Bear spray vs. bullets: how to stay safe in grizzly country

[TheJason]

Going to experiment with the grip inserts.

I like the beaver tails.

 

[mtmuley]

I like the beaver tails.

Got them. Back out tomorrow. mtmuley

 

[Mustangs Rule]

That is very interesting! I know that a couple from Southern California used to visit a brown bear area every summer and live among them. Their thought was the bears weren't really dangerous. Short story it was an old hungry bear with bad teeth that killed and ate both of them. Out in bear country seeing the grizzly or brown is probably a rare thing unless your actually hunting them. And from everything I've read, attacks are provoked by surprising them or a mother protecting cubs. Oh and surprising a bear eating! I think in that country my gun would be my first form of defense and spray second. I say that for no other reason than I think the gun speaks louder farther than the spray and a can of spray would be more maneuverable in close. Down side of in close with the spray might be you get a dose of the spray yourself!

I haven't read the book mentioned, haven't even heard of it before. But I do have a copy of Alaska Bear Tales and it is not only terrifying but has good advice in it about bears I think. Of course that is simply opinion as I said earlier I've never had a run in with one and I have spent a lot of time in their backyard years ago.

I think the best way to deal with bear country is to realize that bears are wild animals and tend to act like wild animals. I wouldn't try to feed Bambi in the back yard, why fool with a animal that may well decide to eat you right after maiming you? Wild animals. My though on them is to let them be and let them know your there if you can, most will simply leave you unless provoked. And if your out hunting some dangerous animal and it's you that ends up on the menu, well, you had your chance and the dangerous animal won! Funny how a guy out hunting a bear get's mauled, scalp torn off, full of bites and broken bones laying in the hospital crying about how the bear tried to kill him! DUH!

But when using any gun, the bear gets hurt 100% of the time and the shooter gets some serious hurt almost 40% of the time. Using spray the bear never gets hurt, but it does get a huge lesson to stay away from people, and the people using the spray on a bear go away with no serious injury at all about 97% of the time.

As I said in an earlier post, Herero and Smith did a great job on their study.

After their study came out, there was an opposing study presented by the shooting indusry. I read it sevral times. It was pathetic, filled with old unverified stories. Any comparison with the Herero/Smith study made it look comic were it not for the fact that it's conclusion was putting people in danger.

The Herero Smith study was done after there were so many recorded and recent bear/people/bear spray incidents to use as a broad date base.

In opon country a bear can be as fast as a quarter horse and go 100 yards in 4 seconds. Close up and personal using a gun requires an accuracy that most hunters are torally incapable in a flash. The spread of the bear spray is amazing.

As I said, once 50 years ago three grizzlies could have had me for breakfats lunch and dinner. I owe them a great debt and pay it back by writing as I am doing now.

Ragarding the fellow and his girlfriend getting eaten, his name was Tim Treadwell and the directoe Herzog did a documentary on the incident. Tim had behaved wrecklessly over and over. He was a fool,

Then so were the city people in the Adirondack State preserve who would feed a bear then put thier kid on the bears back fror a photo,,,usuually with no harm. Such fools and the bears end up paying for such foolishnesss. There are some just plain bas bad news bears and with training such behavior is very recogizable.

On another note I reacall during one of my foraging adventures in Alaska, I saw some grizzlies grazing on a long growing pea vine on a grass air strip in the bush. I watched them stretch, eat and play around. Then the wind shiftef from me to them.

They all ran away instantly.

Crossing the canadian rockies there were sasakatoon patches,,,giant bluberries,,,and the Grizzly bears were on them. I would yell loudly a few times,,,they would run away. I would go in and pick berries with bear dung everywhere.

I could talk bears all day. I will always owe them a grat debt

 

[Mustangs Rule]

Pardon for the spelling typos above . I could not find my glasses and wrote without them. I am 73 and my eyes ain't what they used to be.

 

[Don Fischer]

Hate to tell you this but they probably won't get any better by next year. At one time I had 20-10 vision, today I'm old!

 

[Mustangs Rule]

Hate to tell you this but they probably won't get any better by next year. At one time I had 20-10 vision, today I'm old!

Where my aging eyes bother me the most is picking up my model 54 bolt action Winchester,,,totally an apeture sight rifle,,,,and knowing that hunting with it again will not happen. Even with my progressive prescription glasses. I see slight curves instead of sraight lines.

