Last night I was walking my new puppy Rusty and my Golden Retriever Jake in our usual area, our neighbors' 80 acre patch of woods. The neighbor recently cut a new road around the outside of the property for his 2 young sons to ride their youth motorcycles and 4-wheelers on. Rusty, my 6 mo. old cross between a Springer Spaniel and a Swiss Mountain Dog, led the way, but he was spooky, carefully smelling every bush and fern that over-hung the new trail, hackles up. Suddenly he came to a complete stop in mid stride, looking intently into the heavy brush and young Doug Fir trees, and let out a low, deep growl. Jake did the same, hackles up. I followed their stare and a huge black bear slowly rose up on its' hind legs, only 20 yards away, staring back at us! My only thought was, "please....no cubs!" I always carry my 9mm Glock on our hikes, and I drew the gun and shouted, "Go on" as loud as I could. Nothing....the bear stood its' ground. The dogs were now barking and growling, and Rusty headed down the trail toward home, barking and crying loudly. Once again I yelled at the bear, this time waving my arms, and the bear finally dropped down on all fours and took off directly away from us, crashing through the heavy underbrush, thank God! Rusty finally returned, and we continued our evening hike, the dogs playing as if nothing had happened. Richard
Around here you have close encounters all the time. They never run. Right over the state border they’re hunted harder and the story is dif. I can’t stand em. The only thing I like about em is eating them
You are better off with a can of bear spray, I carry a Glock 29 and can of Guard Alaska. Spray 2, Glock 0, nobody hurt, nobody had to die, and everybody went home.
No grizzlies in the mountains hereabout but lots of black bears and I encounter them frequently walking my two labs every morning at sunrise. We recently woke up a big boar sleeping next to the trail. A couple tense moments with mamas and cubs but patience, a cool head and two dogs works every time. One old girl was 10 yards away eating pignut hickory nuts within 75 yards of my house last fall. Her cub was 6 yards away. Never occurred to me that a sidearm or bear spray was required to share the woods with black bears.
Usually it's not required, but if and when you run up on the rare one that it is, talking it over with him is a poor option. I've never had a problem in NC either, the two that required attention elswhere, one was black and one was not.
Several mentioned carrying bear spray,for me I'm not sold. Especially after reading the article in the June edition of the NRA's American Hunter magazine. The article is on a class being offered for people working in back country situations where they may encounter bears.It talks about bear sprays and says that after use, bear spray residue is an attractant. As for carrying a firearm,I'd carry the heaviest caliber that you can shoot accurately as far as a handgun goes.
"Never occurred to me that a sidearm or bear spray was required to share the woods with black bears."
Google up....
"Black Bear Maulings in Florida"
It seems to me that when there's just one Black Bear?...your chances are pretty good...(especially if you have something to take a dominant stance aned scare them off with)...but if there's more than one Black Bear?...you gotta problem.
You can talk it to death about how it's not needed all you want to, but I will tell you from experience on a moose hunt on the Tichik River that the speed and short amount of time that it took when a previously undetected 400ish pound sow Grizzly exploded from the bush from about 60-80 feet in practically incomprehensible. Sh_t got real in a big hurry and by the time that two out of three of us got spray in action she was closing through 30 down to 10 feet so fast in a blur that she looked 10 feet long. When she hit the spray she did not stop or run the other way but veered off and passed us by at 6-8 feet. Life was viewed in flashes of black and white snapshots, there was not time for even thinking about getting a firearm into action, and if anyone had, then we would have been wearing a totally pissed off wounded bear. I don't hunt bears anymore and haven't since 2002, I don't eat them and they get a pass as a professional courtesy as a fellow predator, the last thing that I want to do is to kill another bear. Many handgun calibers will kill a large bear , but they will take their time about dying and you'll likely have their undivided attention while they do it. I still and will carry my 10mm, but when it hits the fan my hand goes for the can, your mileage may vary, feel free to use Zen or "The Force" or whatever works for you but bear spray does work more often than it doesn't.
Good story David about how fast those spray cans came out. Seems like those bears can have a temperament about as fragile as my first boss.
