Funny bear stories

Cordur

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Read a couple of bear defense threads and got to thinking about bear encounters and people who are terrified of bears. Anyways I think we need a thread dedicated to funny bear stories to help ease the nerves of the paranoid.

Heard this story about my great grandfather:

Guess he had been out for the day doing a little fishing in his canoe. Night time comes and he doesn't show up for supper. My great grandmother heads to bed for the night worried but figures he's a man and can look after himself for an evening. Next morning he still hasn't shown up so she heads next door to see her brother and asks him to go looking for him. Anyways he finds him quick enough down by the shore. He's hiding under the canoe with a hatchet in his hands. Apparently a black bear had come along while he was pulling up the canoe and with him being terrified of bears he had jumped under the canoe and was too frightened to come out even after 14 hours lol

Next up is one about my uncle. I was sent to go have a look for him when he was a bit late getting back from his deer stand. Met him on the trail on his way out and told him why I was out looking for him. Apparently a black bear had been nosing around the base of his tree stand for a while and he was too scared to move or try to scare it off since he thought it would come up the tree after him. Funny part is his hunting trip was starting to go worse for him since it started raining. Then he noticed there weren't any clouds and took a look up to see what was what. Porcupine was sitting about three branches up and had just relieved itself on him. Guess he was pretty mad at the thing and wanted to shoot it but was worried he'd alert the bear and that the quilled beasty would fall dead into his lap :D

Anyways that's all I've got. Be good to hear a few more.
 
to help ease the nerves of the paranoid

Well, I am assuming that both your unlce and grandfather were pretty smart capable fellows?

Now does it not tell you something about bears that these two men knew to be well and afraid of them!

Great stories but I reserve my right to be a paranoid, whimpy, bear fearer just like your esteemed relations!
 
I suppose they were pretty capable fellows in their own right, though I know both of them had done some pretty foolish things in their time. Still no one I know has ever come to harm from a bear and I've got a few relatives that would sooner give a bear a kick in the arse (to get it off of their walking trail) than give a thought to it not being scared of them.

Still not saying a person shouldn't give them the respect they deserve.
 
Won't ease your nerves one bit:

I shot a black bear in the Chinchaga area of Alberta, thru the front shoulders with a 7mm rem mag. Walked up to it and it was still alive and my buddy Doug shot it twice in the chest with a 270.

It ran (yes RAN) into the bush and down an incline to a water hole. Grandpa Bob was with us and he shot the running bear from behind with a 12 g 000 buck and hit it in the back/neck/head. The bear laid down in the water with its head submerged.

After about 20 seconds, I reached and grabbed the bear from behind to drag him out of the water. He flipped around with his mouth open and just grazed my left hand as his jaws popped shut.

I pushed him back in the water and waited about 15 minutes. He was dead then.

I made a rug out of one of the toughest bears I ever encountered. Any one of those shots should have killed him. He just refused to die from it. Instead, Doug and Grandpa Bob tell everyone that I drown the bear.
 
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My Dad had me bugged eye, as a youngster, telling bear stories - and I really think that I should have entered some sort of therapy in my teen years to come to grips with it all .... but I did eventually face my fears & grow out of it ..... I think!:confused:;)


Anyhoot here's one of the more intimidating scenarios that he engineered:

Hunting Camp, Thanksgiving Weekend, October 1969.

Me(9 yrs old>, my Dad, and my Dad's best hunting buddy driving/on the way to camp.

Dad: I understand that a rogue bear broke into the camp next to ours last weekend and killed a German Shepard.

Me: (until then dozing) :eek:

Ron(Dad's buddy): Is that right? Did they get him?

Dad: Nope still at large and has been seen roaming about ever since.

Me::eek::eek:

<We arrive at camp in midafternoon>

Dad: Why don't you go for a little hunt while we play cards & a have a few drinks - Son? Here's your gun <hands over the single shot cooey 39>

Me: Ummmm I'm feeling a bit tired and a little sick to my stomach. I'd rather go tomorrow.;)

Dad: I thought you came up here to hunt?:mad:

<fast forward 2 hours after several card games & rums and the sun just having set>

Dad: Son, it's almost dark and we need water for dishes, teeth, & the morning. Take the bucket, take your gun and I want you to be back before dark with a rabbit and some water. Here's a flashlight in case you are a little late.

Me: Ummmmm :eek:

Dad: I'm not suggesting this time ... it is an order!

The well was down a winding valley path and I knew I had to get going now to be back before pitch blackness - besides at this point arguing was going to be useless.

The wind was gusting & swirling the dry leaves as I stepped out the door, (geez with all the noise in my ears a frickin bear could have eaten my right leg before I would even know it) but off I went. Just at the start of the trail, as luck would have it, a rabbit perks it's ears up and I nail him with a single shot .... and reload with another bear crippling .22lr.

The rabbit was heavy, with the bucket, and gun - so around the second bend in the trail as it headed down in the valley - I layed the rabbit behind a large oak tree for my return up the trail. My head was on a swival as I approached the well and filled up with fresh water. Wasting no time to catch my breath - I started back up the path and with darkness fast approaching - break out the pocket flashlight, which besides giving a needed ray of light, caused the shrubs & bushes to come alive and look an awful lot like a picnic gathering clan of cabin-smashing bears. I started to run now with the water spilling down my boots and get to the oak tree where I placed the bunny - but it's gone, no sign of it.:runaway: :confused:<the bear got the dog, now it's got the rabbit, & guess who is next?>.



Wind really whirling now, a couple of limbs snap, and I'm beyond being scared, I'm frickin petrified, and start to run up the path, water sloshing, and suddenly pass another big tree, just as the light beam reveals an eary carcass - my god I had the wrong tree - the rabbit's still in one piece - I'm still in one piece.:eek:

<get back with 1/4 bucket of water, rabbit, and my life>

Dad: good job son, but we'll need more water than that - you can go at first light - there's bears around this time of night!

