Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada Bear attack video

And rifles. Wanstall's in Maple Ridge BC brings in some nice Chiappa 92s with rubberized stocks in .357, .44 mag. and even .45-70 with barrels as short as 12", fitted with Skinner sights. They're also take-downs. These I think are the same as Taylor & Co. import into the US, but with min. 16" barrels to comply with Federal regs.


Couldn't help thinking of this cartoon:

BC, thanks for the great stories.

Can't blame Mom for protecting her cubs.

I had the misfortune of having to shoot 4 bears last summer in the Arctic at close range in DLP situations. I used a 12 ga with 3" Winchester slugs in all but one situation. The other I used a 308 with 150 grain Remington Corelokts as I did NOT want a pass through no matter what.

I never found the slugs lacking, some were complete penetration and some were recovered. I carried a pump 12 ga in a shop-made rack on the visor of my work van every day. I happened to have the 308 handy when we were having problems with a bear visiting the hangar.

Several in town told me that they had tried everything and did not like the results they got with buckshot.

I suspect that the Dead Coyote 00 3" and 3 1/2" magnum loads would prove much better. They do pattern amazingly well.

When i contemplate the use of buckshot i am only referring to a charging bear where i would be shooting at its face. I know buckshot would not penetrate the body enough to normally have a dramatic deterrent effect.

Dennis, do you think 00 would have some pellets penetrate the brain if the bear were hit in the face. Also, if a berar were charging and you were using slugs, where would you be aiming, please?

And you BC?

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/gallery/80/medium/55243.jpg


I can't figure out how to make this come up but I shot this bear at about 10' in the forehead and dropped it instantly with a slug.


I think if you shot a black bear in the face at 10' with 00 buck there is a good chance a pellet or two would hit the brain. A slug is almost a sure thing. Even if it didn't penetrate it would knock the bear out and you would have lots of time to make Swiss cheese with the rest of your rounds.

Bears and bows.........

Skip to 12 min mark and start there

jaguartx;
Good morning to you sir, I hope that this second Sunday in July is as bright and clear down in your part of Texas as it is up here across the medicine line.

My personal experience with buckshot is limited to testing only, so I am not able to say what it might do in the real world. Again that one BC provincial biologist was adamant that buckshot didn't work in the situation he talked about, but he was reluctant to offer too many details other than it failed.

Currently my theory is that I'm looking for as much straight line penetration as I can get, because the shot will most likely be front on with the animal advancing.

I'll just sidetrack a wee bit here to say that my hunting partner and his then significant other, along with my good wife and I were witness to a small - 5' to 5½' at most blonde phase black bear chasing a mulie heifer. The heifer ran downhill on a steep mountain - we all estimated that she was making at least 25' per bound and she was going for all she was worth, right?

Here's the thing, that little stinker came within a whisker of catching her! Until we'd seen that, we'd heard bears couldn't run downhill, didn't run that fast anyway....... The bear in the video walked up to those guys compared to what we saw jaguartx - that's the only way I can put it. One of us described it as a blur of motion.

So that taken into account and talking to other folks like my buddy in the Yukon who has been there when a lot of bears shuffled off this mortal coil, I'm planning on getting one shot - if I'm extremely lucky - before it gets up close and personal. The shot may be at contact range - that's to say stuff the barrel on it's neck, etc and pull the trigger.

The target - as I imagine it only - will be the center of the blur coming my way. I run the big Dual Glo beads from Tru-Glo on any social arms I modify as they're about as good as I've found for low light. I envision putting the big bead in the middle and praying that the Good Lord guides it to something vital.

On the same topic, we absolutely discuss shot placement on a bear which has a person down. This is vitally important, as a chap in the Kootenays was being mauled by an interior grizzly and his son in law shot it off him with a .338. The bullet exited the grizzly, blew the guy's knee apart and he ended up getting the leg amputated as I recall.

This is in no way a condemnation of the son in law either, as the situation would be chaotic at best and the person being mauled would be flailing all limbs at first, or surely could be.

Our plan is to place a slug through the hip socket/pelvic girdle first in that situation, then reassess and see where the next one can be sent safely.

Anyway, I hope that made sense and was useful to someone out there this morning. As well it goes without saying that I hope and pray no one needs to use the training or equipment to prevent or stop a bear attack.

All the best to you this summer jaguartx.

Dwayne

That's insane. Who shoots a bear in the head with a bow? If he had missed that spot by a small amount or the bear had moved at the shot he would surely have been mauled to death. That's just crazy IMO. Dead bear or not! LOL.

Not just that, but his back up could not have shot because he moved between the rifle and the bear!

Hookeye;
Good afternoon to you sir, I hope all is going according to plan this weekend for you and this finds you well.

Thanks for the video, though I've got to say it gave me fair pause before responding, you know?

When we're teaching the BC Hunter Safety course now we spend a bit of time talking about what is and is not appropriate to post on social media. There are things which perhaps are too graphic, etc and then there's the times where the folks in the video get outhouse lucky and others might surmise that they can have similar luck.

As mentioned, I've seen bears move in earnest and it's jaw dropping to see how quick they are. Also of course anyone who has been bow hunting or around bow hunters knows how animals can jump the string - especially when they're looking right at the bow hunter.

