Have you ever had to use your sidearm/bear spray while hunting

[Andrewlonghi]

While discussing the topic of grizzlies in elk hunting units, how many of yall have ever actually had to use your sidearm or bear spray while hunting?

 

[jejack26]

Had spray out couple times on grizzly that were bluffing. One of the reason I like spray, both times I'd probably shot if I'd had gun.

 

[Brian in Montana]

The only thing I ever drew my sidearm and shot was a skunk. I charged me 3 times. On the third I shot it with my .45. it never sprayed, I assume it was rabid.

I was in a situation once with a mountain lion in which I would have shot or sprayed it, but I had forgotten any personal defense that day. I actually was able to back on out and he allowed me to. And I was grateful.

Every bear I've ever been close to ran for the hills as soon as it saw me or caught my scent.

 

[MTLabrador]

Haven’t dishcagred either but I’ve sure had them out of the holster and pointed at bears.

 

[Wildabeest]

Drew my .45 once on a black bear encounter, but after we had the “Hey bear!” conversation for what seems an eternity, he finally decided to move on.

 

[BearFoot]

Have had rifles on bears. Most "ran for the hills as soon as it saw me or caught my scent"
One is a rug. https://www.hunttalk.com/threads/field-to-rug.312940/

 

[dgc1963]

Never discharged bear spray on purpose but last yr in Co. a friend had his go off in holster he was about 20 yrds away and im glad I wasnt closer it was a mess

 

[Nick87]

Last time the SIL was at out house for the holidays I considered using them both...in tandem.

 

[Pucky Freak]

I’ve had 2 g-bear encounters but the last thing on my mind is shooting. I’m focused on creating distance b/w myself and the bear. I’d much prefer to let the bear ID me via scent and run away than confront an unknown threat w/ their poor eyesight. I look at the firearm as absolute last resort, closer than bluff charge proximity.

 

[buffybr]

I've lived and worked in grizzly country since 1975. A few years ago a bowhunter in the field below and across the county road from my house filmed a grizzly as it walked by his stand, not 1/4 mile from my house. I've had numerous black bears in my yard and one came up on my back deck.

The few grizzlies that I've seen in the woods all ran away when they saw me, except one.

Two friends and I were hunting and camped at the end of a logging road near West Yellowstone, MT. I had brought my two horses in a stock rack in the back of my pickup, and we stayed in a pop-up tent camper.

We all had elk tags and Larry had a moose tag. Larry killed his moose opening morning, and we left the hide on the quarters to keep the meat clean when we packed them out. The next day Steve and I went out and got our elk, and Larry stayed in camp and skinned out his moose quarters. He threw the moose quarter skins in a logging slash pile near our camp.

By about the 4th day we had the moose head, elk antlers, and all of the moose and elk quarters hanging in the stockrack in the back or my pickup. Before going to bed that night I went out to check my horses.

As soon as I got out of the camper, a grizzly woofed at me from the top of the road cut by the camper. I shined my light on him and he started clacking his teeth at me. So I took out my Ruger .44 mag and fired a shot over his head. At 10 o'clock at night a .44 magnum makes a large muzzle flash and is very loud. No reaction from the bear. So I fired another shot into the tree that he was standing next to. Again no reaction.

I then holstered my .44, picked up a golf ball size rock and threw it and hit the bear, and he ran off.

There was another camp about 1/4 mile from ours and they also had an elk hanging by their camp. Evidently the grizz went from our camp to this other one, as we heard 5 or 6 quick pistol shots from their direction, and a half hour later they had packed up and left.

The next day I saddled one of my horses and followed the bear's tracks. He went from our camp to the other camp, then left the other camp with an occasional drop of blood in the snow. I followed his tracks for about 1/2 mile from the ther camp, then back to the slash pile by our camp.

We then decided to break camp and left that day.

FWP had a game check station at the mouth of the Gallatin River and when we checked our animals there, we told them about the grizzly encounter. The bear had a radio collar on and an ear tag, #290, and had been a problem bear near Cooke City wher he had been trapped then released near where we had camped.

The grizzly study team tracked him to a den site several miles west of where I saw him, and they found his collar the next year.

 

[BirdManMike]

I’ve discharged 2x to deter moose. One was charging two of my dogs. The other wasn’t charging but was overly curious and insistent upon coming right up to me. Both time the blast was enough to send them running off trail.

 

[OntarioHunter]

Must be about ten years ago I had just hiked in to fish the Middle Fork and was stringing up my fly rod, when I noticed one of my dogs was trying to look around me downstream. I turned to see a grizzly sow with two cubs coming up the gravel bar about eighty yards distant. I sharply instructed my three dogs to stay put and then hollered to scare her off. The wind was blowing hard from her direction and she couldn't smell or hear us. She kept coming. An eventual bluff charge seemed eminent and I had no idea what the dogs would do. I was already strapped into chest waders with. 357 Highway Patrolman holstered underneath. Frantically I dropped the rod, undid the wader belt and suspenders, let them fall to my ankles, pulled the gun, and fired a round off her port side. She stopped but still couldn't see me. I picked up the white PVC pipe rod tube and waved it in the air. Now she knew where we were. She gathered her cubs and went back downriver. I fished till nearly dark and walked seven miles back to the trailhead. I was very proud of my dogs that day. They were guided missiles totally under control.

 

[MarvB]

Can in hand a few years ago (6-7) hunting the Cabinets. He took off and I changed shorts!

