I do not want to hunt a bear. I do not want to see a bear. I do not want to startle a bear and vice versa. I just have to be in an area the frequent. There will be two of us, I never shot anything and while I'm not prone to freezing or running away I'm semi-worried about my first encounter with a creature that given my inexperience is perhaps above me on the food chain. I'd take my browning blr 450 marlin if it wasn't so honking big it would get in the way.
By the time the bears distance is measured in feet I have a problem- a big black hairy beary problem.
Does the shotgun plugged to 3 apply to bears?
How many of you actually met a bear when you didn't expect?
When you're in bear country, your state of mind must always be alert to the possibility of seeing a bear. 99% of the time this will turn into a non-event as the bear disappears at top speed. What we're concerned about here is the 10th bear; that odd ball whose life experience has taught him that he's more likely to prosper by being an assertive #######. But its my contention that any given bear can be a dangerous bear under some circumstances. A starving bear is bad news. A startled bear can be. A bear on a food cash definitely is, so if you smell something dead, don't go and investigate unless you want to see a bear up close and personal. A female accompanied by cubs is a red flag, and if you get too close the cubs will want to check you out, which is a train wreck waiting to happen. If you get inside a bear's personal space, his reaction to you will be much different than if you're not. You might never see a bear, or you could see him on your very next excursion, you just don't know, but you should always be alert to the possibility of seeing one. If you feel surprise when you see a bear, you are not in a suitable state of mind - your response should be, "Hey, there's a bear, I thought that might happen and I know what to do about it!"
A feeding bear is a dangerous bear, regardless of species . . .
Here's a potential train wreck; the locomotive is just to the right of the cub . . .
Always be alert to the possibility of seeing a bear, even in unlikely places . . .
Further, if you carry a firearm for self defense, it might be a good idea to hunt with it first, even if hunting holds no interest for you. It drives me crazy when I see bear monitors here who have no big game experience, yet might be responsible for the safety of a number of people. They might be bear savvy folks, but they aren't gun savvy folks. Until you've killed a big animal, you have no way of knowing what to expect when you drop the hammer. Don't be one of these guys who fires the shot, and brings his rifle down to waist level so he can admire his handiwork. Keep the rifle at your shoulder, the sights on the animal, get another round int he chamber and be ready to shoot again.
I strongly advise you to purchase the trilogy of books on bear attacks by Garry James Shelton, "Bear Attacks, the deadly truth, Bear Attacks II, myth and reality, and the Bear Encounter Survival Guide." Also get Stephen Herrero's book "Bear Attacks, their causes and avoidance." The information in those books will have you much better armed the next time you go into bear country or encounter a bear.
The purpose of waiting to shoot until the bear is feet away is twofold; first, it dispels any doubt that the bear means to do you harm, and secondly it simplifies the marksmanship problem. Of course for this technique to be successful, you must practice with your firearm until competent, close shots aren't always easy shots, and things will be unraveling very quickly. You must also pre-program yourself, to reduce the lag time between realizing you have a problem and when your react. For example, when I was in Tanzania, I realized that if an animal ran to my right, I would be slow and have difficulty getting on him without sweeping others in the party, so I decided early that I would shoot left handed. Later that day, a warthog scooted off quartering to the right, and I made as pretty a running offhand shoot as you'd ever see, and I made it left handed.
Until bears grow feathers, there is no requirement to plug your shotgun to 3 rounds. However you should confirm that in you local jurisdiction, and it would only be true when no bird season was open.