IF a new Grizzly hunt, what gun

Letting a grizzly get to within feet of you is a much bigger issue in my mind then what size bore your carrying. I wasn’t there and don’t pretend to judge, but stopping a charge starts at 100 yards or as soon as you can get a clear shot. Hopefully I’ll never have to test this thought process regardless what I’m hunting or carrying. Hopefully it isn’t dark either.

At 100 yards a bear is not a threat to you and shooting one at that distance is not "stopping a charge." At that distance you should be getting ready but not shooting.

It may be a bit scary to hold fast and not start slinging lead but if you are shooting a bear coming at you more than 50 yards away the only charges you will be dealing with are from the Conservation Officers. Even 50 yards may be too early to start shooting as bluff charges often end around the 30-40 yd mark. Any closer than that and it's time to shoot- assuming the bear is actively being aggressive and still moving towards you.
 
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Definitely scary to hold fast and not shoot till they are extremely close, it is a test only a few can pass and most will never have to deal with. I have found the grizzlies I have encountered usually get my scent or hear me and move on before I feel like having to shoot. I hope it stays that way for me. As far as what gun for hunting them then its my 375 H&H followed closely by my 338 WM as the second choice. I hope the B.C. government of the future opens up the LEH grizzly hunt again at some point.
 
Both of my close encounters have come as a direct result of a bear smelling me first. There was no surprise. They knew exactly what I was.
 
At 100 yards a bear is not a threat to you and shooting one at that distance is not "stopping a charge." At that distance you should be getting ready but not shooting.

It may be a bit scary to hold fast and not start slinging lead but if you are shooting a bear coming at you more than 50 yards away the only charges you will be dealing with are from the Conservation Officers. Even 50 yards may be too early to start shooting as bluff charges often end around the 30-40 yd mark. Any closer than that and it's time to shoot- assuming the bear is actively being aggressive and still moving towards you.

Are you a lawyer?
I’m not scared of being charged by the law if my life is on the line.
 
Are you a lawyer?
I’m not scared of being charged by the law if my life is on the line.

gatehouse is trying to explain how the cos will deal in a case of dlp but you can shoot one at 200 yards and see how it for the charges ... some over here are taking the tag with them just in case and easier to use the seal than explaining to cos ...
 
People need to stop being scared of what will happen to them if they do, and get serious about what will happen to them if they don’t imo. A bear is covering up to 15 yards a second. You and I can decide how many more seconds we want to live. Not gatehouse.
 
^^
Thinking the same 12 ga. slug gun at real close range could be an option sure makes a big hole don't know about good penetration tho on BIG Bear I don't bother with smallish ones those usually don't take a lot of gun to dispatch if hit properly with good bullets within reasonable range in typical hunting scenarios.

https://i.imgur.com/31vzDtG.jpg / https://i.imgur.com/s38CvYS.jpg
 
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At 100 yards a bear is not a threat to you and shooting one at that distance is not "stopping a charge." At that distance you should be getting ready but not shooting.

It may be a bit scary to hold fast and not start slinging lead but if you are shooting a bear coming at you more than 50 yards away the only charges you will be dealing with are from the Conservation Officers. Even 50 yards may be too early to start shooting as bluff charges often end around the 30-40 yd mark. Any closer than that and it's time to shoot- assuming the bear is actively being aggressive and still moving towards you.

We don’t agree on the best .375, but we certainly agree here. If we shot every grizzly that postured aggressively or bluffed inside 40 yards we would have been shut down by our second year of operation.

Unfortunately, grizzlies still don’t understand they’re not top dog anymore, their evolution hasn’t kept up with the pace of our development. I respect that about them, but their favoured way of warning you to back off ends up in many unnecessarily dead bears when people aren’t familiar with them. The Yukon put out a great vid of a female biologists inciting multiple charges from sows with cubs are close range, and turning each one with spray and backing away slowly. The message wasn’t don’t worry about grizzlies, it was we shoot way more than necessary, and there’s a reason they’re gone across most of their range.

Stay calm, be prepared, and carry an effective cartridge.
 
We don’t agree on the best .375, but we certainly agree here. If we shot every grizzly that postured aggressively or bluffed inside 40 yards we would have been shut down by our second year of operation. Unfortunately, grizzlies still don’t understand they’re not top dog anymore, their evolution hasn’t kept up with the pace of our development. I respect that about them, but their favoured way of warning you to back off ends up in many unnecessarily dead bears when people aren’t familiar with them. The Yukon put out a great vid of a female biologists inciting multiple charges from sows with cubs are close range, and turning each one with spray and backing away slowly. The message wasn’t don’t worry about grizzlies, it was we shoot way more than necessary, and there’s a reason they’re gone across most of their range. Stay calm, be prepared, and carry an effective cartridge.
Unfortunately we have no way of knowing whether it is a bluff charge or not. Do you wait it out to see? I've never been charged but friends have been. In most cases they were shooting over the bear's head or into the dirt in front of them to help persuade the bear to move on. There just isn't a lot of time to decide or to think rationally about the options.
 
Ardent; said:
. The message wasn’t don’t worry about grizzlies, it was we shoot way more than necessary, and there’s a reason they’re gone across most of their range.

Stay calm, be prepared, and carry an effective cartridge.

I won’t have any Internet forum suggestion/thoughts in the back of my mind if one is bearing down on me.

Evaluate quickly, in doubt shoot first, and live to hunt another day.
 
Unfortunately we have no way of knowing whether it is a bluff charge or not. Do you wait it out to see? I've never been charged but friends have been. In most cases they were shooting over the bear's head or into the dirt in front of them to help persuade the bear to move on. There just isn't a lot of time to decide or to think rationally about the options.

That’s a bit of a misnomer, spend some time with them and there’s a hell of a lot of body language going on. A bluff charging grizz looks like a dog covering their bowl, they’re not committed and will give you an ears slanted looking cocked angle scuttle that opens the path for their turn away if on open ground. The “heyyyyyy hey this is mine” half speed rush, we had many a bear do that over their salmon hole and a couple mountain bears over their blueberry patch. The odd one over our food cache barrel as well.

A determined charge is full on face, so fast they look like a ball of rippling fur skipping like a rock on water, head directly bear on you and eyes & ears directed straight at you. I concede, when you’re not looking for a grizz and are in shoulder deep willows on a mountain somewhere or devil’s club in a river, you don’t get this level of opportunity to evaluate what’s going on, and unfortunately things can happen to both humans and bears.

When you have the time, and most surprise encounters don’t allow that, the grizz are talking to you whether mountain or coastal. The best thing you can do is let them know you’re there, with undeniably human noise and there aren’t actually that many phases of a mountain hunt you need to be utterly silent. Surprises are what kill both the grizz and us. :)
 
have been bluff charged by grizzlies a few time and one still in my memory with a huge grizzly on the south canol road ... he broke his charge at 20 meters and was not aiming us and i was right this time ... it is always a tough decision but i was able to read poperly his body/head language at least this time. it was in the spring and he was feeding on a moose kill way below us. we made noise but as Ardent described he wanted to show off and exactly what he did. im not happy trigger but i was ready.

on the same token never been bluff charged by black bear and i had to kill 2 of them while guiding in northern quebec and both time i was taking care of caribou my hunters took and were paralyzed when the bears were coming at full throttle in those 2 occasions my 300 savage saved the day.
 
100 yards away your life isn't on the line. I understand you may be scared about a bear 100 yards away but you are not in danger at that point.

That would be extremely dependent on the situation at that particular time, would it not? It's a kind of a silly thing to say.

R.
 
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