Bear activity

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Outside the beltway
SATURDAY afternoon I movedmy turkey set up to a bottom trail thats between 5-10 wide ith a nice creek. I took a cat nap and when I woke up I looked up the trail and see a dark mass through the bushes. Thinking itlooks like a large turkey fan I give a few clucks and then the hugh black bear appears 35-40 yards. He looks at the set up and my mind starts to go into; what will I do ? He moved on across the trail and up into the woods. I gathered the decoys and move the other way. My day was done. Bird shot is no match for a bear.
Thats my 1st encounter with a beast, I also hit a deer with the van in the early hours and that was a 1st.
I knew that bears were in the area and never gave it a 2nd thought. Time to carry a sire arm in that area.
 
Here's a few pictures of a brown bear I found in our camp once when I was up camping up in the Yosemite area.

We were out fishing and I went back to camp to get something. Found this guy going through my pack. I kept thinking, I can get closer and take a better picture. After a while I though that was probably a stupid idea and went and got my buddy. We came back and found the bear going through my pack eating a packet of gatorade mix slobbering like a freak. We started throwing pine cones at him and he went about 30 yards away and laid down and took a couple hour long nap. WE just kind of ignored him after that and made sure we had our food and stuff hung up really high in the trees for a bear hang. That night he came back and knocked over a tree and got the rest of our food. Fortunately, it was our last day out there. Pizza never tasted so good when we got back to a town.

bear2.jpgbear1.jpgbear3.jpgbear4.jpg
 
I've run across quite a few black bear and usually they don't worry me to much. The ones that are a bit too friendly around campsites and garbage dumps can be a problem but the ones you see out in the woods are usually pretty happy to hit the hills if you give them half a chance.

One time though I was out hiking with the dog and popped up over a rise and about 20' in front of me is a big old momma bear standing up on her hind legs. Without moving much I shifted my eyes to the right and sure enough there's a cub up the tree beside the trail, eyes to the left and same thing. So I slowly grabbed the dogs collar and walked us backwards over the hill for about 50' keeping my eyes on her. She never moved until past when I couldn't see the top of her head anymore. At about 50' back we were behind the hill and I heard a wuff and some crashing about and figured I was either in for it or in the clear, luckily it was the latter. Grizzly bears are a while nother story though, if that had been a grizzly I wouldn't be writing this.

What sort of hand cannon were you thinking of carrying? The lighter stuff kind of makes me nervous against bears, cause if they get thier dander up before the lead starts flying it just kind of makes them angry.
 
What sort of hand cannon were you thinking of carrying? The lighter stuff kind of makes me nervous against bears, cause if they get thier dander up before the lead starts flying it just kind of makes them angry.

Clearly this is the sign I need to watch the Revanant. The bluray is on the counter.

I wonder where the sweet spot is for control versus caliber. I love my Sig Sauer .45, I can shoot it like I was pointing my finger. The .44 mag, however, is a completely different story in control.

I'm sure I could put a few .45 on target, just not sure about it with the .44 mag.
 
Yeah, considering how poorly most of us do when in a hurry, bring able to quasi reliably put a half dozen rounds down range seems like it ought to up your odds a little as opposed to hoping for that one good one.

Although if it was a black bear I'd have to think real hard about escalating versus just standing tall and hollering back. Most black bear charges are bluffs so your best bet is usually to just stand them off. They usually aren't that interested in tangling, even momma's with cubs will usually give you a fair chance to retreat.

If it's a grizzly I wouldn't give you the same odds as a pickle in a sandwich with most handguns though. 12 gauge with slugs. Otherwise your best bet is to just poop your pants, play dead and hope he don't like the smell.
 
Yeah, That bear in my pictures, we started calling him 'Yogi'. He literally had no concerns with us even when we were chucking pine cones at him. He gave us about as much regard as I'd give a squirell.

Our most lethal weapon was a swiss army knife.

I did see a momma bear with a cub off in the distance during the hike up, but she was another brown bear and really didn't seem concerned. This was a pretty commonly used area. Not back country, but not really populated garbage dump area either. It was up above the hetch hetchy resevoir about 10 miles in.

So they were pretty used to humans I think.
 
If I was hanging around in bear country, I'd probably have one of my .44 mag revolvers, although one of the 1911s in .45 ACP would likely be better for follow-up shots. Faster reloads, too. (Both of my .44 mags have ported barrels, though, so the recoil isn't any worse than a .357 or so.) Still, I train with the 1911s, but don't shoot the revolvers much.

