black bear advice

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by RWebb

Excuse me, BWANA! You are the one who started a "pissing match" as you call it.

Since you like the internet so much, feel free to look me up. You will no doubt find some of my publications on Google Scholar.

Just will not leave it alone will you? Still thumping your chest and having to show everyone what a big man you are huh?

Hope you grow up sometime before you die...

[Garp]

Originally Posted by Joeaksa

And this makes you feel better??!! Seeing all of these makes me want to stay in a holiday inn!

I'll be in the room beside you.
Seriously, I wanted to go hiking for the day around one of the lakes in the greater Whistler area last summer. I decided against it when I read an local area newspaper mentioning the amount of sightings right there. Didn't feel too comfortable going there with wife and kids.
OTOH my eleven year old reported a black bear x-ing his track during a downhill biking instruction descent on that very same day.

[m21sniper]

If i was going into bear country and had to chose between Jeff and the Parfessor to accompany me, i think it would be a pretty doggone easy choice which one i'd pick.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by m21sniper

If i was going into bear country and had to chose between Jeff and the Parfessor to accompany me, i think it would be a pretty doggone easy choice which one i'd pick.

What a silly statement!

I would easily choose the professor! After all, all you have to do is to run faster than he can and that should be easy. Then the world would be a much better place AND the bear would be happy as well!

[RWebb]

yes, it's too bad about the bear

Rickie boy and your buddies too -- if you form a personal dislike for someone b/c they correct your craziness in PARF, please keep your anger & hatred in PARF -- those are the rules for the forum

[vonsmog]

Neighbor buddy down the road about 1 1/2 miles away just called about an hour ago to tell me about the bear in his back yard! We don't get them around here, up this close to lake Ontario. So he was quite surprised when he almost walked up to it, to put out some bread for the birds and deer! Said he has not run that fast in a long time! Bear just watched him the whole time and never touched the bread he just put out there.

[Seahawk]

I was the Head Boatman on a trip on the Kalamath River, vintage 1978. Small trip, just three rafts. Easy trip, mostly fishing, maybe two Class 3's in three days. We put in at Happy Camp, a misnomer wrapped in foreshadowing.

Since I spent a bunch of my youth in the wild following my Dad around, I asked about bears. Not to worry, follow the right food disposal ethos, etc. all will be well.

The most interesting thing about bears is their patience if they are acclimated to humans. They don't seem to as much stalk as watch, detached, almost like they are viewing a bad movie.

At camp the first night a brown bear set up an observation post maybe 50 yards from the cook site. It was unnerving, he on his haunches, me wishing I had some. No guns. He was as still as a painting, calm.

After dinner, I put all the remaining food (we had two more days) back in the ice chests, trash as well, ran a rope from a tree to a rock, attached a raft between the two in the still water and thought all was well.

I learned a lot about myself that night...

No one got hurt, luckily, but the twain between the practical and the theoretical was never more stark. The next time (and every subsequent time) I ventured into bear country, I was/have been armed.

[targa911S]

I can just see myself facing a bear with my slingshot. There would be a trickle of urine coming out my trouser leg!

[Taz's Master]

Originally Posted by targa911S

I can just see myself facing a bear with my slingshot. There would be a trickle of urine coming out my trouser leg!

Are you sure? They come in sizes other than huge and mean.

2 Questions: #1 how big are you assuming this menace is?

#2 If a bear can learn how to get an easy meal from a chicken coop, why can't it be taught that it is now more trouble than it is worth?

[Evans, Marv]

I've run into lots of bears when I was working for the Park Service 40+ years ago, so I could tell several stories. We actually gave names to some of the bears around our residence area. One episode kind of sticks out.
The big bears would come through the camp grounds at night raiding trash cans. This was before they made a real attempt to make them bear proof - and before bear proof containers were thought of. One small bear (125 lb.) discovered if he came through during the day, he could have his pick without getting beaten up by the big bears. So he would come through around 2PM daily. Of course he drew a big crowd, and I had to remind the tourists on the PA system of my patrol car to stay a safe distance away. He was young and fuzzier than the big bears, so we called him Fuzzy.
One day a guy came up and said Fuzzy had run up to him & put his mouth on the guy's leg. It was most likely not true but the guy no doubt knew if he said that, we would have to remove the bear. So we bated a trap, caught Fuzzy & carted him about 10 miles away & let him out of the trap. The next day at 2PM, he was making his rounds through the campgrounds again. So we bated another trap, and he didn't want to get into it - of course. We kept putting another, better piece of meat in the trap & pulling on down ahead of him to temp him. Finally he got into the trap and the next morning we carted him about 15 miles in another direction and let him out of the trap. The next day at 2 PM, he was making his rounds of the campgrounds again.
We knew there was no way we could get him into a trap again so we stationed a trap in the campgrounds and asked a Park Naturalist, who studied bears, to come down with his dart gun. He darted Fuzzy. He ran across the large stream (30 ft. wide & over ankle deep) going through the campground and collapsed. Four of us ran across the stream with a stretcher, grabbed him by the feet, threw him on the stretcher and ran back across the stream & dumped him into the trap & dropped the door just as he was coming back around. He was really pissed. I asked my boss what we were going to do with him since he'd be back in the campgrounds the next day. He smiled and said he'd take care of it. Fuzzy stayed in the trap again over night in the transportation and was gone early the next morning. Around 1PM my boss came back with an empty trap. I asked him what he had done with Fuzzy. He smiled and said he had taken him 45 miles away to an adjacent park and let him go in one of their campgrounds.

