Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 2 Grizz Attack’s in Montana in One Day !!!

So very true.

They closed another nearby popular hunting trailhead, Buffalo Horn, day before yesterday due to a dead horse on the trail. It will be closed one to two weeks while grizzlies mop up the carcass.

Damn, mountainside self made buffet.

Thanks for the real world experiences Doc, in that case, i'll be glad the ones I didn't see moved on before I got there and decided to leave me be.

i would have to agree with this statement! plus i may carry a 44 mag always when bowhunting in bear country,but if a bear`s on top of me i sure hope someone shoots that bear and to heck with bear spray ! as a old friend said once to me when we were up in the mountains by Yellowstone park with plenty dang bears we were about 10 miles from camp with about 6-8 inches of snow ,we were on mules and my mule stop and made one heck of a mule scream and a sow and 2 cubs came out about 30 yards away out of a thick spot and ran away.this is what my old Marine friend said: that`s a good bear, i then asked him this :while he was sitting on his mule and he was also holding his 338 Win. Mag. rifle > what if that bear would have came our way? that old Marine said this : dead bear. i never said anything more or asked anything else about bears but did now understand why he insisted us to use 338 Win.Mags. and bring a hand ax and a portable army shovel on this elk hunt. plus when we got back down and went to a gas station a Warden walked up to me and said this : so you guys were hunting by the park ,you guys need to buy a can of bear spray and if you shoot a bear it better have some bear spray on the muzzle of that bear before i get there, i said ok. that old Marine friend was laughing and asked me : do you understand what that Warden meant ? YEP I DO with a Grin,Pete53

Did bears kill the 13 cattle or something else ?

I was hunting up around Salmon , ID. and saw some huge bear tracks and realised that I would never carry a 25-06 in a place like that again .

If a hunter is threatened life & limb by a grizzly/black bear - he shoots it - is there a written law that he has to report it to the authorities ?

Great campfire story.

Most places I would assume so. In AK for certain it must be reported and you are responsible for salvaging the skull and hide. Every Feburary the state auctions them off.

In the lower 48 if you don'y report it they will have a crime scene forensic lab like CSI investigating and trackin your azz down for killin a precious bear.....

Yep, and it wont be as sorry as the Warren Comis.

Binoculars work too.

How much time lapsed between the attack and when bear spray was applied? It is entirely possible that during that short period of time that the situation was moving blazingly fast. I guess the bear could have been sitting perfectly still, but I suspect not. With bear spray a stream can be guided into a moving target or a fog can be applied to a broad area with no risk to the human. Being that we weren't there and the survivor is in in good condition, I don't reckon I'll be second guessing from the comfort of my living room and only a nugget of factual information.

I'm not second guessing the hunters. And, I agree with you in that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE (as I've already said).

Did you read the thread? I reported that I didnt think about the guys being bow hunting. I'm now second guessing you either didnt read tbe thread or that you forgot what was said.

We do have one critical fact: a bear richly in need of killing was not.

exactly. I now work in bear country every day. You simply don't see most of them. Open country or not.

Very well stated and a great comparison IMHO

I know a lot of guys pack a G20 for defense, but I always figured if I am using a pistol for bear defense, there is a damn good chance the bear is going to be at contact distance. So I use a revolver, because I will be jamming that muzzle into his chin or throat or whatever the next most lethal target is that I can reach, and pulling that trigger until the bear dies, leaves, or makes me stop, Or the gun is empty. Don’t need an auto going out of battery because some adrenaline-soaked klutz jammed it into something soft. I currently have a Ruger Blackhawk .44 my father in law left me, but will be switching to a Redhawk as soon as I can turn loose of the money. Less motor skills required to operate a double action, and I want every bit of help I can get when I default to my base skill level.

I get the impression a lot of guys who do consider how to plan for a bear attack either don’t know or forget to consider how they will function in that situation. Hence the autos, and talk of rates of fire. We aren’t talking about a human running at you with a knife. We are talking about something as much as three or four times your weight coming at you at least three times faster than a man, and maybe even from less than 5 yards. Or hitting you from the side or behind almost simultaneously with you becoming aware of its presence. If that happens, you will be lucky to get one shot before you are in contact and maybe on the ground. For a charging bear I will use the spray if I have time. But on the ground? You want to introduce that into your wrestling match? Degrade your abilities even further? Not me. Give me a .357 or bigger with hard cast bullets in every chamber. I use the .44 because that is the largest caliber I feel comfortable using other than 45 Colt, and it’s what I have. Main thing is penetration to a lethal target from close or contact distance. Bullets matter more than headstamps, as some are fond of saying. But the platform needs to be simple, rugged, and operable at contact distance. The autos miss that goal for me.

It has always amazed me that people go into known bear country without an effective means of defense. You don’t get to pick whether or not you see a bear, nor how that bear will decide to react to you, so you should plan for the worst. You will probably never have a problem. But if you do, the preparation for dealing with it may well decide the outcome. I don’t live in fear of anything, but I consider what can happen and take steps to make sure I can deal with it as well as is possible. When it doesn’t happen, that is a good day. If it does happen, I am as ready as I can be.

Someone mentioned a lanyard to make sure they don’t lose the pistol. I like that idea, but wonder what happens if something catches it and jerks the gun out of the hand? Seems if you make the lanyard strong enough to be of any use in a bear attack, it would be strong enough to break your grip or strangle you if things went haywire. Just something to consider.

i recently bought a lanyard for a p320/m17 that i think is pretty cool. has adjustible kevlar like belt loop attached to a snap press section which goes to the coiled coated cable. You can remove it quite easily. wasn't thinking of bears particularly but didn't want the handgun to get out of reach of my hand.

I would want the lanyard to be able to release on both ends, since you don’t need a pissed off bear wrapped up in a lanyard that is strongly attached to either you or the gun. Same goes for a PCP- crazed perp, by the way. Cables and similar are simply a snagfest in a wrestling match. No matter who or what it’s with. Of course, with the human, good retention tactics usually suffice. With a bear? Not so much.

"A British Officer will rarely need his revolver, but when he does he will need it badly."

Forget exactly where I read that quote, but in the latter half of the 19th Century I believe the Brits lead the world in the development and application of practical fighting handguns.

They went to lanyards early on.