Grizzly attack

I agree a gun has it's place, that's why I carry one to back up clients grizzly hunting rather than back them with spray. However read Phil Shoemaker's writing, he's guided grizzly and brown bear hunts into three digits over decades and never once had to defensively shoot an unwounded bear of any species. He's had countless bluff charges as anyone working in grizzly / brown country daily is forced to eventually accumulate. I've only had one good bluff charge and and a lot posturing, the bluff charging sow became my outfitting operation's logo. There will be more, Dogleg and surprised a sow grizzly with small cubs at spitting distance last year. #### happens.

Long story short Phil's experience and my own, which is a shadow of his, makes me suspicious of all the defensive shootings I hear about. Seems like everyone and their dog has been forced to shoot a bear and guys like Shoemaker didn't have to for forty plus years of living it day in, day out, in the biggest and most aggressive bears out there. Doesn't change this guy got beat up, maybe he wasn't aware, maybe he hadn't been making enough noise and surprised her, maybe he was just really unlucky (but not too unlucky, he lived) as people also win the lottery every week.

My concern is most people who would switch to guns after seeing a video like this have no experience with grizzly behaviour and an awful lot are going to be shot just as they're peeling off their bluff at ten to fifteen yards. At that point shooting one can be a disaster for you, they fight rather than flight. In an excellent bear awareness video from the Yukon (and that's saying something, most make you want to eat paint) a woman purposely incited repeated grizzly bluff charges holding and using a can of spray. She has bigger balls than most! Can you guys imagine how many Americans that see just two Grizzlies a year start packing a .44 in the lower 48 bush will reach for the can before the gun? I like to think in Canada we're a bit better versed but a lot of Vancourverites with their Defender aren't, I just worry the message people take from this stuff.
 
Ardent said:
I agree a gun has it's place, that's why I carry one to back up clients grizzly hunting rather than back them with spray. However read Phil Shoemaker's writing, he's guided grizzly and brown bear hunts into three digits over decades and never once had to defensively shoot an unwounded bear of any species. He's had countless bluff charges as anyone working in grizzly / brown country daily is forced to eventually accumulate. I've only had one good bluff charge and and a lot posturing, the bluff charging sow became my outfitting operation's logo. There will be more, Dogleg and surprised a sow grizzly with small cubs at spitting distance last year. #### happens. Long story short Phil's experience and my own, which is a shadow of his, makes me suspicious of all the defensive shootings I hear about. Seems like everyone and their dog has been forced to shoot a bear and guys like Shoemaker didn't have to for forty plus years of living it day in, day out, in the biggest and most aggressive bears out there. Doesn't change this guy got beat up, maybe he wasn't aware, maybe he hadn't been making enough noise and surprised her, maybe he was just really unlucky (but not too unlucky, he lived) as people also win the lottery every week. My concern is most people who would switch to guns after seeing a video like this have no experience with grizzly behaviour and an awful lot are going to be shot just as they're peeling off their bluff at ten to fifteen yards. At that point shooting one can be a disaster for you, they fight rather than flight. In an excellent bear awareness video from the Yukon (and that's saying something, most make you want to eat paint) a woman purposely incited repeated grizzly bluff charges holding and using a can of spray. She has bigger balls than most! Can you guys imagine how many Americans that see just two Grizzlies a year start packing a .44 in the lower 48 bush will reach for the can before the gun? I like to think in Canada we're a bit better versed but a lot of Vancourverites with their Defender aren't, I just worry the message people take from this stuff.
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Yep, I have read Shoemaker's material and I agree about the risk of the wrong message.
 
From what I have read, spray can work and guns can work..... There is no telling for sure that, if Orr had pulled his gun, he would have escaped getting mauled...... There is also no telling for sure that Shoemaker could not have gotten the same safe outcome for his clients if he had used spray......

The only thing I do question is Shoemaker's decision to carry his 9mm as opposed to his 44 magnum based on "boars being less aggressive"..... Seems to me that in this situation, a gun is a tool.... And if that tool is going to be used, it's a situation where you sure as hell want the best one for the job......
 
