This will make you pucker......

Ray

Ray

Well-known member
On our local Alaska forum someone started a thread about having lead slugs on you when duck hunting incase you had to deal with a bear. Over the years I have been completely freaked out when a moose - just a big pile of brown fur - has come close while sitting in the boat or in a shore blind. Usually quickly resolved by keeping and eye on the big pile of fur and waiting until it gets clear to see what it is. It is pretty funny to watch them freak out and run off or in one case swim off after making a good splash behind the boat.

Turns out there is a real life example posted, of all places, on a stiper fishing forum. Good photos.

http://www.stripersonline.com/t/820876/bear-attack-while-duck-hunting

What this thread tells me is what I have known for years...when you have to deal with a bear you have seconds to react. You will not have time to swap out the shot rounds with the slugs and you will just have to deal with it as quickly as possible.

Remember the old joke about the brown river shorts and the red river helmet? Maybe I need some brown duck hunting shorts.
 
Florida has alligators, Alaska grizzlies... NJ seems like a nice safe place to live/hunt right about now.
 
Last fall the wife and I went out to Yellowstone and the Tetons for a week, while there we went up to the Lamar valley to photograph some wildlife and I got more than I bargained for. As you drive along the roads you'll see a bunch of cars pulled over and that usually means wildlife.I've been there several times in the last 30 years and only once did I see a grizzly so I figured I'd get the usual, Elk, Buffalo, Muley's and Moose. I got out of the car and started up the small ridge everyone was standing on. Half way up I said to a guy, what's up there? To which he replied, a bear. I figured probably a black bear and hundreds of yards away. When I topped the ridge I was completely startled by 2 things, 1, no one was running and 2, about a 400 to 600 pound (could've been even bigger) grizzly about 30 to 40 yards away coming right at us! The camera was set to shoot so I squeezed off a burst of shots and turned and ran. Me and another guy were haulin butt down the hill when everyone else got the idea this wasn't safe and in mass everyone ran for their cars, 30 seconds later the bear walks right through all the parked cars! The bear passed within inches of one family staring at this bear like they were safe. I was glad he passed right through and didn't stop for some carry out!

View attachment griiz.jpg

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Several hours later we encountered a female with 2 cubs, (even more dangerous) we were stuck in traffic and couldn't go anywhere, The sow decides to come down the hill and walk along the road with her cubs, at the same time an unknowing woman bicycler rides through the cars and passes within FEET of the mother and her cubs! She couldn't even get to the other side of the road for all the cars! Fortunately the bear paid her no attention and she kept on riding! 5 bucks said she pulled over at the next rest stop to change her undies!!!

View attachment griiz-3.jpg
 
Geez, Ray, that is right where I used to go duck hunting all the time back in the 60s. That is a dandy brown bear.
Had my scares with them on Kodiak.
Thanks for the story.
Al
 
I got those pictures and a few more and an extensive write up last sunday from the retired AK state waterfowl biologist. My response was not fit for this site but I did note that now we need another volunteer to try to take a griz down with 12 shots of #4 steel to conduct the test to see if it is a safe and effective load for griz. Anyone want to volunteer in the name of science?
 
And to think that a mighty beaver slapping its tail on the water behind me scares the crapola out of me. Can' imagine what a bear would do. We do have some awfully big bad mosquito's in MN.

Mark W
 
I got those pictures and a few more and an extensive write up last sunday from the retired AK state waterfowl biologist. My response was not fit for this site but I did note that now we need another volunteer to try to take a griz down with 12 shots of #4 steel to conduct the test to see if it is a safe and effective load for griz. Anyone want to volunteer in the name of science?
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Not for a million dollars...
 
I don't like bears, even little black ones like we have here. One tore up a tent (with me in it) when I was a kid, another one tore up a campsite of mine in my late teens, and another one greeted me at the watering hole at a distance of about 12". Then I forgot about bears for a long time, until about 8 years ago when my Jessie was a pup on about her fifth hunt ever, after her first four hunts had gone great ... we were down on the Susquehanna on a flat day when for no apparent reason she started acting like a real dipshit, making noise and wouldn't hold still. I walked her out back of the blind to read her the riot act without disrupting the other guys' hunting ... only to look down and see a fresh hot bear turd full of corn & blueberries and some nice big black bear tracks about 8 yards from the back of our blind, where he'd stopped to see what we were doing. I gave my dog the benefit of the doubt for all her whining, at that point... come to think of it I think I started whining too! About 5 minutes later a father-and-son team of bowhunters came creeping thru, tracking the bear ... I pointed out which way he had gone and wished them luck, lots of luck, getting that big mf'er up on their wall instead of hanging out behind our duck blind.

