Anybody PERSONALLY been charged by a bear?

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280_ACKLEY

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The bear thread and all of the experts and their buddies with 22 Mag/243 stories got me wondering....

Time to sift through the BS..... not a buddies buddy, or one we've read about in Outdoor Life. Actual real life charge.... what happened, how did YOU deal with it? Details....

I'm sure a few good stories are out there... some of the Yukon boys must have a few good'uns.

Something about the winter months and bear charge threads.... gotta love 'em!

280_ACKLEY
 
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My buddy who had stepped out of the truck was charged by a young bear, I had to use the truck to charge it, had no gun at the time. Had a few other close calls, but no charges as I was able to open up the distance quickly.
 
Not a buddies buddy story but one involving my father, tho I was there.

He, I, and my cousin, were walkign out to this marsh we duck hunt in... Middle of nowhere, miles and miles form any road. Anyway, we got up to the spot and all of a sudden heard some weird whining, then noticed two treed black bear cubs. Dad and my cousin walked over to the tree they were in for a closer look and all of a sudden out of the brush, about 20 feet away, the momma bear stands up on her hind legs. Basically my dad froze, probably wishing his Condor Supreme was loaded with slugs and not 7.5. Anyway, she stood up and stomped down and stood up again, and my dad just shouldered the shotgun as my cousin slowly backed away. I guess the bear got bored because instead of rushing him, she lumbered off into the brush, her cubs whining all the time. He backed off and we waited for dusk and had a successful duck hunt.

I guess this isn't a "charged" story, but if she had have charged I know how he would have dealt with it. He'd have given her a facefull of 7.5 from both barrels and then #### himself.
 
As I've said a number of times before, I've had lots of encounters with bears, killed a number of bears, killed a few problem or somehat aggresive bears, been stalked by juevenile black bears (comical if you are armed, not so when unarmed)

Bluff charged, had aggressive posturing, jaws popped at me, pogo stick walk...the whole deal.:)

But never been charged.;)

Although i did crash into one on a mountain bike....But he was alot more scared than I was, he squirted out a pretty big stream of poo!!:)
 
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bear charge

I have had 2 bears charge me in the past 34 years,one was drinking out of a small pond in the bush and was hidden to me. I stepped onto a trail and it ran out of the bush and started running away from me then for no reason he turned and started running right at me . :eek: That one was stopped with a.270 and it fell within 15 to 20 yards from me. The other was on a logging road and just kept walking towards me despite all the noise I was making to try and scare him off. I was walking backwards down the road until I knew he was not going to let me pass by. I moved from side to side on the road and he kept walking right at me keeping eye contact the whole time. I must have walked backwards down the road about 75 yards or so but it seemed a hell of a lot longer than that. :eek: Finally he was gaining ground on me and I had to shoot him, one shot in the spine just above the skull as he was looking at me. I shot with my 8x57 Czech Mauser loaded with 170 grain Speer bullets over 48 grains of IMR 4895. I would not have wanted to be on that logging road unarmed and now I never go unarmed because of that day. I don't live in fear of bears but I know what they can do and I take precautions to not get eaten.:p
 
No, not personally, but a buddy (not a buddy's buddy, just a straight up buddy) was a few yards away from a black bear this past fall (he was hunting them) and shot at it but missed. The shot ricocheted on the other side of the bear and the bear turned and ran away from the shot, straight at him. He basically had time to think "Oh ****" and then the bear saw him and ran a different direction. I guess he was pretty rattled after that.
 
Once. Black bear, shotgun. Shotgun won.

Although a buddy tells me he had to shoot a charging griz at 6 yards or something ridiculous this past year. I personally think he's full of it as I hear from a reliable source that his wife actually does all the hunting in their family, while he either hides in the truck and watches or stays home and washes dishes. :D :D :D
 
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280_ACKLEY said:
Something about the winter months and bear charge threads.... gotta love 'em!

280_ACKLEY
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I don't know. They are more like a train wreck. You just can't seem to look away.

Okay, I'll bite. I've been bluff charged a few times.

Not a charge story, but fairly up close and personal... My assistant and I were sitting down writing some notes in the middle of a fairly open spruce stand that we were surveying in the Yukon. We were there for a few minutes and I heard a twig snap and I looked up and saw a medium sized black bear standing broadside looking at me from 20 feet away. I said to my assistant "Ah f**K. Bear." I stood up and she stood up and yelled "where!?!" and at that moment it turned and ran away from us full speed - but it's head was turned towards us and it ran straight into a tree about 25 yards away. It fell backwards stunned and sat still for 10 seconds, got up, shook like a wet dog and then looked back at us. Then it started running away again - though it looked forward this time!

