Bear Encounters.........

Just a couple summers ago, I had to do a survey at a certain point just a couple hundred metres off the road. The closest access point was at the corner of a lease site. On the other corner was a big black bear, munching on dandelions & minding his own business. It was about 100m away, so I figured no big deal. I parked the truck and since I only had to go a couple hundred metres in the opposite direction, I didn't bother carting out the shotgun. So off I go, and I'm only about 50m into the woods and I hear something crashing through the brush, coming toward me (from the direction of the big bear). I stop and wait a second.. still coming. I decide maybe I should have brought the gun, so turn around and start walking back to the truck. The noise gets louder and closer - and is closing the distance quickly. I pick up the pace and kinda jog towards the clearing and my truck... whatever it is, is REALLY closing fast! I break into a run, and consider that I might have to jump straight into the back of the pickup - no time to go for the door. I make the truck in time to hear a big racket and see a black bear scooting up a big aspen tree near the edge of the forest. And I spot the big guy I saw earlier slowly wandering around not far off. Turns out there was a second, smaller bear that got scared of the big guy and ran towards me to get away... had my heart racing, and it probably didn't even know I was there!
 
I don't have any exciting bear stories personally but this is one of the funniest ones I've heard. My current hunting partner, about oh 10 years ago was asked by someone pretty new to hunting to take him how hunting for bear. This guy had more money than he knew what to do with so that weekend he shows up with brand new best of everything. Bow, arrows, stand, gear.....everything. So a couple days in and one morning he's up on his stand and he dozes off. His nap was all well and good until something kept tickling his neck. Maybe a leaf in the breeze? A fly perhaps? After brushing at his neck a few times to try and get rid of it he finally turns his head to see what the heck it is. Eyeball to eyeball with a black bear that had climbed the tree while he was asleep. He fell out of the stand, dropped everything, somehow lost a boot and high tailed it a mile out the bush to the truck. He never hunted again and my buddy was given ("if you want that crap go in the woods and get it, I'm done with this") a brand new bow hunting outfit.
 
Long story shortened up, I was helping a friend build tree stands on his well treed rural property and at the chosen spot I was on the ground passing them wood and tools, as he and his teenage son were just finishing putting up the supporting beams & floor when his son looks up and behind me and says, "Hey, there's a bear behind you." (his kid was a quite a jokester so I blew it off as his attempt at humour) About 10 seconds later his dad looks up and says: "Yeah! Joe, there is a black bear behind you & he's getting closer!"
Well we did not have a proper ladder made yet, and the old rickety one was often getting caught in the barbed wire fence or one was getting stuck with the wild rose bushes at the foot of the tree. But I did not need one because I did my very best monkey imitation, and in about 3 seconds or less, I'm standing right beside them looking down at this black bear, that was about 5 yards away from me with my back to him. One of them starts the chainsaw and finally the bear takes off. We all had a good chuckle afterwards. I'm glad we had power tools, but really we should have brought the winchester trapper along with us, because at the time black bears were a royal pain in the @ss in this area. My good friend Silverback even made me up some good stout handloads with 300 grain WFN hard cast. My one and only close call.
 
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my buddy and I were on our Elk hunting trip out of Fort Nelson we toke a jet boat up the muskwa river on to the tuchodi river and stopped at the 125 km mark, there was an old outfitters camper at the base of a real nice set of mountains, all that was left was a tree loft that looks to have been to get the food up of the ground. We had been there three days found lots of grizzle tracks and fresh sign Big stuff if you know what I mean, one morning at around 4:30 am I got up to take a leak come back to bed and was just about sleeping again when all go a sudden I heard a faint noise the only way to describe to claws being pulled through a tarp! This woke my up got the blood flowing and now was trying to figure out what was about to happen. There had been a piece of tarp left hanging in that tree with a platform and the grizzle had been there, now I could hear foot steps walking along side the wall tent it just so happened my buddy was on that side! as the bear was moving down the side of the tent a jumped out of bed in my boxers grabbed my rifle and whispered to my buddy bear in camp. He had snored his way right through the passing of the grizzle at 3-4 feet beside him as it made its way down the tent I again whispered bear in camp and now had him Attention he rolls over to see my standing in my boxers with my rifle pointing at the front door of the tent. Now it is where his realization of the situation changed I have never seen him move that fast in my life I told him to come and unzip the door to the tent as I had no intention of putting down my rifle to use both hands to get a first hand view of what was now our uninvited guest in our covered cook area about 8-9 feet in front of the door to the wall tent. At this point not having my glasses on and relying on the moon to get a bead on him things became very tense as the zipper went up so did he now we had a 7 foot grizzle standing at about like I said 8-9 feet in front on us and I was the only one with a rifle my buddy snapped on him led head lamp and the grizzle hit the ground moving off about 40 feet. But that was not the end as we had hoped I guess there was things of interest for him and the stand off was a give a take of some 20 feet or so as he would start to come in and we made some noise he would back off. As all of this was happening I told my buddy he had better gun up and fast because I was thinking this was going to get ugly, after some 10-12 minutes he relieved him and decided it was best to move on that was the closed I have ever come to a grizzle and not pulled the trigger. As a side note it as about minus 4 and we were in our boxers and only socks on. After that my buddy could not get sleep for more than a couple hours a night, he never did come and visit again but found fresh sign on the hunting trails with in a few km's of camp.
 