-------------------------------

Oh yeah, I can still remember that weekend like it was yesterday.:eek:
 
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Our deer camp hunts with hounds and we have a rule that everybody carries a rope with which to leash a dog if they meet one late in the hunt. That's exacly what happened to Bill. Bill "saw" one of our big hounds trotting through the evergreens. So he put down his gun, grabbed his rope and set off after the dog, calling out, "Here Blacky, Here boy!" Blacky kindly stopped behind a bush, so Bill stepped around the bush and leaned over to slip the rope around the "dog's" neck, only to find himself eye-ball to eye-ball with Blacky the bear:eek:!!!! When I heard the story first-hand from Bill about an hour after it happened, Bill's hands were still shaking!:D
 
I had one coming for me last fall (approx 15 FEET). Shot him right in the forehead with a blunt tipped arrow. He never knew what hit him (didn't know I was there, he was just walking right at me). Hit the ground out cold, landed like a pancake. After about 2 seconds, he jumped up and ran like his ass was on fire! Funniest thing I've ever sseen
 
I was sitting in a little rough blind I'd made next to a pine tree at the edge of an old logging road one misty September morning, watching this little grown up clear-cut I'd seen does in the evening before hoping to get a little buck as it was the second day of the season.

Suddenly I heard "Humpffff!" on the other side of the tree, about three yards away, kind of jumped in alarm, and suddenly this black bear appeared on the edge of the bank right there to my left, about four yards away going downhill now into the bowl.

When I recovered my composure, I raised the rifle to sight at him, now 30 yards away and heading into the Christmas trees, and the scope was fogged up. I wiped it, and it was fogged up on the inside too, so I put the rifle down and watched him walk away. He was very small and had a big white patch on his butt where a bigger bear had taken a bite out of him.

I kind of felt sorry for the little bugger and in the end was glad to let him walk.
 
I was up in the Chinchaga area of Alberta approx 8-9 years ago.
I was chased by a Sow and her cub while I was sleeping on a quad.. Long story short here is the funny part.
We came back a few days later to pick up my gear that had scattered and Dad wanted to see if there was some tracks.. So Dummy me bends over in the grass looking for tracks... Out of the corner and I mean corner of my eye I see his jeans running by headed for the quad... I immediately start sprinting ahead to get my gun.. Only after getting to the quad did I realize I had passed him because he was laughing so hard he hit the ground... A BIG
FRIKEN JOKE.. Man I still get scared thinking about it.
Funny guy that Dad of mine.

Jamie
 
I was working at a fly-in camp in the Labrador Trough. There was a little creek at the east end of the lake we were camped on that had great rainbows. We'd take the canoe out there each night to get some for dinner and the same pair of black bears would be fishing there most evenings. We'd just yell at them, from the safety of the canoe, and they'd back off, let us fish and then go back to it once we left. All in all a civilized relationship it was.
 
As a kid (9-ish), I was at the dump with my dad. We were just dropping off some trash & of course, being Squamish BC in the late 70's, there were bears everywhere. As dad was talking with one of the other folks, I was near the top edge, tossing the last of the stuff when I see this Cinnamon bear right below me. Well even at 9, I know that bears don't run uphill worth a damn, and that they have poor eyes... I boot a little can down toward him, startle the bear & he takes off running hell bent for leather. I started laughing pretty hard at this point, thinking it looks funnier than anything, this scrawny kid scaring a big mean bear.

That lasted perhaps 15 seconds... I hear my dad screaming my name & to look behind me, and there's a big Grizzly calmly walking toward me, like he's out for a sunday stroll. No head waving or grunts or even a really interested look... But at 9, all I saw was a Leslea-eating bear. 2 seconds later, I was inside dad's truck (which was a good 50' away 2 seconds earlier, LOL!), windows rolled up, doors locked & me sitting right in the middle, shaking like a leaf.

Suffice to say, dad & his friend thought it was the funniest thing THEY'D ever seen!

L
 
the bear got the dog, now it's got the rabbit, & guess who is next

Its funny you mention that, my brother was coming back from his grouse hunt last week and lost of his "trophies" on the trail as it was not latched to the rack. He only realized his loss 5 minutes later so he turns around and drives back only to find a bear running down the trail with a Grouse in his Mouth :runaway: Finders keepers I guess.....

My Father has always had good bear encounters, the last one he dispatched was from our Family house (he just slid open the side window and shot him) in the country when I was 18, My brothers were 9 and 7 back then so he wasnt' taking chances.

Quite a few years before that he shot one from inside his old hunt camp, this little thing was barely 10x15 and made out of waferboard, he had installed a small plexy glass window in the door and after hearing some noise around the door he soon noticed that the moonlight in the small windows was replaced by a bear paw, he figured the bear was standing and trying to get the door open so she shot him right throught the door.....his poor hunting partner flew off the top bunk with a heart attack after hearing that.

Good ole 30-30....bear never knew the difference....:D
 
My family is from Squamish and my dad told me the story of his first bear. He was on the Squamish river, looking for a deer or a bear. Had his dad's old
.303. He saw a bear down by the river's edge, lined it up and let it fly. He said the bear scrambled down the bank a bit and headed inland. He chased the bear for a couple of hundred yards and found the bear standing on a log by the river with his head hanging down, not looking so good. He walked up to finish him off and shot him in the back of the head. He was about 3 feet behind him when he shot and after skinning the bear out, he did not find one bullet in the carcass. He walked up behind a perfectly healthy bear. Funnier when he tells it.
 
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