 

[Irishman]

My son sprayed a charging grizzly that got to within 10 feet of him. It hit the spray and veered of to the side and over a hill. He saw it about 10 mins later, and it ran off. Not a hunting trip, just hiking. It was a very large male bear.
Only grizzly I got close to ran off. Did have to shoot a charging black bear with my bow. I figured that I didn't need spray as it wasn't grizzly country, but I was wrong. Had a few run ins with mountain lions where the spray would have been handy.

 

[buffybr]

My son sprayed a charging grizzly that got to within 10 feet of him. It hit the spray and veered of to the side and over a hill. He saw it about 10 mins later, and it ran off. Not a hunting trip, just hiking. It was a very large male bear.
Only grizzly I got close to ran off. Did have to shoot a charging black bear with my bow. I figured that I didn't need spray as it wasn't grizzly country, but I was wrong. Had a few run ins with mountain lions where the spray would have been handy.

Reading @Irishman's post made me remember the one time that a black bear charged me...

I was working for the Forest Service and one Friday afternoon I was driving back to the office and saw 2 of my co-workers parked on the side of the highway. I thought it was odd for them to be there so I turned around to see what was going on.

They said they heard on the FS radio that a member of our trail maintenance crew had been attacked by a bear, and they were waiting for our Law Enforcement Officer to get there.

A few minutes later our LEO and a Sheriff Deputy arrived. The LEO knew that I was a hunter and shooter and he gave me his AR-15 and he and the Deputy had shotguns.

We all then started up the trail. The trail maintenance crew were 3 college students working a summer job of cleaning backcountry trails. The crew was 2 guys and a girl.

When we got up to the crew, 1 guy and the girl were up in one tree and they had their FS radio. The other guy was 50 yards up the trail and he was close to the top of a very tall spruce tree. He was the one that had been attacked by the black bear, and 3 times he had yelled for help from the top of the tree, the bear had climbed up and bit his boots and legs.

By the time the LEO, Deputy, and I got to the trail crew it was over an hour since the bear had first attacked the crew. When the LEO, Deputy and I got to the guy that had been bitten, I was in the lead and saw the bear first and it was charging us. I yelled "Here comes the bear!" and the 3 of us all shot at the same time, killing it.

We then got the injured crew member out of the tree, took him down to where the other crew members were, and gave him first aid. We were then waiting for a medivac helicopter from Yellowstone NP and I went back up to where he had been attacked.

I then saw why the bear had attacked him. I saw a little black cub run through the brush and up a tree. The lead crew member had gotten between a mother bear and her cubs. I immediately felt sorry for shooting a mother bear, and I was afraid that someone would want to shoot the cub, thinking that it wouldn't make it on his own.

So I climbed up the tree and caught the cub. Once I got him to the ground he started biting and scratching me. His little teeth felt like nails in a vice jaws when he would bite me, so I had to keep a firm grip on the back of his neck with one hand. And unless I kept a firm grip on his back feet with my other hand he would use them to scratch me.

I must have held him for at least an hour before the FWP bear biologist came up with a plastic 5 gallon bucket that we could put the cub in.

The next day FWP took dogs up to the attack site and found and captured a second cub. They took both cubs to a wild animal recovery place in Helena where they kept the cubs for 2 years then released them in the forest there.

The injuries of crew member that had been bitten were not too serious and he recovered OK. Schnees in Bozeman gave him a new pair of boots.

I had to take a prescription of penicillin pills and get a tetnus shot, but I can truely say that I caught a bear.

 

[Calcoyote]

I have had to draw and fire warning shots 2 different times. However, both of them were only Black Bear.

One was about 26 years ago when I took my oldest son (who was 12 at the time) backpacking and a bear kept trying to come into our camp after dark and would not be scared off by throwing rocks. I had a 44 mag with me and the roar of the muzzle blast did the job.

The second time was just this last fall. I was deer hunting by myself in Southern Oregon and a Black Bear with a BEAUTIFUL winter coat popped out of some bushes that were about 30 yards ahead of me. He took a few steps and then turned toward me and we had a stare down for about two minutes. He was not all that big (probably about 250-275 lbs). I had a Tikka 270 with me loaded with some Barnes TTSX and had my Glock 17 on my hip. When I finally realized that he was not going anywhere I pulled out the Glock and aimed 10-12 feet to the right of him and sent a shot down range. That did the trick. He turned and ran like he had seen a ghost. The only problem was that he ran the same direction I had to walk to get back to the truck and the timber was fairly thick (lol). I kept my Glock in hand and took my time walking the 1/3 of mile back to the truck stopping every few steps to check my blind side. I was never really in any danger. This fall I will buy a bear tag. He was a beauty. Southern Oregon is great habitat for Black Bear.

Edit to add: Wow. After I typed this story I went back and read some of the others and they are so much scarier than mine, that now I am embarrassed to have even written it. Lol.

 

[appaloosa]

I have unholstered my bear spray several times on irritable grizzlies but never fired a drop. Only time I have ever discharged bear spray was on a great Pyrenees who didn't like me so close to his sheep. I think he learned a hard lesson that day.

 

[Watts307]

When I was hauling out my friends elk through the brush, the safety on my bear mace got taken off. Then my Rustic Ridge meat pack failed and the shelf collapsed. Then the quarter I was carrying fell on my bear mace and sprayed me and the bush.

Does that count? Harrowing moment. I have carried a 10mm every since.

 

[TheTone]

Only had my bear spray out once but didn’t use it. Bumped what I’m pretty sure was a sow with cubs off the side of a trail archery elk hunting. Heard the smaller sound go busting off and then a couple woofs from the same spot. Had my spray out pretty fast with the safety off and backed down the trail for a while before deciding the coast was clear