Superbrad said:
Seems to me that in this situation, a gun is a tool.... And if that tool is going to be used, it's a situation where you sure as hell want the best one for the job......
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And if the first tool fails, I think I would very much like a chance at using another tool.
 
Ardent said:
I agree a gun has it's place, that's why I carry one to back up clients grizzly hunting rather than back them with spray. However read Phil Shoemaker's writing, he's guided grizzly and brown bear hunts into three digits over decades and never once had to defensively shoot an unwounded bear of any species. He's had countless bluff charges as anyone working in grizzly / brown country daily is forced to eventually accumulate. I've only had one good bluff charge and and a lot posturing, the bluff charging sow became my outfitting operation's logo. There will be more, Dogleg and surprised a sow grizzly with small cubs at spitting distance last year. #### happens.

Long story short Phil's experience and my own, which is a shadow of his, makes me suspicious of all the defensive shootings I hear about. Seems like everyone and their dog has been forced to shoot a bear and guys like Shoemaker didn't have to for forty plus years of living it day in, day out, in the biggest and most aggressive bears out there. Doesn't change this guy got beat up, maybe he wasn't aware, maybe he hadn't been making enough noise and surprised her, maybe he was just really unlucky (but not too unlucky, he lived) as people also win the lottery every week.

My concern is most people who would switch to guns after seeing a video like this have no experience with grizzly behaviour and an awful lot are going to be shot just as they're peeling off their bluff at ten to fifteen yards. At that point shooting one can be a disaster for you, they fight rather than flight. In an excellent bear awareness video from the Yukon (and that's saying something, most make you want to eat paint) a woman purposely incited repeated grizzly bluff charges holding and using a can of spray. She has bigger balls than most! Can you guys imagine how many Americans that see just two Grizzlies a year start packing a .44 in the lower 48 bush will reach for the can before the gun? I like to think in Canada we're a bit better versed but a lot of Vancourverites with their Defender aren't, I just worry the message people take from this stuff.
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not every grizzly are equal.

Shoemaker is a good example about brown bear but i spoke sometimes with his son Taj (his guiding and flying on Kodiak island) and he told me that Yukon grizzly are more aggressive than most of the Alaskan coastal bear and the main reason is : food ...

like humane bears are unique.

a video can teach a lot but at the end only real observation can help to understand a little of that and even with that.

about that video and bear awareness there is always something that amaze me is bear spray: they are promoting it and in the same time each COs i met are telling me the same: maybe they work but they do not rely on it at all anymore as they found out that bears are not scared of it and they will all the time come back and sometimes wont even blink an eye after being sprayed and not move.

the content of active agent we have is not to compare with what LEO have or what US citizens can buy on their local market.

we do not hear that much about DLP in Yukon because most of the guys are buying a tag for griz in case ... if the people get a clue about investigation and paper you have to fill for a DLP case then you will know why.

i ve been close to grizzly bears as 20 feet and not worried but still conscious and ready just in case, and sometimes not very comfortable with a bear at 250 yards that was agitated because of his food source.

just my two cents.
 
CV32 said:
And if the first tool fails, I think I would very much like a chance at using another tool.
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That is where my interpretation comes into play... this fellow tried the spray and got pounded... the first thing I would have done getting off the ground is fill my hand with the gun, before the second attack occured. However, at that point he has every right not to be thinking clearly.

I have limited experience with grizzlies, but in 35 years of hunting/guiding for black bears, I have been bluff charged a couple dozen times, everything from breaking off at 20 yards in braod daylight to getting bowled over in the pitch dark to having tooth marks in my boot. I would like to say that it was my graciousness that allowed those bears to walk away unscathed... but truthfully a few times it was either slow reaction time, or poor marksmanship... being charged is disconcerting to say the least... with experience, you learn the visual cues that typify a "bluff" charge... but unfortumately, there is only one way to gain that experience.
 
