Big Game hunting in Grizzly country

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Why not? said:
I just celebrated my 80th birthday three days ago. Fifty-two years of my life have been in grizzly country, and a lot of that has been enjoying camping, fishing, hunting, and exploring with my wife and children, as well as guiding hunters, and the occasional research biologist or journalist.

We learned to respect the entire wilderness, not just the bears. Wind and water, darkness in thick timber, cold, and especially extreme heights and exertion, as well as others, all involve risk of some order.

We taught our children to be respectful, not fearing the inevitable encounter with bears of both species. I only ever had to kill one bear out of fear, and it fell from a single hit with a 130 gr Silvertip. It fell close enough that I reached out with my 270 and touched its eyeball to check for a reflex. One time in literally hundreds of trips and countless days to have it happen.

Having said that, I had two friends who spent their entire lives in our wilderness. Both were very skilled outdoorsmen and trappers, and taught me a lot. Ed Wilkinson was killed by a starving grizzly that should have been denned up, one late November. Ironically, his brother Jared was killed two years later in a car accident in Whitehorse. Think about that….

Margaret and I still head out into grizzly country regularly, although we no longer sleep under a fly.

Ted
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and still cherish all the time we re going together.

remember the porcupine on the table at darkness around quiet lake?

enjoy the day and stay away from the heat.
 
South Pender said:
For anyone interested, I strongly recommend the following book by Stephen Herrero, a retired professor of ecology at the University of Calgary: Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance. My impression is that Herrero is considered the most knowledgeable grizzly expert in Canada.

https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/bear-attacks-their-causes-and/9781493029419-item.html
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I had that book years ago and found it VERY interesting and informative. Lent it out to someone (don't recall who) and never got it back. Might buy another copy to read it again.
 
Licensed to kill said:
I had that book years ago and found it VERY interesting and informative. Lent it out to someone (don't recall who) and never got it back. Might buy another copy to read it again.
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Here’s a free pdf of it.

dokumen.pub_bear-attacks-their-causes-and-avoidance-3e-edition-9781493029419-9781493034574-149302941x-149303457x
Stephen Herrero
 
South Pender said:
Is this "common knowledge" purely anecdotal or speculative, or is it based on hard data? What evidence do we have of this distinction?
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It would be very common for anyone with extensive experience and time in both locations. Again... you can fit a lot of bears into a box, as long as they are well fed. Start putting restrictions on that food, and adding more bears, and the behaviors change.
That shouldn't be very difficult to figure out, or accept.

R.
 
Rman said:
It would be very common for anyone with extensive experience and time in both locations.
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Since those people are VERY scarce that would make very UNCOMMON knowledge known only to a handful of people.
Again... you can fit a lot of bears into a box, as long as they are well fed. Start putting restrictions on that food, and adding more bears, and the behaviors change.
That shouldn't be very difficult to figure out, or accept.

R.
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That holds true for for ALL creatures including people and even plants. I read somewhere YEARS ago that studies showed that when food supplies are plentiful, deer birth more doe fawns than buck fawns and when food is scarce they birth more buck fawns than doe fawns. Natures way of regulating population by food supply.
 
Years ago when I hunted the Peace River region and we knew bears were around it was a thing that one guy would gut and skin while the 2nd stood watch with his rifle. We would change off after a time periodically to give the skinner a break. This was to maintain situational awareness and avoid being so engrossed in your task that you fail to notice a visitor creeping up on your kill.

Do folks still do this??
 
Licensed to kill said:
Since those people are VERY scarce that would make very UNCOMMON knowledge known only to a handful of people.
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Knowledge is like a lot things... you'll never find it, without looking for it. It's very common to those, that want to know, or have experienced it first hand. Don't agree that those people are very scarce, at all.

Just maybe here on this forum, as demonstrated in this very thread.

Lots of folks travel to hunt/recreate with regularity, and cover wide areas in doing so, often in one season/year.

R,
 
Depending on what you've downed it could take more than a few trips to pack it out. Don't take long for a Bear to sense there's a gut pile to feast on be aware returning to your kill site.
 
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Licensed to kill said:
"Because of the defensive nature of the attack" this would suggest to me that it was a sow with cubs.
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That's called blaming the victim. It's the language the Game Warden speaks; defensive, attractants, etc.

Oh yeah, last time I checked, Tumbler Ridge was in the Rocky Mountains.
 
South Pender said:
Well, it's not quite that bad. There has been a lot of knowledge accumulated over many decades about grizzly bear ecology and behaviour. For anyone interested, I strongly recommend the following book by Stephen Herrero, a retired professor of ecology at the University of Calgary: Bear Attacks: Their Causes and Avoidance. My impression is that Herrero is considered the most knowledgeable grizzly expert in Canada.

https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/bear-attacks-their-causes-and/9781493029419-item.html
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and he doesnt recomment firearms lol ... sorry but i disagree with his expert opinion on that point ...
 
PSE said:
Years ago when I hunted the Peace River region and we knew bears were around it was a thing that one guy would gut and skin while the 2nd stood watch with his rifle. We would change off after a time periodically to give the skinner a break. This was to maintain situational awareness and avoid being so engrossed in your task that you fail to notice a visitor creeping up on your kill.

Do folks still do this??
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depending on what you re skinning or gutting. we re doing it a little and have always a rifle or shotgun handy for the skinner as well.

never had a problem so far but we got friends stuck between their canoes, the rifles, the moose and the grizzly ... luckily another boat scared the grizzly that thought the meal was on him ....
 
Lots of crickets here since a Mountain Grizzly attacked a woman going about her work. Bear "bluff" charged and pursued her after she retreated. So really the "bluff" charge wasn't a bluff at all.
 
No it’s something you need to decide on your own at the time. How important is your life and at what point are you ready to defend it?
Makes the whole govt gun control argument pretty null if you have one in your hands, are threatened and don’t use it.
 
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