Bear stories

[hskrhntr]

Let's hear your bear encounter stories...

Last week I was archery mulie hunting solo in the backcountry. Third night in I got woke up by a woof pretty much in my ear. Needless to say I sat up pretty quick and grabbed my pistol. I could hear it sniffing around the tent so I just kept the pistol pointed at the sound ready to pull the trigger if the tent started coming toward me. After it got quiet for a bit I heard a stick break about 10-20 yds out so I started talking to it and got out of my tent. Light in one hand, pistol in the other I looked around till I caught eyes about 20 yds away. Then, just like that, he was gone.

I stayed one more night but just couldn't sleep after that. Black bears don't usually bother me but that one got to me. That was a little too close.

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[Ikeepitcold]

I haven’t had one yet! Only bears I’ve seen were on the only NV bear hunt I’ve done. We did tree one that my guide was poking her in the rear to get her out of the tree.

 

[dirtclod Az.]

Had a partner sneaking through the brush and came face to face with a small Black Bear.Bow in one hand an arrow in the other.Told God right there he would never hunt again.Bear ran off.After sitting in camp for a while...2 beers and a few shots of Whiskey.He said he would never hunt again "today".

 

[swampokie]

I had a similar tent experience in Colorado last week. Too close for comfort and couldn't sleep any after that. ANY bear concerns me and people that say otherwise concern me as well. Usually docile more often than not but its the less often that worries me!

 

[AKaviator]

A few days ago my wife and I were hiking on a local trail that we use often for exercise. She has better hearing than I do and told me she could hear something in the trees to our left. I couldn't hear it but a moment later a bear popped out on the trail about 50 yards in front of us. The bear was running straight at us but stopped about 25 yards away, then another even larger bear popped out on the trail where the first one had come from. It ran towards us too.

My wife had the trigger guard off of the bear spray and I was ready with my .40 Glock. My dog was sitting by me, enjoying the action.

Both bears watched us briefly then crossed the trail and started running again after a moose calf that neither of us had seen to that point, fortunately away from us.

Just black bears, but it got the adrenaline pumping for sure.

 

[LCH]

Bear hunting in Montana, topped a rise on a logging road to find a sow griz and 2 100-poundish cubs 18 yards away. One cub ran a couple bounds towards us, the sow stood up to look at us better, then all 3 turned and ran off.

We kept going down the logging road, since they had cut off through the timber. About 10 minutes further in, we bumped them again at about 50 yards. They had evidently looped back around on to the road again. At that point we headed back to the car and went to a different area.

 

[bullwinkle50]

I was bear hunting down by Togiak, Alaska a few years back. Woke up around 0300 with the tent down on my face. My super Blackhawk was behind me so I rolled over swinging my fist into the nylon tent. I didn't connect but got to my pistol. Opened the tent zipper and then the fly. Stuck my head out to look around. It was the middle of May and in Alaska it is light enough to see without a light. Nothing! I must have been dreaming so I crawled back in the sleeping bag and went to sleep. I was up the next morning sitting near the head of my tent and noticed a rip in the fly pole sleeve near the ground. I started looking closer at the tent and found a paw print with claw marks right in the middle of the panel above my head. I guess the brown bear didn't like my snoring!

Randy

 

[go_deep]

Got ran over by a wounded black bear last Friday night, that was a good time.

 

[hskrhntr]

Got ran over by a wounded black bear last Friday night, that was a good time.

Oh wow! Was he actually coming after ya or was he just on the go and happened to run over ya?

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[JimP]

When I first glanced at the title I thought that it said Beer Stories and figure that it could get real interesting.

Oh well.