Most of the time where I am at in the summer and fall in the Adirondacks, they just come up into someone's yard looking for good eats. One came into a neighbors house two years ago looking for the cookies his wife just baked. Made himself right at home. His nephew just down the road turned a bear that got too neighborly into a rug just a few years before.
I never actually got mine out of the carrier but flipped the safety block out and shot it from the hip, it happened that fast. It was early afternoon and I think that we woke her up, never saw or heard any cubs and she was still digging in throwing dirt and rocks all the way so it was not a bluff, she was coming. We were going to fish for some dinner, but we didn't eat or sleep much that night.
I never actually got mine out of the carrier but flipped the safety block out and shot it from the hip, it happened that fast. It was early afternoon and I think that we woke her up, never saw or heard any cubs and she was still digging in throwing dirt and rocks all the way so it was not a bluff, she was coming. We were going to fish for some dinner, but we didn't eat or sleep much that night.
I’ve always had my doubts about being able to quick-draw a can of spray... but I’ll bet I’m not the only one who’d be a lot more effective with it shooting from the hip...
And really, if you’ve got to unsnap a strap before you can pull out a hand-cannon, the speed differential is probably negligible...
A round shot in the dirt in front of a aggressive bear from a firearm is often enough to turn them without ever having to shoot to kill. The boom and the dirt flying is a good stopper for a bear who's being a pain. I've seen it happen. Your mileage may vary.
It's only a unproveable theory, but I figure polar bears are 5 times bigger than people, rarely are threatened by people, almost exclusively carnivorous and dont consider humans as much other than a potential meal, so I avoid being in their territory. Likewise grizzlies, although those who are in areas frequented by humans probably have developed some sense of uncertainty about them as a food source. Blackbears are omnivorous, mostly vegetarian, and in the populated areas encounter humans on a regular basis and have probably evolved not to consider humans as a prime food source, as that has a high incidence of bear death shortly after dining. So if those black bears are doing their part not to incite high-stress encounters with me, I will try a reciprocal approach until I see a reason not to. I've been bluff charged, had young boars pass by at 6 feet then stop to mark their territory, had lots of popping teeth and woofing, but Ive also been in close among a sow with five cubs, half of them sleeping , half of them eating and playing, and listened to their barely audible means of keeping in contact with each other. No bears were mauled. But I'm not recommending anything to anybody as my attitude and approach is largely the result of first hand experience in a specific bear population area. Now I have two labs that grew up among bears, and they have relatively advanced bear interaction skills, but so far they all manage to go home intact afterwards.
I'll agree that NC Black Bears by and large are rarely a problem, there will now and then be the odd one but generally they are pretty easy to get along with probably like most Black Bears around the country. I will say that I have found coastal Black Bears in AK to be a different animal than here in NC as they are more aggressive. One of my hunting partners on the TikChik River trip lives in MT and said that he believed that the MT Grizzlies were much more short tempered and risky than the AK Grizzlies. We saw eight goliath bears on that float and they were all about minding their business. The one sow that we dealt with gave all the thrills that may have been needed, and it was just a difficult situation and nobody's fault. By the time she realized we were there, we were too close for her to feel comfortable. I honestly believe that she planned to single out whoever the slow guy happened to be and give him a piece of her mind, but nobody ran and fortunately it didn't go that way.
Rusty and Jake led the way down the trail earlier this evening toward where we spotted the bear. I followed them with a can of bear spray on my belt, a Glock in my holster, and a loud whistle around my neck. Two years ago a big bear ravaged an apple tree not 40' from the neighbors' front door, gorging himself for hours on over-ripe apples. Got it all on a trail cam. A wildlife agent saw the photos and estimated the big male to weigh 350-400 pounds. Tonight, the tension was high as we passed that tree and entered the deep, dark woods. We made a lot of noise on our hike and the only animals we saw were a few baby bunnies. The puppy busted one of the little devils out of the brush and he came right at me at 50'. I pulled out the bear spray in one hand and the Glock in the other, but the fuzzy little critter veered off to my right when I hit the whistle. What a close call! Be safe out there! Richard
Here's the boys, Rusty and Jake, the day after the bear encounter. I went back to retrieve the trail cam card tonight and found the two photos I just posted. No sign of the bears tonight.