Ever since I carry slugs with in my bag when I am ducking, and on my person when ducking in places where there are bears. If it came down to it I'd rather get a ticket then get et. I am confident there'd be no time to swap loads in a crisis, but I figure if I ever live long enough to reload I'd just as soon do it with something better than three inch threes.
 
That is quite a story and I am sure glad we don't have to deal with those big bears out west. Those guys are darn lucky the bear stopped moving when it did.

I see a lot of bears while out bow hunting for moose. We are always in full camo and the bears usually don't know we are there or if they do they don't know what we are. Most are headed the other way or just wandering through and I don't really worry about them or bother with them although a couple of the guys in my group do bear hunt. I have had up close and personal experiences with a couple.

The bear in the first picture was shot at a distance of about 18 feet while running straight at my hunting partner. It was wandering by at 40 yards when it realized something was there and suddenly turned and charged. It was six of my short legged paces from him when the arrow found its mark. We will never know if the charge was a bluff and I won't soon forget watching it rear up and roar and then spin and run for about 50 yards. Since then it has learned a quiet appreciation for classical music from under the piano. For reference that piano is 7.5 feet long.

Another was determined to hang around our cabin, ripping things up and trying to get in. After three days of annoying us it died on the front porch trying to get in while we were in the cabin. It was shot at a distance of less than 15 feet. A trapper with a cabin a couple of miles up the lake told us that the same bear tried to get into his cabin to attack the German Sheppard that was inside with him. That is the bear shown in the second and third pictures.

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I don't like bears, even little black ones like we have here. One tore up a tent (with me in it) when I was a kid, another one tore up a campsite of mine in my late teens, and another one greeted me at the watering hole at a distance of about 12". Then I forgot about bears for a long time, until about 8 years ago when my Jessie was a pup on about her fifth hunt ever, after her first four hunts had gone great ... we were down on the Susquehanna on a flat day when for no apparent reason she started acting like a real dipshit, making noise and wouldn't hold still. I walked her out back of the blind to read her the riot act without disrupting the other guys' hunting ... only to look down and see a fresh hot bear turd full of corn & blueberries and some nice big black bear tracks about 8 yards from the back of our blind, where he'd stopped to see what we were doing. I gave my dog the benefit of the doubt for all her whining, at that point... come to think of it I think I started whining too! About 5 minutes later a father-and-son team of bowhunters came creeping thru, tracking the bear ... I pointed out which way he had gone and wished them luck, lots of luck, getting that big mf'er up on their wall instead of hanging out behind our duck blind.

Ever since I carry slugs with in my bag when I am ducking, and on my person when ducking in places where there are bears. If it came down to it I'd rather get a ticket then get et. I am confident there'd be no time to swap loads in a crisis, but I figure if I ever live long enough to reload I'd just as soon do it with something better than three inch threes.
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Dude, want to come bear hunting with me and just sit nearby? Your a bear magnet lol:)

Gene
 
Aren't you allowed to carry a sidearm in Alaska? I'd be packing a .44Mag or something. I read an article somewhere where a guy was deer hunting with a bow and a hug black bear started climbing his tree. Apparently it was legal in that state to carry a sidearm and he popped it in the face with a .44mag.
 
Aren't you allowed to carry a sidearm in Alaska? I'd be packing a .44Mag or something. I read an article somewhere where a guy was deer hunting with a bow and a hug black bear started climbing his tree. Apparently it was legal in that state to carry a sidearm and he popped it in the face with a .44mag.
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You can pack a handgun while doing nearly anything up here. I can even open carry in Anchorage in a couple city parks as long as I am headed into the adjoining "wilderness". That raises eyebrows once in a while with the tourists on the hiking trails. Then they also can't figure out what the piles of mushy berries are doing on the trial either.

For the most part this is a once in a life time occurance, and unless you are constantly busting brush in a moose rich or salmon stream area you will never have an issue.

There are lots of folks up here with "bear-anoia" and expect to find a bear behind every tree. That is just not the case. However, don't take them for granted either. Be prepared, but don't freak out when it does happen.

I would never archery bear bait or tree stand bear hunt without my Redhawk in a chest holster.
 
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