When I was on my first archery hunt here in Colorado I had hiked to the top of a logged off area that had been replanted and the firs were about 6' tall with a few taller quaking aspens that were left. I found a nice tree to rest my back against while I ate a snack. After 10 or 15 minutes I spotted a couple of that years bear cubs walking a little ways off and figured that it would make a neat picture. I tried to unzip the pocket on my pack where my camera was at but made a little noise. Just then I saw mama who whoofed with each cub climbing a tree about 20' away from me. She stood up on her hind legs and stared right at me. All I could thing was where is my .44 mag when I need it and that this puny arrow isn't going to work. What seamed like a hour but in all reality was only a minutes or so she dropped down on all 4's and headed down the hill with the cubs quickly coming out of the tree they were in and following her. Once she was out of sight I stood up and tried to find the TP in my pack but figured that it was useless.

The bears had headed towards where I had my truck parked, I decided that it would be best if I took a round about way back to it.

I never did get a picture of them.

 

[go_deep]

Oh wow! Was he actually coming after ya or was he just on the go and happened to run over ya?

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Went in about an hour after a gal shot a bear to track it, and found it still alive. We were about 6' away for the follow up shot, and when it got shot it turned and blew right through the 4 of us. 2 people completely got out of the way, another guy and me got ran over. Just a few bruises, and minor cuts. Don't think the bear had a clue what it was doing, running dead and happened to run right at us, I think.

 

[RICMIC]

I've had multiple encounters with black bears, all when I was young and dumb and didn't know any better. I've been bluff charged twice..the first time with a .357 on my hip, so I shot that sucker at 6 feet. The second time I had a Gransfors Bruk hatchet (I could go to war with that thing), so I stood my ground and called his bluff. My dumbest move was on the US/Canada border country when I was 17. A very large bear had raided our camp; ripped the tent, bit into the TP, tried to get our hanging food pack, and actually ate the bottom out of the aluminum fry pan (that we stupidly had left out with fried fish residue crusted on it while we went fishing.) We were eating lunch when the bear saundered back into camp looking for desert. My bud wacked him at about 20 feet with his .44 Ruger and we dove into the canoe as the bear ran off. Now we were in greater danger because we were in a canoe, without paddles, just upstream of Curtain Falls (40' drop plus killer rapids below.) After a mad hand paddle to shore, My bud wouldn't look for the bear and wouldn't loan me his .44, so I went after it with a machete. Yeah, really a dumb idea, but I am still here 49 years later.

 

[dirtclod Az.]

RICMIC-did you hack the bear with the machete?

 

[RICMIC]

RICMIC-did you hack the bear with the machete?

Fortunately, the answer to that is NO I did not. I don't think that he was hit at all. We ended up moving our camp to a lake 15 miles away and camped on an island where a bear cleaned us out completely while we slept. We hadn't hung up the food bag since we were sure we were safe from bears on the island. The "black ghost" just swam out, and silently picked up the pack and took it to the other end of the island and chowed down. He left us a parting gift of a huge pile of crap in front of our tent. I could go one and on, but all those experiences taught me well, and during the last 30 years of canoeing, hunting, and guiding, I have had no other close encounters.

 

[88man]

Many many black bear encounters and really not one has been scary. Had a bb stick his head in the window of a blind while deer hunting, had a bb club climb the tree I was in while deer hunting, had a 125 to 150 lb bb walk with me to my truck across a field once and when I was backing up to leave he was so close the reverse buzzer was going off on the truck a very odd situation. Now I did get knocked out or almost knock out by a Grizz. Just kidding, we were elk hunting on Carter Mt in Wy and hiking in the dark came across a large fresh pile of bear scat. My friend who was with was me was extremely concerned and basically scared to death. Anyway he was walking so close he kept stepping on my heals and at some point while crossing a rock slide he slipped and swung his arm to gain his balance he hit me in the temple with his mag light light. It just about knocked me out.

 

[BAKPAKR]

How about porcupine stories? I was hunting in Wyoming last week. All of the trails I was on were covered with porcupine tracks but I never saw one on the trail during the daylight. I was coming out one night with a dying flashlight and, over about three miles, came upon three, at very close (almost stepping on) range. Those encounters startled me as much as any black bear encounter I have ever had.