Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Guide and hunter mauled, guide missing

I wonder if he really had a gun at all??

That’s a sad deal, only one person knows the story and I’m sure it will come out. I carry a 44 mag in a crappy uncle mikes holster when bow hunting in grizz country. I want my gun strapped to my hip with retention.

Only one person knows the story and it will all come out when the lawyers are done coaching him.

Before or after the client was asked to show his proficiency with his bow, there should have been a walk-thru plan on big game hunting and retrieval in grizzly country.

So you know that didn't happen? Please share all of the inside information you have. Certainly you're not speculating and talking out your azz again.....right?

Pinedale or bust!

SRM,

My God, we saw the rescue choppers at work while we were at Jenny Lake before we met up you at Signal Mnt.

I suddenly have a whole new attitude about hiking around this part of the world. Damn!

Bottom line is you could become bear schitt if you don’t go in fully prepared! Always go fully prepared in bear country, such a terrible
Tragedy that coulda been avoided with more preparedness.

The part I find confusing is: "Search and Rescue personnel were unable to locate Uptain before the search was suspended for the evening.Search and Rescue personnel were unable to locate Uptain before the search was suspended for the evening."

How far away from the hunter was the guide eventually found?

GoFundMe link on Bowsite Forum. Left behind wife and five kids.

Should I find myself hunting in grizzly country, I’ll make in known to my hunting partner that they are to empty their sidearm into any bear that finds its way on top of me. I’d far rather die from a well intentioned gunshot wound than be mauled to death by a bear.

Being prepared is mighty ambiguous. You could enter bear country with a rifle or pump action shotgun loaded with buckshot and slugs and still get mauled. Anyone that thinks he is better than the bear is soon to get an education. I have spent my life in the woods with these bears and I know going in, I could get into a terrible situation, but being prepared will always be too little when you get mauled...

Having an alert an armed sentry when hunched over a day old kill in grizzly country is not ambiguous.

How much time have you spent in grizzly country?

Godspeed to the guide and his bereaved family.

Fact is, none of us were there. Speculation is stupid.

A few years ago while bow hunting Island Park not too far from Yellowstone we were seeing big bear tracks everywhere. I killed my elk early in the season but continued to go up and call for my friend that called mine in for me. I carried my call, my 45/70 guide gun loaded with 350 grain hornady flat noses at almost 2100 fps and my 329 pd full of 300 grain xtps.

I was sitting in the truck waiting for my friend to squat in the woods when a warden pulled up to check me. He asked what I was doing with the rifle and I told him I had already tagged out but was carrying it while I called for my friend because we had seen so much bear sign. He said they had caught 13 different Grizzlies in a live trap that summer just a mile or so up the road towards the store. I asked where they were relocated too and he said they weren't relocated just tagged or collared and released again. He said they are all likely still in the area and a hunter just up the road had just saw 3 together at the same time.

He the proceeded to tell me I shouldn't carry the guns I should just get bear spray. I told him I was more comfortable with the guns. He said you'll think that until you use them and the Feds come down on you and ruin your life. He said even if it is self defense you better have some serious injuries if you shoot a griz because the Feds will investigate it like crazy and do everything they can to ruin your life. He said you can try to fight it in court but they'll bankrupt you in the process and likely let a murderer out of jail to make room for you. He said they bring in teams in helicopters and do intense forensic and crime scene investigation whenever a hunter injures a griz. He was cool about which idaho fish and game cops aren't always. He said he was just letting me know how bad it can get if you defend yourself against a bear with a gun. That was under the Obama regime a few years ago so maybe it's less intense now.

Bb

Yeah, I will believe this only after seeing some credible information.

This is why I don’t go into bear countries without my shotgun, I hope their okay and find their way back home to their families.

My impression is that authorities in Alaska are not nearly as protective of the bears in such a situation. I do know that they require you to forfeit the dead bear and file a report. Of course, Alaska is not short on bears.

However, if anyone can correct this, feel free.

Norm

Black bears have become common with around 40 miles as the crow flies from Manhattan. Predictably, a hiker was run down and killed by in NJ by a large male bear a few years back, and nuisance bears are now a given around the Delaware Water Gap and the West Point area. We’re just talking black bears here, hundreds of encounters, very rare attacks.

But, the thought of having to hike disarmed in New York State sorta sucked the joy out of the concept; every time I encountered a bear the bear would get to call the shots. Then I think of people sharing the woods with friggin grizzlies

Someone mentioned mountain men. I dunno if grizzlies were actually more aggressive back then. Consider the abundance of grizzlies and then consider the abundance of food odors around any sort of Indian camp. No bear bags in trees, no elaborate precautions. One wonders how they managed to sleep nights.

Some guys proactively took the war over to the grizzlies, traditionally by combat rather than assassination, picking fights with them to collect the claws. IIRC the mortality rate on both sides was about 50%. The Sauk Fox leader Black Hawk from Illinois did this twice as a young man, having to sneak through the territory of the enemy Pawnee (whole magnitudes more dangerous than even grizzlies) coming and going to get to griz territory, going out alone each time, months afield.

I suspect humans were very much a rival apex predator back then, and bears had reason to avoid us. At the very least they were subject to unprovoked attack and serious injury or death when around humans. For today’s grizzlies, not so much.