Oh, and by the way. The reason for me to post this is because I've had countless Griz encounters in my life and times. I spend more time in the bush then more could imagine, still do and will do so 'till I die. Yet I've never felt threatened, endangered or whatever. I just feel that giving them a healthy respect and the room that they need to roam in will preserve these absolutely majestic creatures. There are so many people posting theads concerning bear protection, that I feel it should be known that the best bear protection doesn't concern calibers or firearms.....just bear smarts. My two bits.
says the guy with the marlin .444
go within 50 feet of those with nothing but a bear bell to protect you and see how confident you are
you have more experience with grizzlies than i ever will in my life, and i highly respect posts like this by people who have years of experience in these encounters.... but i think trusting in any animal to adhere to a predefined animal encounter scenario is not a good idea.
remember Timothy Treadwell and how he had grizzlies and grizzly behavior 'all figured out', and how that ended up for him and his girlfriend.
you know what youre doing, but i worry about someone else reading your post and deducing from it that knowledge of bear behavior and staying calm is the only thing you ever need for bear protection. but you have a big bore levergun as back-up if things go wrong - they
wont.
IMO thats how 'bear protection' should be looked at... not as
'OMG THERES A BEAR HOLY S@#T SHOOT IT SHOOOOOT IT!!!!' *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG*, but to have a last resort in case all your 'bear behavior predictions' go wrong. predatory animals are excellent at detecting fear, so who is to say that the confidence from just having the gun handy in case things didnt go as planned wasnt partly responsible for the animal leaving you alone.
that said, some of those people that are chomping at the bit to shoot at a bear with their bear defense gun might learn something from this thread