All you fellows with up close Grizzly encounters?! No thank you! I am afraid I would be getting charged for shooting them. I'll be damned if I would try to scare one off or shoo it away! The last thing that bear would hear would not be my voice but rather the bang of a muzzle blast, if he heard it at all!!
 
I've had several encounters with bears while camping in provincial parks in Ontario. It always seemed to happen with my buddy (I blame him.) The bears know where the campsites are and do a regular tour looking for scraps.

One night a black bear came into camp and grabbed a two litre plastic bottle of Long Island ice tea that we had stupidly left out. We heard him/her and scared it off with some shouting and lights, but the booze went with the bear. We had our 6 year old sons with us, so we tried not to wake them to avoid scaring them.

The bear popped the bottle and I'm sure lapped up the booze while watching us. We could see the reflection from its eyes about 40 meters off while we built up the fire and took turns keeping watch with flashlight and bearspray. Nothing like a drunk bear in the woods watching you with your kid in a tent nearby to keep your adrenaline going.

This was at Bon Echo backwoods camping. The particularly annoying thing was we had specifically asked about bear problems since we had a similar issue another time in Algonquin. We were assured by the summer student/gate keeper/fake ranger that there were no bear problems. On the way out we #####ed about the poor information and another summer student admitted they knew about the bear and someone was supposed to be doing something about it. Idiots.

Somethingspecial
 
Had a sow with cubs come half way up a tree while I was bear hunting to see what I was.

I've almost walked into bears walking in the dark. Scary for the both of us!

1-3 times a year it seems one gets stuck at the "dump" in the cans. Throw in a decent sized log leaning against the side and get the #### out of the way!

Never had a problem with bears. Deer and moose on the other hand have a ####ing attitude problem and need a adjustment! They've put the chase on me more times then I'd like.
 
Few years ago I had a bulldozer push a rifle range on my property extanding the range off my deck from 60 yard to 200 yards. A few days later when I had a chance I was walking the new range checking out the holes left behind and wondering how I was going to fill them in, when I looked up from the ground and saw a momma bear with her cub, about 15 feet away.
Being a farm boy, I yelled at her. I yelled because I didn't have a gun or bear spray. Yelling worked with cows at home all the time, and I thought it would work this time, too. Nope! No way was she going to back down. She didn't even blink. Just snapped her jaws and stomped her feet ( details are fuzzy). So I had to slowly back up about 100 yards to the house.
The rest of that summer whenever I went down the range to check targets I took a gun.
My neighbour got a kick out of me that day, because when I went accross the road to his place to warn him, I was so rattled he couldn't figure out what I was saying! I took a few tries to slow the heart rate down enough to get the brain working again to make sense of what I was trying to say.
 
My dad and I used to trout fish on the Toba river up one of the inlets north of us . when you would walk up the river we would see the soaked patches of the gravel bar where a Grizzly had just hauled out minutes before , sometimes during spawning season you will be fishing a stream and see fresh halves of salmon floating down from a bear on the next bar just up from you , you see lots of bears but usually we had no issues with them .You always have to be careful though.
 
I am terrified of bears. Don't even know if I could hunt one.