True story: My nephew J works at the gun counter in a local hunting and fishing store. A customer came into the store a couple of years ago wanting to buy a .357 mag revolver. He said he was going fishing in Alaska and wanted a sidearm for bear protection. J suggested that he consider a .44 mag or a .454 Casull, since a .357 mag is a little light against an Alaskan brown bear. The guy got all cocky and declared that he knew how to handle a gun, and the .357 would be more than enough. So J sold him a .357 mag.

A few months later, the same guy comes into the store and tells J he wants to buy a .454 Casull revolver. J asked him what happened to the .357 mag he'd purchased. The customer said "Well, after I emptied it and threw it at the bear, he did this to me." Then he turned around and proceeded to drop the back of his pants enough to show J the scars from claw marks on his butt. :eek: So J sold him a .454 Casull. :rofl:
 
The first wife and I were on vacation up at the Diamond D - guest ranch in Kings Canyon National Forest -.... the guests were all outside the dinning haul in an enclosed picnic area with a big campfire going and sitting around talking. The picnic corral had two entrances, one by the dinning hall and one at the other end near where the cook's tent was.... a big bear came wandering up the trail from the river, through the entrance by the dinning hall and meandered over to the table to see what was for dinner. The ranch owner's cabin was on the other side of the bear so he couldn't get to it to get his rifle. One of the guests grabbed a couple of pans and banged them together to scare the bear... he charged, the guest dropped pans and ran and the bear turned back to check out the table.... then just moseyed on up the trail towards the cooks tent.

Yosemite used to re-locate their problem bears up into the area, but that was the only one I ever saw on three different vacations to the place.
 
When I lived in Montana (1990-2000), I saw several black and grizzly bears, but only had one close encounter. I used to fish in a small lake (5 acres or so) on a wildlife preserve near Augusta, MT. This was a really idyllic location with the plains stretching out to the east and backed up against the mountains to the west. I liked to fish from a float tube wearing neoprene waders. I had just arrived and was sitting on the tailgate of the pickup putting on my waders when I saw a black blur out of the corner of my eye. I looked to the east and there about 100 yards away was a medium sized black bear running like the hounds of hell were after it. He ran straight to the lake, jumped in, and swam all the way across. Once he reached the other side, he climbed out, shook off, and ambled up the hillside. My best guess is that he had encountered some unfriendly hornets and went in the lake to shake them off. I was glad I wasn't in the water yet, tho.
 
I personally have had very little experience with bears of any variety. The closest I have been was when I was in Alaska years ago we chased a big brown with a Huey. Sure made it mad. From what I know about black bears, for the biggest part if you just make a loud noise they will go away. I don't think they really want much of anything to do with humans. Dogs and such are a different story. But, if I was looking to have to shoot a bear with a handgun, it would not be a .357 (though I do love them). The bigger and higher velocity the better. You need the velocity to penetrate the body fat on the bear. Or, as so I have been told. Most guys I have heard of using a handgun on a bear use a .50 cal.
 
They might have been a bit upset if I took it out with a LAAWs rocket or something. Though hitting a moving target with a grenade launcher is always good fun! Well, good fun if you're a Marine. Of course the good ol' M2 50 cal would make short work of any bear, black, grizz, polar, or even kodiak. My My. Mr. Browning done good when he invented that piece or work!
 
I don't see what the big deal is we have Baer activity around here every day. Gonna even have one of the cubs for the summer.

:D I've been told that the Arizona ones that can't spell "bear" correctly are pretty friendly and won't hurt you unless you really antagonize them, lol.
 
as for the black bear protection ryan is spot on and as for the caliber for protection the 45 will do but use solid points not hollow.. i know a person who used hollow points while hunting them and put two in one to loose it as it ran off with little to no blood trail. havnt had any experience with grizzlys in the wild but have had a fair amount of black bear experience.. hunted them and been around them during fishing excursions in canada and other states.
 
I carried both a .44 magnum revolver and a shotgun loaded with slugs when wandering around the alders while fishing in Alaska. The shot gun was primary. Hard to beat the muzzle energy of a 12 gauge slug close in. The 454 Casull was still a wildcat back then ('66-'76) or Ida had one. My 45's occasionally jam. Based on that experience a revolver is the only hand gun I would trust for bear.
 
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