Ohh how I love that rifle.

Next what I dislike is how I can no longer adjust my rifle scope to get a clear cross hair without glasses,,,or even with them.

Fortunately, my old three and four power Weaver scopes can give me a clear crosshair without glasses. Just happen to have such a scope on my standard weight Model 70 in .270 made in 1952 before Winchester started getting sloppy and not retooling thier equipment.

Going back to bears, their eyesight is not great and that is why they stand on thier hind legs for a better view.

Here is another grizzly bear anecdote. I was taking a week long class on bears in the Rockies and the instructor offered this experience. A radio tracked grizz was going to the same place everynight for 5 or ten minutes.

Upon examination of where the bear was going it soon became clear that this bear was nibling on Larkspur,,,a poisonous, even deadly plant.

As fate would have it, that same bear was live trapped a few days later and sedated for testing. To the surprise of the researchers the bear was covered with dead lice.

Without more of a data base this defintive conclusion could not be made, but it seems that the bear recognized a medical condition, lice infestation, and knew the exact amount of a medicinal plant to treat it successfully.

Looking up the chemically active qualities of larkspur,,, an insecticide is one of them.

Reviewing medicinal plant use around the world and the origin in that aboriginal knowledge, over and over bears were credited as a great source of plant usage that people learned to adapt to themselves.

So why would any true conservationist and nature lover,,,who could do math after reading a great study like the Smith-Herero Bear spray study,,,why would this person not use the spray,,,where all go away unharmed, instead ofshooting a bear and standing a 40% chance of getting really hurt,,,while wounding or killing a bear unessesarily.

There now,,,I keep honoring my contract with the bear clan. And whenever I run into one I explain that contract to some new comer. I just jabber away calmly.

Last thoughts . I still hunt alone in bear country,,,real wilderness. When I am carrying out my deer quarters, I always keep the smaller front shoulder handy. Shoukd I run into a bear,,,,I pay "my tax", throw that front shoulder at it and go on my merry way. Win Win

Mustang Rules

 

[mtmuley]

Shot the G20 with a beavertail grip insert today. Much better. mtmuley

 

[TheJason]

Shot the G20 with a beavertail grip insert today. Much better. mtmuley

The tighter you can get the web of your thumb up into that tang, the happier you will be.

 

[mtmuley]

The tighter you can get the web of your thumb up into that tang, the happier you will be.

Yep. Back to the ammo store Tuesday. Not sure I'd like a Glock, but it is going to do what it is supposed to. mtmuley

 

[shrapnel]

Bears self medicating, vending machine deaths and other opinions on grizzlies with few to no real life attacks where the attacked actually survived, makes this topic somewhat questionable. Those that believe in firearms vs those that believe in spray, won’t be changing many people’s mind about which is better.

I do know that when my son went to work for the Forest Service in Alaska, he had to qualify with a 375 H&H on a fast moving bear target. He didn’t have to qualify with bear spray. Those who live in Alaska are probably better equipped to handle a bear encounter than those in the lower 48.

I grew up near Yellowstone Park and we had bears of both persuasion frequenting our cabin on my grandfather’s homestead several times a week. We rode horses all over the area, hiked and fished the local streams without an encounter outside of the yard when the bears would come in most evenings.

Ignorance is bliss and somehow we survived without guns or bear spray. Luck contributed mostly to our survival, and I am more afraid of a grizzly encounter now than back in the 1960’s.

We have plenty of Grizzlies around where we bow hunt elk and I am taking no chances in a bear encounter. It is mostly where I am hunting and when, that I practice safe bear tactics, but I still carry bear protection.

People tend to contemplate the least likely to happen with even less experience, much the same as Massad Ayoob continues to write on self protection to an audience that will most likely never experience the need.

Needless to say this is not a new discussion, but what isn’t new is the contributions of people that have no experience, but participate for sake of discussion and although nothing new is exposed, the situational awareness thrives.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

Bears self medicating, vending machine deaths and other opinions on grizzlies with few to no real life attacks where the attacked actually survived, makes this topic somewhat questionable. Those that believe in firearms vs those that believe in spray, won’t be changing many people’s mind about which is better.