This didnt help...

bear-meme.jpg
 
My dad told me a story once of him as a teenager riding a bike down a poorly lit road, going fast and all of sudden he slams into something very large and covered in fur. The bike stopped and he flew over. He didn't look back, just ran home. Im guessing whatever monster he ran into ran away also.
 
I have lived in Fort Nelson for 20 yrs and have had way to many close encounters with bears around here. Problem being is the hunting pressures have gotten less and less each year, with the new hunting regulations where you have to transport the meat out of the bush back to town where you can then dispose of it either in the town dump or other means of disposal kinda turns people away from hunting the menacing creatures. Black bears around this area have been a real big problem for sometime now. I have been hunting big game since an early age of 5 yrs old and have tremendous respect for all animals but around here black and grizzly bears have no fear of humans and are becoming over populated. The last few summers I have seen more black bears with triplets cubs and even occasionally 2-3 times different sows with 4 cubs then ever before. Now grizzlies are getting the same- as mention in a post above about Tuchodi river and the experience of bear in camp- I have been in them situation numerous times and call me complacent but it seems that it's happening more and more every year as I continue to go up there. Last year where I set up my wall tent I had 3 different grizzlies frequent my dwelling BUT common sense is the only thing on your side. I don't cook in or around my wall tent which will leave scent and after I cook I wash all my cans in the river AND burn them out in a fire to eliminate any scent. Tuchodi river is in MU 7-50 and up until 2 years ago it only had 1 LEH griz tag issued. Now it has 3 unless they revised it again. So this area is not only hard on jet boats, body and spirit with shallow water riddled with rocky areas called boulder alley and the can opener that can split a $70,000 toy and make it look like a squashed pop can but leave you sleepless at nights if your out of your comfort zone and common sense playing field. BUT good luck to you and yours if you ever venture
 
OK OK, just one more, from this past spring. Again, I'm out in the boonies west of Moberly Lake, checking out a pre-harvest forestry cutblock. Had pretty much covered the block and was on the last stretch, going through fairly open aspen timber... I hear a branch break, and I stop & look around, expecting to see a moose and hoping it's not a cow calf (this was late May). I see a big brown bear, maybe 40m away, tops. It stood up on it's hind legs.. initially I couldn't tell if it was a brown black bear, or a smallish griz - just couldn't get a decent look at the profile. It went down again on all 4s and I saw that it was just a big male black bear. We stood looking at each other for a few seconds; the wind was quartering from it to me. I had a camera in my backpack and figured if I move slowly I might be able to get some good pix. I'm slowly getting my pack off and be damned if the thing didn't huff and charge right at me! I have an ATC and I was quick draw mcgraw in this case. I had that gun unholstered, cocked and aimed faster than I ever thought I could. I yelled at the bear, including all kinds of gangster trash talk (though probably in a high-pitched voice) and it held up maybe 20 ft away (I'm guessing now, but it was pretty close). It was about 1 step away from my shoot to kill threshold. I kept yelling at it, and it slowly backed off, circled around, and charged again! This time it didn't come quite as close... same story, stand-off, me threatening to bust a cap in his a$$, and him backing off slowly... circled around a bit more, and did it AGAIN! Again not quite as close, but still quite un-nerving. By the end of this third charge, the bear had quartered around and got the wind. Again he raised up and sniffed, and probably figured out what I was. I half expected him to bolt at that time, but no... he just sauntered off slowly. That was enough excitement for the day, so I made a beeline for my quad a few hundred metres away... keeping a frequent eye behind me, and not holstering the gun until I was back at the quad. Funny, he only really trusted his nose... he was very close in open forest, and we stared at each other several times - and I was talking & yelling at him - even tossed a stick. But it wasn't til he winded me that his curiosity was satisfied. I got the last laugh, however... the whole block was harvested later that summer. Screw you, bear!
 
