Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Major Bear Spray Failure: Carry A Gun !!!

I agree, there can be a time and place for both bear spray and a firearm.

I prefer having a short barrel, pistolgriped 12 gauge slung over my back when busting through creekside brush while fishing in Alaska.

I also find a huge difference between coastal Alaskan Brown Bears and the Grizzlies in Montana.

Alaska's Brown Bears are most often chilled, laid back and could give a schit about your presents.
Montana's Grizzlies on the other hand are seemingly always pizzed off and looking for a fight if you get within a 100 yards of them.

Food source is probably the difference, Alaska's Coastal bears are fat and full of the endless supply of spawning Salmon while Montana's bears spend their days scratching for huckleberries in attempt to get their bellies full.

Whatever the true reason be, Montana's Grizzlies just seem to have a bad attitude all the time.

If I'd shot every Brown Bear in Alaska that I've had close encounters with the River banks where I spend my time fishing would be carpeted with bear hide.

There is a time and place for everything, especially good judgment and having fair knowledge of the animals in the areas you frequent.

If a man is scared of the sight of a bear, he probably shouldn't be fishing Alaska.

This is one of the last legally killed Montana Grizzlies prior to the hunting of them being shut down.

It wasn't a can of bear spray that put him in this condition either.

Yep, just like.

Ya if you were scared driving that snow plowed road last winter you would crap when you finally see a grizzly.

LOL

Damned right!

Carry a big rock...

Some people are good at writing stories

Lmao

Yes..correct.... I have had only one close encounter with a grizzly.. (brown?).... I posted this quite a while back but some may find pertinent to SN's comment:

I had been fishing on the Kenai and Russian Rivers in Alaska for a couple of days. I duly noted how many of the fishermen I encountered were carrying pistols. One day I decided to fish further upstream on the Russian. I came to an area where the river made a wide bend and I cut across this huge meadow to save some time. Nice sunny day about 10:00..... a guide from a previous trip had told that if I fished the up the Russian, I needed to be off the river well before dusk to avoid the bears.... right... OK.... I started across .... the grass was quite high.. almost up to my waist..... Wind was blowing gently across and as I cut across, I noticed the wind made the grass sway like waves.....All was ok....I had my lunch, my fly rod and my pistol in a chest holster inside my waders..... so far so good...

Then I noticed that there was a "disturbance" in the "waves" and something was not right.... then all of a sudden ... I mean right sudden quick the surprised bear stood up.... There he was, about 20 feet away.... and there I was with my fly rod in my right hand and my pistol in the holster. I knew in an instant that the bear had a decision to make.... and I didn't. If he had come at me, there would not have much to do ......except pray that I could get a hand on my pistol while he was shaking and batting me around.....

But, the bear just stood there and so did I....a few seconds passed..... he began to look a bit nervous... he was a young adult.... then he dropped to all fours and ambled off to the river. Whew!


Things can happen very fast and I quickly realized I was not as well prepared as I thought I was.


I had been planning another trip up there this summer, but it now is not gonna happen....already bought a `10mm.... and have a holster that keeps it above my waders... almost up to my chin..... "Inside the wader carry" now seems just plain stupid.


btw... I fished with a young but pretty much savvy Alaskan who carried a 45 ACP in a chest holster. I asked about his choice of pistols.... He said.... "I can hit with it and will shoot until the bear drops or decides he doesn't want to get shot anymore." He told how his father was walking their dog one afternoon and got attacked by a grizzly..... he killed it with that same pistol.

The ones in Africa or Minnesota?

Lol, sure you have.

I feel a lot safer in bear country if my 2 dogs are with me. They are bird dogs but have been around enough bears that they will let me know if something is around. They would have no chance against a bear but would tell me. The 1 dog has chased a few black bears out of the yard and hope she never chases one that wont run.. I would prefer a shotgun with slugs or a hunting rifle. I do carry a 629 as a minimum, my wife carries bear spray. She has pistols to carry but seldom does. When she reads about this attack in the local paper she will be nervous again taking her daily walks.

This aligns with my experience. I, along with several biologists I have talked to have always guessed it was the amount of food (or lack thereof), but for whatever reason MT/WY/ID grizzlies and I presume those in southern interior Canada are way more aggressive than coastal brown bears, and even interior Alaska grizzlies.

I wouldn't go kick a coastal bear in the nuts or anything, but they're not in the same league as the lower 48 mountain bears when it comes to aggressiveness.

That would have been a Coastal Alaskan Brown Bear or Ursus Arctos by my definition anyway.

The way I see the difference is a Brown Bear either lives coastal or migrates to coastal rivers or streams for the summer Salmon run.
Salmon make up the bulk of their diet.

Inland Alaskan Grizzlies make no attempt to exclusively feed on Salmon, their diet consists of the various things all bears might eat including a little Salmon they find in the inland streams.

They are all omnivorous and all the same family.

Boone and Crockett defines the differences by region and geographical lines for record keeping since they have different categories for both.

If looked at closely their definition makes little sense and also makes it obvious why their record book Grizzlies come from where they do.

I think what most often skews the opinion of most novices and some that consider themselves experienced or even experts when it comes to Grizzlies is that 99% of their encounters with bears have been in parks or other similar enviroments where the bears have become conditioned to people.

Wild bears don't act like park bears.

In my opinion lower 48 park bears are some of the most dangerous bears on earth because they are totally unpredictable.
They can go from posing for the camera to tearing you a new azz in a heartbeat.

Add a food cache to the picture and there is sure to be an issue.