I do know that when my son went to work for the Forest Service in Alaska, he had to qualify with a 375 H&H on a fast moving bear target. He didn’t have to qualify with bear spray. Those who live in Alaska are probably better equipped to handle a bear encounter than those in the lower 48.

I grew up near Yellowstone Park and we had bears of both persuasion frequenting our cabin on my grandfather’s homestead several times a week. We rode horses all over the area, hiked and fished the local streams without an encounter outside of the yard when the bears would come in most evenings.

Ignorance is bliss and somehow we survived without guns or bear spray. Luck contributed mostly to our survival, and I am more afraid of a grizzly encounter now than back in the 1960’s.

We have plenty of Grizzlies around where we bow hunt elk and I am taking no chances in a bear encounter. It is mostly where I am hunting and when, that I practice safe bear tactics, but I still carry bear protection.

People tend to contemplate the least likely to happen with even less experience, much the same as Massad Ayoob continues to write on self protection to an audience that will most likely never experience the need.

Needless to say this is not a new discussion, but what isn’t new is the contributions of people that have no experience, but participate for sake of discussion and although nothing new is exposed, the situational awareness thrives.

I have many plaster of paris casts I made of bear tracks,,,,,,,,,of both types of bears. Some I made deep in the wilderness, some I made in front of my garage door.

For deacades I lived on my ranch at 5,500 feet in elevation. I could always tell when the bears were around because my horeses got nervous, noisy and pranced around a lot in the pasture at night.

To have the house stay cool during a hot summer day, we kept the windows open all night to let the evening thermals in. The mountains above us went to 9,000 feet. The screens were on of course and all across the window sillls I put big plates so if a there was a "bear break in" the plates would falll on the floor, wakes us up and I could then decide how to deal with the threat, with a shotgun or bear spray, both of which I had at hand in the bedroom.

On a bulletin board in town and in the local paper, there was an ongoing list of bear incidents, break ins and screen breaches.

One fellow shot three bears one dry summer, all in his garage where he had garbage in a can and left the window open. He fancied himself a great bear hunter.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

Ohh I forgot to say, that I never had a bear try to break in. At night all food was put away if the screens were left open. Fruit went into the frig, counters were wiped down after cooking.

What was interesting was how the illegal pot plantations increased bear break ins.

For awhile, until several states legalzed pot, those plantations were everywhere in these desert mountains on forest service land. The irrigation systems were collecting water from every spring and small creek possible and bringing it to the main plantation site.

The riparian zones were taking a real hit and normally green areas filled plant life for bears were dried up. Law enforcement could not keep up with the pot growers. This really hit the moutain quail populations hard too.

A few friends and myself used to go around breaking up the irrigation systems and let the water flow where it should, It was a short term relief. The pipes would be repaired quickly and we kinda got scared of an armed encounter.

 

[Straight Arrow]

A few friends and myself used to go around breaking up the irrigation systems and let the water flow where it should,

Good on you! Where are you from?

 

[Mustangs Rule]

Good on you! Where are you from?

I haved lived in Wyoming, Arizona, California and Oregon. The pot plantation adventures were in California. We had lots of fun doing that until we accpeted fully that we were stepping on the toes of the Marijuana Mafia,,,then we chickended out. One of the things about how the irrigation lines were set up was they were never complety buried, there was always some black pipe showing.

We woud sit up on high ridges with a spotting scope and looking into canyon see a little bit of exposed pipe then take a shot at it with high power rifles That might just make a small leak hole but other times if their was a solid rock right under the pipe it would do serious damage. Such fun.

The growers of course would hear the shooting down canyon and would come up to repair the damage sooner or later. Then we would do it again maybe a week later.

The growers were in fantasic physical condition. They could run like deer, live off next to nothing. They always harvested before deer season. I was close friends with the two Forest Service Law enforcement officiers and gave them info,,,,that said, they were just overwhelmed with the number of plantations which went right back in buisness the next year.

This growing on public land pretty much ended when pot was legalized in enough states. Lots of plant life and wildlife was restored as water was flowing where it was meant to be. I of course am glad for that and I sure got a kick going in on mission to saw up, cut up and shoot up the irrigation pipes. The irriagtion sysyems were just amazing regarding how far they moved water.

Yippy Kay Aye....Bang Bang Bang

Mustangs Rule