Back in the early 80's, three of usdrove to Telegraph Creek and hired a
float plane that flew us into Buckley Lake.
We set up camp and I figured fish for dinner would be a nice treat.
I tried a bunch of casts, but no reward.
I find out that there are no fish as this lake freezes deep.
Okay, no fish, no bears.
That night the three of us settled in the tent for the night sleep.
Nylon tent just big enough for three adults.
I bring my old Schultz in the tent and the one buddy asked what I
was doing?
Going to bed with my sweet heart, was my reply.
He didn't think that was such a great idea.
I really didn't care, my bunk, my pillow.
During the night my eyes snapped wide wide open.
The hair on my neck was screaming in stretch.
I lay still as still could be, to figure out what the heck opened
my eyes. I could sense something out in our camp, but man was
it quiet.
I unzip my sleeping bag slowly and get my Schultz up and ready.
After some time, my hair on my neck went back to normal.
Next morning there were grizzly tracks in our camp and the dirty rotten
fur walked by my side of the tent.
Next night the two lads were cheerful the old Schultz came to bed with me.
We did get our moose at the other end of the lake down the river that flowed.
We used a canoe to bring it out.
Next day I went down there to see what was left of the remnants and was
surprised to see a tiny bit of hair and some blood. Everything else had
dissappeared.
I think the canoe helped us keep the moose quarters on the dock that was at
that end of the lake. If we had packed it out across the beaver dam and up the
trail, I am almost certain the grizzly would of followed the scent.
There are many more bear encounters, but this one stands out the most.

We did the under ground piping for the Miette Hot Springs and stayed at the
Pocahontas Camp grounds and there was a silvertip grizzly there. She gave
me the jitters. I always hoped for snow so going in for breakfast each morning
would allow us to see if she was around.
One night I was reading a book in my little rental cabin and the hair on my neck
did it's thing. There was a small window in the bedroom and looking at me was
this golldang bear. I figure she was big enough to flip that cabin if her heart was
set on it. The road crew was staying there and we socialized. We had constant watch
out for the fur. Going from one cabin to another was like Stalag 13. We ran from
cabin to cabin to get to our own. I can honestly say that job didn't finish soon enough.
 
I was elk hunting in 2007 and was having a hard time locating elk in the farmland. After a morning sitting watching a field I went for a hike looking for tracks. 1/2 mile in I spotted a medium sized black bear following me about 150 yds away. I kept an eye on it and another 1/2 mile later it was following at 50 yds. I threw sticks and dirt lumps at it while yelling to scare it off. By the time I was getting close to my vehicle it had closed to 20 yds with no interest in leaving me alone. I fired a round into the dirt in front of it and it spun and ran off. When I got back to my truck I left the rifle out, loaded, while I got my other gear stowed. As I jacked the first shell out to empty it I turned and saw the bear standing at my back bumper. It turned out to be a very fat, healthy sow. I had no intention to shoot a bear that year but bought a tag in case I saw a good bear. About 3 weeks later a saw a huge boar; figures.
 
I believe I have had my closest encounters with bears while stream fishing.
Once I was on a tree that had fallen across a creek between Sicamous and Revelstoke BC
I was intently fishing a back eddy with my back toward the root of the tree when
I felt the tree shake. Looking around, I saw a decent sized black bear on my tree!
I stood up, waved my arms and shouted at him.
At this point, we were about 10 yards apart. He looked at me, sniffed, turned around on the tree
and casually walked to the root end. Once he hit the ground all I heard was "woof, woof" and up the hill he ran.
Thought I might have to go swimming that day!
Eagleye.
 
Ive had a few. One time i took my dirtbike up to a lookout i had 4x4ed to the night before, looking for a dropped knife. I was startled by a 175-225 lb'ish black snapping its teeth 25ft away.

Ive almost ran over more bears than i remember in the bush on my bike. I remember rounding a sharp switchback and came up on a small 150lb black, a few feet ahead of me, i wasnt sure what to do, but i decided my best option was to keep rolling so i rode its a$$ while reving the engine till it finally cut off the trail, after 40-50yards. Had the same thing with a fair sized bull moose too once.
Actually on the same trail we encountered the moose we had the same thing with a 350ish lb griz.

Summer time camping at gaspard lake, gang ranch. We noticed a small grizz hanging out a few hundred yards from camp on the first morning. Later that night i had a visitor pushing my tent around. I yelled bear, my dad told me to go to sleep, my uncle opened his camper door, all i heard was "oh sh*t, bear". So now on our second morning the ranchers ran a herd of cattle through the valley. That night we listened to a cow get taken down 200 yards from camp.
Obviously we investigated it in the morning, took some pics/video, and walked back to camp.
Then some of the group went for a ride, the road was just 15yards beyond the bear on its kill. My dad and i were watching the bear with binoculars, just as my couzin rode past the bear, another unknown bear, massive, broke out of the forest right on my couzins tail till we lost sight. My dad didnt see it, neither did my couzin.
I told them when they returned, then we all went up to investigate... No one belived me for some reason. Then we lost track of the little bear, which should be to our left, then we heard some sline chilling thrashing to our right, while this was happening we spotted the little guy on the left. We gtfo.