Majority of the times you have a encounter with a Grizzly the bear has been aware of you long before you became aware of it being in the area. This always gives the bear the upper hand with the encounter, you can bank on that.

Bear Spray is for making the libtards feel good about themselves. It is useless much like they are.

[.[/quote] I agree, there can be a time and place for both bear spray and a firearm.

I prefer having a short barrel, pistolgriped 12 gauge slung over my back when busting through creekside brush while fishing in Alaska.

I also find a huge difference between coastal Alaskan Brown Bears and the Grizzlies in Montana.

Alaska's Brown Bears are most often chilled, laid back and could give a schit about your presents.
Montana's Grizzlies on the other hand are seemingly always pizzed off and looking for a fight if you get within a 100 yards of them.

Food source is probably the difference, Alaska's Coastal bears are fat and full of the endless supply of spawning Salmon while Montana's bears spend their days scratching for huckleberries in attempt to get their bellies full.

Whatever the true reason be, Montana's Grizzlies just seem to have a bad attitude all the time.

If I'd shot every Brown Bear in Alaska that I've had close encounters with the River banks where I spend my time fishing would be carpeted with bear hide.

There is a time and place for everything, especially good judgment and having fair knowledge of the animals in the areas you frequent.

If a man is scared of the sight of a bear, he probably shouldn't be fishing Alaska.

This is one of the last legally killed Montana Grizzlies prior to the hunting of them being shut down.

It wasn't a can of bear spray that put him in this condition either.

[/quote]

JeffA,

Thanks for your comments. I agree about the effect of food sources on various grizzly/brown bears, and have mentioned that factor several times in various magazine articles and books.

I was born and raised and live in Montana, and encountered my first grizzly at age eight. Have encountered so many since that I can't count all of them, but would disagree that "Montana's Grizzlies just seem to have a bad attitude all the time."

That has not been my experience, and in fact have been bluff-charged more by Alaskan brown bears than grizzlies in Montana. So far neither my companions or I have had to shoot any Montana grizzlies, either with a firearm or spray-can, and the encounters have included bears from the Bob Marshall and surrounding wilderness areas to those encountered while pheasant hunting near St. Ignatius in the Flathead Valley. It's somewhat startling when your Labrador flushes a grizzly instead of a rooster--and yes, some people have been charged and mauled in those situations. Luckily I was not.

I've also spent considerable time in Glacier Park, including a week with its "bear rangers" some years ago doing an assignment for a major national magazine. During the week saw several bears, including one hanging out near the back-country chalet where a ranger and I stayed, something they closely monitor. Eventually the bear ranger and I found the reason the boar hung around was a mountain goat carcass it had been feeding on, 100 yards from one of the main trails. During our discovery, the bear came out on the trail between me and the ranger, only a few feet away--then looked at both of us once, and turned back off the trail.

The next I got to accompany several rangers while they "hunted" the bear with a tranquilizer gun. The most interesting part occurred after the bear was darted, whereupon it dived into the nearby brush. The drug's effect last at most half an hour, and the time was getting close to that before we found the bear lying in a small clearing. When one of the rangers poked it from behind with his slug gun, the bear roared, rolled over and bit the barrel--but luckily wasn't "awake" enough to stand up. He received another dart, and I got to photograph a helicopter hovering overhead to fly the bear away to a more remote part of the park. (There's more to that story, involving a tourists' lost toy poodle....)

Anyway, my experience has been with a variety of Montana grizzlies, including park bears, wilderness bears and those very conditioned to humans, in the lower country near mountains. For the past 31 years I have lived in a southwestern Montana valley. Grizzlies started showing up in the mountains on the west side of the valley in the 90s, because unknown to the public they were "trouble bears" being dropped off in a wilderness study area. When people started reporting them, officials first claimed they had to be brown-phase black bears--but then some of the bears got photographed, and were definitely grizzlies, whereupon the truth came out. (Even then, however, the officials claimed all the transplants were male, so they wouldn't reproduce. Then, of course, somebody got a photo of one of those "male" bears with 3 cubs. )

Lately grizzlies have also started showing up in the mountains on the east side of the valley. My wife and I have fished and hunted the mountains on both sides of the valley a lot, and haven't had an encounter with a bad-attitude grizzly yet. But that doesn't mean we're not prepared, and not just with bear spray but firearms from handguns on up. In fact a couple years ago I purchased a 16-gauge drilling with an 8x57 rifle barrel to hunt local upland birds, both in the mountains and in the valley, because I am sure that like the Flathead Valley some grizzlies will eventually end up in the local pheasant cover.

Our daughter and SIL were in Yellowstone a few years back. SIL dutifully bought and carried bear spray. A ranger came by and warned them that a mother bear with cubs was nearby, so the SIL removed the safety tab on his bear spray and put it in his oversized front shorts pocket.

Nobody saw the bear, but my SIL insists he was eaten alive... ...

When I am out in the bushes, which is everyday, I don't go anywhere without the rifle or 12ga, no bear spray here, although it is a good idea.
A firearm is the only tool that puts you back on top of the food chain, not bear spray.

Got any proof that he was anti bear hunting activist, he was a guide and a hunter from what I find.

British Columbia, eh?
I spent a summer way out in the woods in BC, up near Manson Creek. We were riding horses into the wild and camping out. There are lots of grizzlies up there.
We didn't see any thank God all we had was a 20gauge/22 LR over under gun from Savage. We were naive kids from Georgia and lucky not to have a run in with a bear.

You forgot the “file off the front sight”.

I used a revolver on a bear that came in on a Moose killed and it worked to perfection and only 2 shot required