[Jeff Higgins]

The few times I have actually made the trip to Alaska to hunt (never bears, much to my dismay), my buddy and his friends that lived in Ketchikan, along with the "guide types" we hunted with, would all snicker and give one another that "here we go again..." kind of a look when the subject of shotguns as bear defense came up. Or handguns, for that matter. They all preferred rifles.

Their take was that shotguns had somehow gained popularity, mainly among fishing guides, for reasons other than effectiveness. Typically, when fishing an area where bears might be a problem, your "wilderness experience" is going to shared with an awful lot of other people, even if you can't see them. The vast majority will have never seen a bear in the wild. In such places, however, the vast majority of bears will have seen people, and are not a threat. The ones that are a threat get killed by guides with rifles.

Anyway, when a harmless bruin ambles out of the tall grass in near proximity to a fisherman, the last thing you want said fisherman to do is to panic and start shooting at the damn thing. So, you tell him to bring a shotgun, typically loaded with alternating slugs and buckshot, and tell him it won't be effective unless the bear is real close. Well, guess what - those bears know how to play the game, and never get real close. So the guy who is pissing his waders never "has" to shoot him. And, if worse comes to worse and some fool does start blasting away, at least he isn't sending high velocity rifle bullets miles in every direction. The limited range of the shotgun is a huge safety factor with regards to the other fishermen in the area. It serves more as an alarm, alerting the guide that he has a problem to deal with. He will usually deal with it with a rifle. A big rifle.

Guys who are "out there", alone, and reliant upon themselves to sort it out, invariably carry large rifles.