[9dreizig]

pretty easy..
Shoot
Shovel
Shut Up

anything above a 30 30 should be sufficient

[targa911S]

Originally Posted by 9dreizig

pretty easy..
Shoot
Shovel
Shut Up

anything above a 30 30 should be sufficient

I'm with him.

[m21sniper]

I have some questions about the best 12ga bear blasting rounds. Jeff or anyone else that is an experienced hunter, i'd love your opinons.

Is 00 suitable for use against bears? If so, up to about how large an animal can 00 be expected to kill?

Are .50 sabot slugs or the full bore .76 cal rifled slugs superior for bear blasting, or is one as good as the other? Seems to me that the sabot slugs would penetrate much better.

I'm just curious.

[aigel]

The 00 should kill a black bear. General rule is that anything that you'd take deer hunting with confidence, you can use black bear hunting as well. I do however recommend you rather go with a slug than buck shot on a bear. The sabot slug is made for a rifled shotgun barrel, the rifled slugs are for a smooth bore shotgun barrel. I recommend a rifled barrel (comes with sights most the time) with the sabot for best accuracy.

George

[GG Allin]

Falatio, bears like falatio.

[RWebb]

so it is not the nose that you should bite??

[Taz's Master]

Originally Posted by aigel

The 00 should kill a black bear. General rule is that anything that you'd take deer hunting with confidence, you can use black bear hunting as well. I do however recommend you rather go with a slug than buck shot on a bear. The sabot slug is made for a rifled shotgun barrel, the rifled slugs are for a smooth bore shotgun barrel. I recommend a rifled barrel (comes with sights most the time) with the sabot for best accuracy.

George

The PA record black bear is 800+ lbs. I would not count on 00 being sufficient on a large bear. A 250lb PA whitetail is huge.

[jeffgrant]

I've been hunting bear for over 20 years, and live on a small lake just outside Vancouver, and currently have (at last count by the Wildlife Officer and me) 8 bears roaming the immediate area.

I agree with Jeff for a number of reasons, the primary one being that black bears are so much more unpredictable. If you get a black bear that has become territorial over an unnatural food source (dumps, garbage), they are damn scary.

Any black bear you see that are not in the deep wilds have an excellent chance of being much more dangerous than you'd think.

Just watch the bear behaviour at a city dump sometime, and you'll see it's WAY different than you'll find in the deep woods. They almost act rabid.


Of those 8 bears roaming the immediate area around my house, 2 of them have had to be put down within the last month due to their aggressive and dangerous behaviour. For instance, about 6 weeks ago, I had one watch me through the window of my house, and lean up against the door to get in, despite me making noise and trying to scare it off. It took all of 30 seconds for me to go and grab the shot gun with the 3" slugs, but it eventually ran off. Typically, they run like jackrabbits when you tap on the glass, or make any noise. This one felt like it was stalking me. Not. Normal. Called the wildlife officer, and he agreed, and 2 of them patrolled the area for the next 2 days until they were able to dispose of it. (I live close to a provincial park, and they were worried about the visitors having issues).

Mind you, we've got lots of problems right now with both bears and cougars in the area, due to the lingering snow pack and scarcity of natural food.


Here's the pic of the bear that freaked me out:



It broke the lawn chair, and then leaned up/on the door, watching me as I yelled and waved my arms. At that point, I was about ready to fire a slug through one of the glass panes in the door, but it eventually pissed off.

As to best hunting loads, personally, I think shot placement matters more than the actual round used.

The BEST effect I've ever seen was when I dropped one with a broadhead from a crossbow, just behind the shoulder and into the lungs... it just stopped.

Other than that, I've never been a fan of sabots, and always prefer 3 or 3.5" slugs in my rifled shotgun barrel. Also never had issues with my .30-06.


$0.02 (CDN)

[jeffgrant]

Oh, and crazy as it sounds, one of the best bear baits going is chainsaw oil.

Some friends are loggers, and the number 1 target of bears is their oil supply... they'll rip into it and drink it all like crazy.

And believe it or not, hot tub covers are also bear attractants. When they age/decompose, they give off the same chemical signatures as ant hills, so if you live in bear country, regularly wipe them down.

The more you know.

[m21sniper]

I have several types of slugs in my inventory, including some of the air pellet shaped lead sabot slugs, some of the solid copper hollowpoint type sabot slugs and some conventional rifled type full bore slugs. While i suspect any of them would work quite well, i was just curious which would be the "best."

I ask because i go up my uncles mountain a few times every summer, and they have Black bears on said mountain.