Another trip, same place. My couzin and i took a ride up some game trails, spotted a cinimon griz peering over a log, we gtfo of there too, returned with my uncle but this time on foot, had a black stalk us and play the old ambush trick.
Another trip but 5 miles from here my dad and I decided to setup camp for the night, leaving tackling a big muskeg bog for the morning. There was 3 or 4 dead cows that got mired down in the bog. Woke up in the morning to see they had been fed on overnight 20yards away. We also watched a pack of wolves hunting at dusk in this valley, not sure if it was that trip, that night or a completely different trip all together.
Years before, same place, my dad watched the big pink griz kill a full grown cow, fling it over its shoulder and carry it into an old delapitated cabin and feed on it.
Same area, another trip. My dad fell asleep Laying on a pile of logs, pitch black when he woke up. Walked the few miles back to camp feeling strange. A bear circled camp all night just in the shadows. They were sleeping in a makeshift tarp tent. When they woke in the morning they found the griz had taken a moose quarter... And the tracks in the snow showed it had followed my dad to camp the night before.

Another time when i was living in nakusp i had been driving golfballs onto the back yard, as i was searching for them i happened to look up, there was a large grizzly, maybe 450-550 lb about 30 feet away looking at me. I backed up slowly but lost sight due to some light foilage within a few steps, it was a long long 75yards to the house.
Another time i needed some tools from the shop, stepped out of the rear side shop door and saw a black cub 15ft to my left, not knowing if mom was out behind the shop too but out of view, the house is 50yards to my right so i quickly and quietly made for it. Once inside i saw mom was in the back yard.
And finally one other evening i was carying some stuff from the shop to my basement door which is pretty much pitch black at that time and only 15ft from the forest, well just as i was a few steps from the door i heard the tingling woofing and snapping of jaws. I got in the house and ran upstairs for a better view of the yard and watched a 250ish black wander along side the house over into the back yard.

Had a damned mulie doe force me into my own truck as i was reloading a magazine while my friend was unknowingly on the other side of the truck target shooting, litterally shooting as im closing my door for this deer to walk between my truck and the ditch.

Thats all i have for tonight.
 
the spank said:
All you fellows with up close Grizzly encounters?! No thank you! I am afraid I would be getting charged for shooting them. I'll be damned if I would try to scare one off or shoo it away! The last thing that bear would hear would not be my voice but rather the bang of a muzzle blast, if he heard it at all!!
Click to expand...

Glad you're in Ontario then, as if we all reacted like that there wouldn't be a whole lot of Grizzlies left. :)
 
Haven't had any myself, other than a few from-a-vehicle-as-I-pass-by types, by my pops has a neat one last year.

He had a rather nice spot on a private lake, about 45 minutes out of Cochrane, Ontario. It's a five minute drive in from the highway itself, along a private road he cut with a digger, and while it is a good road, winter sees it packed with snow, and spring takes a fair while to thaw it out until its drivable. Much easier to just walk in during the early spring.

So, pops walked his way in last spring to take a look at the cabin and make sure all was well. No problems there to report; solar cells were in good order, batteries fully charged, camp locked up tight as a drum, and even the mouse traps were clear. Cut some wood, stoked the fire, had some lunch, enjoyed the day out in the perfect solitude of the deep North Ontario bush, overlooking his own private lake.

A lake, I might add, that has walleye bigger than any other lake that can be easily accessed. You have no idea just how excellent it is to fish for my dinner when I visit my hometown. Near every other lake gets fished out every year, but this one... this one is inaccessible and packed to the tits with the best tasting fish you could imagine, and no one else can get at it. :D

Anyways. Pops is out there, enjoyed his weekend, walks the ~2 klicks back to his truck.

A rustle in the bush, halfway to the road.

A black bear, fresh from hibernation, is looking at him at a distance of about ten feet. Pops, a big 6' 4" bastard, eyes it, then lifts his hands over his head.

"Boo."

Bear runs for it like its arse was on fire.
 
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