Another time I was booting along the alaska highway on my bike and out of the periphery of my vision I saw a bear starting it's way onto the road at a real quick pace towards me. I was just going past it by the time it was stepping onto the road and I pedalled as hard as I could (by the way the centerline of the road is 13 feet from the edge so I pasted it at about 20-25 feet). After 20 seconds I looked back and saw a grizz mom standing in the middle of the road looking at me. Her two young of the year cubs were standing on the gravel at that point. This probably was one of the more dangerous encounters I've had. I'm not sure if she had ran for me because I was biking past and it was a prey instinct (like a dog chasing a bike) or if it was a protection thing. Either way, that one could have ended badly. I didn't stay to take a picture at this time but I have a picture of this bear with her cubs that I took at a different date. I'd post it if I knew how.

Two years later, one of her cubs, now a teenager bear out on his own for the first season bluff charged me while I was walking along an abandoned road about 2 miles from where the mom chased me. I was quietly walking along and looked into the alders and saw him just as he saw me about 50 yards away. He stood up and shook his head a bit then went on all fours and ran towards me stopping about 30 feet away. He stood again and shook his head and then went down on all fours again. I stood still and tried to calmly ask him to leave. He began to tremble and we both stood there for about 10 seconds and he bolted away. I walked the rest of the way home - looking over my shoulders fairly frequently.



280Ackley - how about some more details on the 2 bears you shot that you mentioned in the other thread?
 
twice, both bluff charges. one prepared, one horribly unprepared.

both times had clients with me. both times they were shaking so bad after I had to take them back to camp.


never under estimate the speed of those lumbering fur balls.
 
I shot an old 6" boar with my 45-70 and 350g hornadys. The range wasabout 50-60yards. I hit it 3 good times and it took off into the trees. The area was an old forest fire and all the trees were a bunch of 1" thick pecker poles that were grown tightly together. I looked for blood but there was none so I waited a bit and walked in.
I had the scope on 1x, a full tube of shells, my thumb on the hammer spur and the gun on my sholder. Visablity was 10 feet max. I went in about 30 yards stepped over a hump and there was the bear facing me, waiting. It tryed to come at me but it could not move well (350g slugs do that). I side stepped twice to get a shot and hit it quartering through the sholder. At the shot the bear took a deep breath, and a mist of blood sprayed out of one of it's wounds and landed on my face and shirt.
When the blood hits you you are to dam close.



Another time I was out quading by myself I was on a narrow cut line and saw a tarp and some garbage up a head. I kept comming and realized it was a moose kill site. I looked to my left and saw a black bear facing me. I passed so close to it that it could have easily reached out and swatted me.
First thought... Pin quad, ride like hell.



I saw this little guy (5'6") down a cut line eating new clover where some recent pipe line work had been done. I knew there was a lease road that passed by where the bear was feeding so I walked down the road and out on to the cut line. I spotted the bear hiding behind blow down looking at me. I expected him to bolt at any second but rather he walked back out onto the line and started feening on the clover again. He sarted working his way toward me, looking up every once in awhile. I let him get to 30 yards and hit him quartering towards with my 338 and 225 partitions.
At the shot he headed right for me. I reloaded quick and saw him start to turn in a semi-circle. As he was almost broad side I shot again, at the same time he fell and my shot missed high. I don't think that he was going to try to attack me but he knew full well I was there but still chose to turn toward me. I think my movement from reloading made him decide to turn away.

Here he is

In the upper left corner you can see the road I came in on. The red willow is just about where I shot from. He dropped where I took the pic.
hunting036.jpg
 
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mattpiloto said:
No, not personally, but a buddy (not a buddy's buddy, just a straight up buddy) was a few yards away from a black bear this past fall (he was hunting them) and shot at it but missed. The shot ricocheted on the other side of the bear and the bear turned and ran away from the shot, straight at him. He basically had time to think "Oh ****" and then the bear saw him and ran a different direction. I guess he was pretty rattled after that.
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This reminds me, I did the over the bear thing with the bear-banger and caused the bear to go shooting by me and into the bush. this was back in the 80's near Jordon River
 
2 years ago , got charged in the thick stuff hip shot with a 12ga slug to head did the trick , it fell 10ft away from me.
 
Yup, charged by a black bear... My buddy shot it with birdshot at 4 feet... Dog chased it off into a swamp...

Cheers
Jay
 
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