Really, this chap should just buy lotto tickets now as he's got to be the luckiest I could ever imagine - or maybe that used up all his remaining luck.... who knows?

Knowing what I do, which admittedly isn't all that much, I couldn't recommend the course of action he took, but it did work for him that time.

Thanks again and all the best to you this summer.

Dwayne

Yeah BC.............it is a funky video.

Tim Wells is kind of an alien with a bow LOL

Impressive.

I guarantee at that shot angle of a broadside slightly quartering away IMHO, he missed BIG TIME. That head shot was a pure accident.

I wonder if there are any other bears running around with arrows in there head or other areas in the body from this dude ? that was a terrible decision to shoot for the head of a bear ,that`s a rookie thing to do ? other thing did he just miss the better shot by that much ? this rookie dude is dang lucky and very foolish, sooner or later a bear will be eating human meat if he continues to hunt bears with a bow.

Could have screwed up. Doubt it.

Sounds like the quality motto at a place I once work: Maybe we can get away with it this time.

I think he is extremely confident of his abilities. I also think, from watching many of his hunts, that he intentionally shot that bear in the head hoping to avoid having his guide shoot it with a rifle.

Would most of us try that? Probably not but we are not Wells. The guy is gifted with a bow.

Wells is gifted. I'd have thought him not that stupid though, but maybe he is that stupid.

I've shot stuff in the head with arrows on purpose too. And once not on purpose. But to do it on dangerous game, alerted, about to move at any second, at a distance, well thats beyond stupid, not quite sure what word I should be using.

Dwayne,

Thanks for posting this video and starting the thread. I've been waaaay too busy with real life its ownself for the past 6-8 months to spend much time here on the 'Fire, but it's nice to start catching up with such excellent threads as this one.

I like your shotgun choices. I'd be happy to carry any of those in the Canadian bear woods.

As you may recall, I've posted before that I spent a lot of time backpacking in Alberta's bear country in the 43 years I spent there prior to fleeing the collapse of the Canadian healthcare system. Most of that time was in areas one can't carry or use a firearm, mostly the mountain national and provincial parks. I had dozens of bear encounters in those years, at ranges from 50 yards down to bad-breath distance. None of those was violent in any way, and I'm thankful I had good training/education in bear behavior and avoidance of bear attacks so that they were all benign situations. But I have to say that as the numbers of bears increased in the 80's and 90's, as hunting pressure on bears was scaled back by Alberta's Fish & Wildlife Division, I noticed bears were a lot more willing to get close to humans, and I stopped hiking in the mountain parks and started hiking and fishing on Crown lands where I could go armed.

When I was able to carry a firestick, I carried a Model 12 pump gun loaded with C.I.L. 1-oz. slugs. I did so because that's what I was trained in using back when I was doing bear biology work as an undergraduate at UofC, working with Fish & Wildlife. (This was back before they invented dinosaurs, you understand.) I took the shotgun slug course from F&W back then, and felt (and still feel) that a 12-ga. slug is sufficient bear medicine for anyone. I know a lot of fellers believe in the power of a handgun for bear defense, but having been up close and personal with bruins many times, I have less faith in a handgun than most guys seem to have. That being said, I do carry a sidearm in the bear woods now that I live and hunt in the Lower 48, but it's definitely an item of last resort. But as Phil Shoemaker proved a couple years ago, a fellow who knows how to use it effectively can kill an attacking bear with a 9mm pistol. Not that Phil didn't wish he had something bigger in his hands at the time, as I recall him writing...

Anyways, I carried my old pump shotgun for bear defense. I rigged my Model 12 with a sling like yours, pulled the plug out of the magazine so it would hold 5 rounds of slug, and carried it at all times in bear country. I slung it muzzle down on my left shoulder for rapid deployment in an emergency when on the trail (I learned that trick from a Finn Aagard article, tried it, and found it was much faster than slinging the rifle over my dominant shoulder. I slung it muzzle-up across my chest while flyfishing... this does interfere with one's casting, I admit, but one learns to deal with it.

I did fire a warning shot on what I believe was a predatory black bear, one time. This was in the late 80's in the Swan Hills, which is a country lousy with bears (both black and griz) then and now. I put a slug into the dirt between the bear's front paws at a range of about 30 yards, and it swapped ends and didn't bother me further. That was the one and only time I used it in any manner of bear encounter, but if I hadn't had it to use that day, I expect I'd have been reported missing and my bones might never have been found. Can't say how I knew it at the time, but there was and is no doubt in my mind that that bear was stalking me for its dinner. Anyways, I scared it off with that shot, and was damn glad I had that shotgun in my hands for the long walk back up the trail to the car.

If I still lived up there now, I expect I'd use a rifle rather than slug gun, either a fast lever rifle such as a 45-70 Marlin Guide Gun or a Winchester 1886; or a Savage 99 or Browning BLR chambered in .358 Win, like the M99 I took my 2 black bears last spring with. Or a Remington 760 pump rifle would be a good choice for a man more accustomed to a pump gun than a lever gun. But as your wildlife officer pointed out, the improved penetration of a good rifle bullet will likely work better than any shotgun slug.

Just some random thoughts on this.