I can give you a couple of instances where a shotgun saved the day. We were on our way to work and at the end of my street there was a trailer court. A fellow who lived there had just let his rotty out and a polar bear came out from under his steps, bounded up onto the deck trying to get the dog. The dog got inside, the bear tried follow, but got his slammed in the door. The homeowner who was pretty worked up by this time, had his goose gun loaded with birdshot at the door. Somehow he managed to hold the door tight on the bear’s neck, reach for his 28” pump and shot the bear in the face. The bear was rubber legged and stumbled about 50 yards away and dropped. The COs showed up a couple of minutes later and killed it. I'm glad he had shot in that gun, because we were right in his line of fire and this guy was way too wound up to worry about where a slug might go if it exited.
I like to walk my dog Shadow early in the morning, and one morning we headed down the back road that runs parallel to Hudson Bay. To our left was a spur line that goes to the tank farm and between the road and the tracks was a slew, which was frozen over at that time. I heard some cracker shells then say headlights coming down the tracks. I figured that bear was on the low ground between the road and the tracks. Not wanting to get run over by an excited bear that was in the process of being cracker-shelled and harassed with bright lights I opted to cross to the tracks as quickly as I could. Sure enough, halfway there we met the bear. Shadow, doesn't like cracker shells, so here I am, he's got the leash wrapped around my leg anchoring me in place, the bear is hissing at me like a cat and is almost close enough to touch with the gun barrel it I stretched out. He goes past me, I’ve got the gun on him, and he stops when he gets up on the road like he's thinking about coming back down. I hammered 3 Brenneks into the bank at his feet as fast as I could shoot; then he did the stiff legged, "I'll leave, but not because you scared me" thing. I walk up to the CO's truck, and they say, "Whoa, did you ever scare us!!??" I'll keep my comment to myself. The interesting thing about that little episode was that I didn't feel particularly rattled, but I slung the gun muzzle down across my back as is my habit, and when we got home, I took it off and I had a round in the chamber and hadn't put the safety on.
We got a call that a bear was roaming around a bunch of tourists, so I had made up my mind that I would kill hit, rather than try to scare it away and risk getting someone run over or mauled by a panicked bear. So shotgun at the ready I drive to the place and sure enough there's the bear. I don't know if bears are telepathic, but it was like he could read my mind, but as soon as I got on the scene he bolted ran head long into a chain link fence bounced off, then tried to hide under a wooden crate. I was laughing so hard I could have shot him if I wanted to. He got to live another day.