When working around grizzlies I Carry a shotgun or rifle with an empty chamber but the minute I've become aware of a bear I will immediately chamber a round
Upon first contact with bears shotgun at ready and loaded I will charge The bear 99.5% of the time this works the chambered round is for that .5%

With all my bear in counters I am the aggressive one not the bear
 
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hoytcanon said:
That is where my interpretation comes into play... this fellow tried the spray and got pounded... the first thing I would have done getting off the ground is fill my hand with the gun, before the second attack occured. However, at that point he has every right not to be thinking clearly.
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Yes. Totally agree.
 
Ardent said:
I agree a gun has it's place, that's why I carry one to back up clients grizzly hunting rather than back them with spray. However read Phil Shoemaker's writing, he's guided grizzly and brown bear hunts into three digits over decades and never once had to defensively shoot an unwounded bear of any species. He's had countless bluff charges as anyone working in grizzly / brown country daily is forced to eventually accumulate. I've only had one good bluff charge and and a lot posturing, the bluff charging sow became my outfitting operation's logo. There will be more, Dogleg and surprised a sow grizzly with small cubs at spitting distance last year. #### happens.

Long story short Phil's experience and my own, which is a shadow of his, makes me suspicious of all the defensive shootings I hear about. Seems like everyone and their dog has been forced to shoot a bear and guys like Shoemaker didn't have to for forty plus years of living it day in, day out, in the biggest and most aggressive bears out there. Doesn't change this guy got beat up, maybe he wasn't aware, maybe he hadn't been making enough noise and surprised her, maybe he was just really unlucky (but not too unlucky, he lived) as people also win the lottery every week.

My concern is most people who would switch to guns after seeing a video like this have no experience with grizzly behaviour and an awful lot are going to be shot just as they're peeling off their bluff at ten to fifteen yards. At that point shooting one can be a disaster for you, they fight rather than flight. In an excellent bear awareness video from the Yukon (and that's saying something, most make you want to eat paint) a woman purposely incited repeated grizzly bluff charges holding and using a can of spray. She has bigger balls than most! Can you guys imagine how many Americans that see just two Grizzlies a year start packing a .44 in the lower 48 bush will reach for the can before the gun? I like to think in Canada we're a bit better versed but a lot of Vancourverites with their Defender aren't, I just worry the message people take from this stuff.
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While that may be true, Phil may also just be really lucky. I don't know what he could've done differently in this case to prevent the initial charge.

And the only reason Canadians don't pack handguns in grizzly country has more to do with the fact it's illegal for most. If our carry laws were the same, I don't think there'd be much difference. I don't think our attitude toward aggressive bears is any different. My opinion anyhow.
 
I'm from NS, obviously no gris here, but have been working in the Hyder/Stewart/Salmon Glacier area for a few months now.

We stopped at the Fish Creek Observatory one night, the US Fish and Wildlife Officer had a series of photos he showed us of a bear trying to get onto the gated boardwalk, when the officer presented the can of spray, the bear turned its head away until the cone of spray had passed and carried on. The officer thought he had been sprayed before and kind of figured out how to handle it.

We're not allowed to carry firearms on site, twice I've had choppers haze a bear away from my site and the sightings are increasing as the berries dry up and they're getting ready for denning up I assume.

I had one lone grizzly hanging around at about 100 yards for half a day, he kept an eye on me and I on him, he was cleaning up the blueberries, pretty cool creatures.
 
Have never been bluff charged so cannot directly comment on that. Have spooked three half grown cubs in Rainbow Alley (end of Babine Lake, we were in a boat) and had the sow bellow at us from the bank. That shook me to my bones. I carry spray while hunting always, why not? Having worked around and observed wild animals in many different situations there are 'tells' that are common to most species. Ear position being one example. Would I have the stones to hold off shooting at a charging grizzly because I thought he was bluff charging? Don't know until it happens. This guy definitely should buy a lottery ticket. Unfortunately I have been in shock due to injury a # of times and your decision making abilities suffer. Considering the circumstance this guy did very well.
 
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