little over 3 hours until my buddy came back. I pointed out the bear to my buddy and we watched him eat, poop and sled until he was dizzy as he playfully made his way to an outcropping of rocks that concealed his winter hide. He worked his way into his den and took a nap. After watching and laughing at his goofing around for half a day I'd grown attached to the goofball and even if he'd have been a bit bigger I don't think I'd have taken him. He was around 250# and was a black bear living in brown bear country so I figured he had to work at survival. His den was about as high in elevation as the terrain would allow and winter was quickly coming to the high mountains of Alaska on that first weekend of September. He had his spot in the world chosen and I marveled at the adaptation that would allow him to survive in such a harsh, beautiful but unforgiving environment. At that moment the hunter in me was temporarily replaced by the feeling of being so small and insignificant in this magnificent place and I was merely an outsider looking in, a trespasser that had been treated to natures comedian in an all but empty auditorium.

This would make my pants smell funny, Ace.

Just remembered another one , the bear and the raccoon , this happened shortly after moving there . I didn't realize I was in that much bear territory . I had dumped a fifty pound bag of corn about 25 yds in the woods in front of the house , the yard here I mowed with a weed eater , lol , when you walked out the door , four to five steps and you where in the woods .
Anyway , one night I opened the door to see what if anything was munching on the corn , there set this decent sized bear on it's butt munching out , he would reach down get a mouth full and set back upright eating and looking around , no one had lived here for a few years so I guess he had no fear . i shined a light on him to get a. Better look and there on the ground sat a raccoon about 3-4 feet beside him eating away . I remember thinking what the hell ? Couldn't believe the bear was sharing his grub , when suddenly without warning the bear smacked the ground hard beside the coon , it looked as though it flipped over backward getting out of there , had a hearty laugh , watched the bear a little longer , it showed no concern of me so I went in and had a coffe and watched a little TV .
Soon I was ready to go to bed and walked to the door to see if he was still there , sure enough and there sat the coon again , and again he smacked the ground and the coon hauled ass . I remember thinking this seemed really odd , but thought maybe the bear didn't realize he was there till I shined them .
This time I could see the coons eyes down in the brush just a few feet away , so I turned off the light , waited several minutes and shined the bear again , the bear looked annoyed and looked away , spotted the coon and roared with a sweeping smack this time , the coon barely escaped that one , so I thought I had better quit shinning them before I got the stupid coon killed .
Over time I came to really love this place . Put a lot of hard work into it getting it comfortable , but as they say. All good things must come to an end .
Kenneth

I've got a bunch of bear stories since living in the mountains of Pennsylvania.

Bear season used to be the Mon, Tues, Wed. before Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving day we had the traditional turkey and fixing dinner. Since we live off grid, refrigerator space is at a premium. The wife put the leftover turkey in a coleman cooler and put in on the front porch. We had two feet of snow that day and it was plenty cold. We had just settled into bed when the wife heard something on the porch and got me up. I climbed out of bed and buck naked and opened the front door and off ran a pretty big bear with the coleman cooler in his mouth. He ran about 100 yards and never let that cooler touch the snow, sat down and began eating his Thanksgiving dinner. My wife joined me about then and was pretty upset telling me to go get OUR turkey.

I told her it was the bear's turkey now.

After three days of hard hunting bears, turns out the bear was right here at home.

Whenever I need a laugh, I watch this Bear get hit in the Nuts.

We used to get bears on the front porch often.

One year after prepping a food plot, I had left a jug with round up sitting on the porch. A bear had been there some time during the night and made a mess of the place taking a bite out of everything out there, including the round up. So we cleaned up the mess and got a laugh about the bear getting a taste of round up and wondering if he would lose his hair.

We got a second laugh days later when we could track that bear because he had stepped in the leaking round up and everywhere he went his steps killed the grass.

Usually we had about five buddies staying at our Camp/Home for bear season. These guys liked hunting out the front door as we had bears around a lot.

This particular year, I decided to hunt another area for a change of scenery. I would get up way before everyone and return after dark. The rest of camp hunted here. There was a big bird feeder out in front of the cabin that the bears tore up regularly. Every day when the guys left camp to hunt they would stand up the fallen bird feeder, thinking I was pranking them. They never said a word to me as they didn't want me to think they were on to me.

The morning after season was over we all slept in. After breakfast, as everybody was loading up their trucks, I noticed the bird feeder was laying on the ground and remarked that a bear had been here last night. Finally one of the guys fessed up that that feeder was pushed over every night they were at camp and said they thought I was messing with them. Some bear hunters they are and I never let them forget it.

I had never noticed the feeder as I was leaving in the dark.

One summer the wife was weeding in the garden that has a six foot fence around it to slow the critters down and save some veggies for us. Our dog Dakota would like to come in the garden and would stomp stuff when she was working in there. While she was weeding along she heard this panting and without looking up assumed it was old Dakota back in the garden again and yelled for him to get out. But when the panting continued she looked up to see a bear staring her in the face. She screamed and the bear ran off about 100 yards or so.

I was cutting brush down the lane and she came running up all out of breath and managed to utter "bear". I told her to get the dog and get in the truck. I watched that bear work the edge of our field and figured he was headed for our big bird feeder so I headed for the cabin to get the camera. By the time I got the camera he was at the feeder. That feeder was set at seven feet at the top to keep squirrels discouraged and the bear in the pictures had his head higher than the feeder. Biggest bear I ever saw alive.

Now that feeder was only 15 yard from the front door. I stood there snapping pics from the front porch thinking I could get in the cabin quickly, so I wasn't real concerned. That bear was getting upset that I wasn't leaving and dropped down and false charged me and let out a couple of woofs, but turned back to the feeder and kept eating. He was getting more agitated by the minute and false charged again, but I just kept taking pics. Finally, he turned away and would slam his front paws down with great force as he stomped away, his big belly swaying with every step. Never saw that bear again and never heard of anyone taking him.

Two years later I ran into a spring turkey hunter who was shaken up with a close encounter with a bear. It had to be that big boy as the hunter described the bear as the biggest black bear he ever saw and that his belly swayed with every step. I think he is still out there.

Every time I see that bear get nut shot, I laugh so hard the house females laugh at me.

Great stories all, D. Thanks.

We run into bears while picking berries, especially sub-alpine huckleberries in late summer. One was within 6 or 8 feet on the other side of the bush I was picking. I thought that it was my wife. I'd been listening to her slowly converging, and when "she" got to my bush I spoke to her. A black bear reared up, stared at me and dashed away.

One time three carloads of families were picking an excellent berry patch on a hillside clearcut: kids running around through the rib high bushes, glimpses of a little black dog scampering around, bucket convoys taking berries to the vehicles on the road below. We gathered at a fire by the vehicles and someone asked who brought the dog. Nobody had a dog. The kids said that it was a small bear cub (and those kids saw bears regularly.)

Last summer I was picking huckleberries alone on a power line cut. Within 20 minutes I'd worked my way 60 yards from my vehicle and had to cough. At my cough, a largish black bear reared up 18-20 yards away with a look that said, "Where did you come from?!!" Then he loped away, stopped to look back awhile and loped on out of sight.