survived my first (false) black bear charge

[Bonedalien]

I was born and raised in western CO and had the scare of my life. I crawled up to a remote bench that has always held elk in the dark with a headlamp on a trail ive used for years. waitng for shooting light and painting my face,eating ,ect, i hear something big coming down my trail. AWESOME ,i think and nok up. its on..elk.. 30 yards out I catch a glimpse of black fur...shit,its a bear,and its close. i need to let it know im here ,now before it gets closer. i dont hunt with a side arm. I stand up and yell, "hey bear!" BAM.. it flat charges me! I hold my bow over my head and scream "NO NO NO! BEAR NO!" 10 yards away it stops, looks at me and turns around. then i see more fur in the brush behind it and think ,ah ,a sow and cub. I gather myself for about half an hour or so and reason that any good sow will get her cub out of there and my way is clear. i sure blew any elk out of this bowl with my screaming but its only 7 so i should push on to the next bowl.A quarter mile up the trail my hair stands up and i look left,under a huge pine is a massive boar sitting on his ass like a dog watching me. I freeze,its 50 yards with nothing between us. Around the tree comes the sow that charged me,it wasent her and a cub,but her and her man! We had a several second stare off(with me not looking him in the eye) untill he started swaying back and forth like a cobra. That was it for me, i backed out of there,100 yards over deadfall untill they were out of sight,and then booked!.HOLY SMOKES! Im going back in there again,the elk are there but the .45 will be on my chest.

 

[realunlucky]

Heard on the radio today of someone getting killed by a black bear over the weekend. Never can be to careful

 

[Trr15]

I knew I carried an extra pair of underwear for a reason, I would need them after an encounter like that.

 

[Shrek]

Good to hear that you're fine ! Isn't bear open ? I'd have a bear tag next time.

 

[William Hanson (live2hunt)]

Wow pretty spooky for sure. Glad it worked out OK.

 

[Logan T]

Seems like stuff like this is happening a lot this year. I had a bad run in with mountain lions- walked into the middle of 4 of them and got chased by one, one buddy of mine was out with his wife hunting elk and called in 3 black bears with his cow elk call in one spot and in another spot got false charged by another one as well. Another buddy was using his cow call and called in a big griz to 40 yards, and it followed him for about a mile down a logging road he said. All up in Montana but spread out between south central and the northern part of the state.

 

[brewer427]

Glad your okay man. I agree with shrek, I always have a bear tag and wolf tags when I can, then that way if I due ever have a unexpected encounter and kill a animal it was done legally and I just tag it. Don't have to mess with calling game and fish then waist hunting time while they investigate.

 

[fillthefreezer]

holy chit man! of all the bears ive been up close with, theyve always boogied when they noticed me!

 

[littlebuf]

Doesn't every one survive mock charges.

 

[_Nick_]

Rather than a .45, I'd bring bear spray.

 

[Bonedalien]

Doesn't every one survive mock charges.

Ha,good point.if you have a heart condition you might not though!

 

[JJHACK]

Bear spray only works in dead calm wind. Even with a breeze imagine your in a bad predicament and now blind as well!

It's extremely odd that there would be any sort of mating conditions this time of year. Actually near zero chance. Something else is involved maybe siblings?

 

[Bonedalien]

Maybe,or a huge sow with an adult cub, I dont know.they were full grown though.

 

[Redside]

Just read a good article in MT Outdoors on a study of the use of bear spray vs gun. I carry both during bow, only spray during rifle. I also have a bear and wolf tags...

http://fwp.mt.gov/mtoutdoors/HTML/articles/2014/bearspray.htm#.VCMYFfldWSo

 

[ethan]

A guy in West Virginia was attacked and bitten last week and a hiker in New Jersey was killed this week by black bears. Kind of weird. Our season starts Saturday and I'm hoping to have an encounter of my own, just not like one of these!

 

[307]

Following the Utah man's death from a griz, we've had 2 more encounters in the Absaroka mountains of WY in the last week or so. Both parties were bowhunters.

The first instance, the guy's brother sprayed the bear while she was mauling and the guy sustained minor injuries. They were carrying guns and spray. It was a sow with cubs.

In the second instance, 3 hunters fired at a boar who was charging. The bear was killed.

I carry spray and a Ruger .480 with 410 grain hardcast. Hopefully I'll never have to use either.

One more weekend in "bear central" and then I'll switch to a different area next year.

 

[Augustus46]

I carry spray and a Ruger .480 with 410 grain hardcast. Hopefully I'll never have to use either.

One more weekend in "bear central" and then I'll switch to a different area next year.

That .480 is a beast, I have a .454 and that thing feels like a monster.

 

[wawhitey]

i will never let a bear false charge me without shooting. if you wait to find out if its a "false" charge, and its NOT..... then youre screwed. i ALWAYS carry a sidearm in the woods. ive had a couple sketchy bear encounters, one of which resulted in me shooting a bear with my sidearm at 8 feet. ive also found myself between two cougars, one at about 10 feet the other at 30 yards on the other side of me. carry a gun, and never tolerate a rude animal. the way i see it, a predator at close range has about 3 seconds to show me its ass before i plug it. no need to be scared in the woods, but be prepared to take care of yourself

 

[307]

The .480 has less recoil than the .454 even in the Ruger Super Alaskan. IMO, it's the perfect compromise between power, tolerable recoil, and ease of carry.

The downside is that the ammo is expensive and hard to find and you can't shoot any other round out of the gun like you can with the .454.

 

[JJHACK]

Having worked in a bear damage control program for 12 years in parallel with running a bear hunting/guiding business. I have seen a lot of bears shot.

Over those many years regarding Black bears only, nothing more the the 44 mag with a simple factory 240 grain HP was ever needed. This includes shooting adrenalin filled enraged bears we walked up on in foot snares.

There is no problem with using a bigger gun, but nothing bigger made them more dead, or made them die faster. The biggest mistake people seemed to make was choosing heavy hard cast bullets for black bears. Those bullets zip clean through leaving you with the feeling you missed the bear. Using a HP at the highest velocity you can load them worked far better.

The bears shot with them rolled into a ball or stopped and bit at the entry. The focus was 100% on the impact and the bullet problem. Some of the bears shot with hard cast heavy bullets ran 100 yards after the shot. With the HP bullets I don't recall and getting 50-60 yards away. Most died within 20-30 yards in a few seconds.

An enraged bear you hit with a heavy hard cast bullet may live for 20 seconds. That's like being in a blender for 20 seconds of your life. If you don't make a CNS hit your gonna have a bear capable of trouble on your hands.