GrizTails-Lessons Learned-Part 2

Hunting in Grizzly bear country is different. It's one thing to be cognizant of the fact that you need to take care and not be stupid in all of the outdoors. Getting hurt can be a life or death situation in almost all of the United States, but it seems a bit more so here in the northwest due to the amount of public ground and the long distances from civilization you can find yourself. As I stated in my profile, I retired from the USAF and currently work contract security overseas. I'm often asked by friends about how I deal with the danger over there.  I usually tell them I feel the danger is about equal to or less than going out hunting in Montana. They usually look at me a bit funny so I go on to explain that in my line of work I'm in a static location. That is, I don't go off the sites, I'm not on the streets, I'm not in the "red zone," and that if I get injured or worse over here, it was just bad luck, wrong place at the wrong time. My primary concern is rockets and mortars. They don't have a lot of range as far as damage and we don't get that many, so again, it would just be bad luck.

So, sort of like hunting in Montana. I know that almost every time I go out, it might just be the time I come through the dark timber, wind in my face, and run into a Griz at close range. It won't be the bears fault if it attacks. It's just doing a bear thing and I understand that. It also does not mean that just because the bear is doing his or her bear thing, that I'm going to give up doing my human thing, which is to defend myself till I can no longer do so. When I write about defending myself from a full on attack, I don't mean yelling, or running, or playing dead. I mean to put as much lead into that bear as I possibly can as quickly as I can. I've been meaning to buy a can of bear spray but just haven't gotten to it yet. I think bear spray works...in the right situations. Like, I see the bear from a distance, the wind is not blowing in my face, I have time to get it un-holstered and ready and he or she is coming my way "slowly." I will yell first to let it know I'm human and if the conditions are right I'll use that spray. In any other situation, my gun is ready and my finger is the safety.

Example: Here's a story involving a neighbor of mine. I'm not poking fun at him, because I probably would have reacted the same way and so might you, because until you, me, he actually live it and do it, we don't know how we will react. I live on 23 acres about nine miles from town and there are eight houses above me. It's all wooded and we've seen everything from elk, whitetails, mulies, moose, black bear and cougar. No Griz yet, no thanks to Judge Molloy who keeps fighting against the removal of both the Griz and wolves from the endangered species list (but the wolves are now right behind my house, having moved the 50 miles from YNP.) Just so you know, I dislike PETA and instead, belong to PWETA (People Who Eat Tasty Animals.) Anyway, back to the story.
Every day, my neighbor walks with his golden retriever the mile from his house at the top of the hill to get his paper located at the mailboxes adjacent to my place. One beautiful, cold, snowy, bright morning, I just happened to be close to the road when he came down. I heard him before I saw him, so I crawled on my belly through the snow, under my fence and lied behind a thick bush about five feet from the road. As he passed by me, I started growling in my best bear growl and shook the bush for all I was worth. He immediately started backpedaling away from me while at the same time trying to get his bear spray un-holstered from his hip. He never made it.
The dog was going nuts and he was obviously flustered at his inability to get that spray, when I quickly stepped out to identify myself before the aneurysm started. We both laughed till we cried, but the point is, getting that spray un-holstered and safe to shoot is time consuming and almost impossible when the shit hits the fan. Luckily for us hunters who usually have a gun in our hands it is much simpler to flip that safety and go to it. We might not hit a damn thing, but by God we'll go down trying. I'm glad he couldn't get that spray going, but don't think it would have hurt me too much....because I'm pretty sure the wind.....was in HIS face.

My first run-in with Griz in Montana was an elk hunt in Ed Hake's camp. Others from our group saw bears at a distance in the previous year or two, but not me. We had hunted there enough that my guide allowed me to sort of  do my own thing. On this particular morning I asked Dennis if he'd mind my walking alone up the ridge while he brought the horses up about a quarter mile behind. I was on "Second Ridge." It was a place I loved to hunt, sloping off gradually on both sides and interspersed with small meadows a few hundred yards across, separated by timber for a couple hundred yards, then meadow, then timber. I was moving as quickly and quietly as I could, since I wanted to cover as many of these meadows as possible in that "best time," that one hour from shooting light while they were still feeding till they headed for their bedding areas.
I had just come to the edge of the timber where I could scan the meadow before moving quickly across for the next. I saw nothing in the meadow, started across and was about 25 yards into it when three, immature two year old Griz came into the meadow directly ahead of me. I'll tell you now, I don't like young predators like bears and cougars and especially cougars. Just like teenagers, they do not always make the best of choices.
We were about 75 yards apart and they had not spotted me. The wind was in my face so I knew they wouldn't smell me, but I did not feel like yelling at them because I was unsure about how they would react. I believed they would run, but if they didn't, three against one with four rounds in my 300 mag just did not seem like the best of odds. I looked back to the timber, no Dennis. I wondered if I could sneak back into the timber and climb a tree, high ground is always good and while it is untrue that Griz can't climb I thought I'd have a better chance if they came after me. It truly is interesting how much goes through your mind in very short period of time when the blood starts hammering your temples. Anyway, the trees were so thick that I knew I would not be able to get up one very quickly, soooooo, when all else fails, wave your arms and yell 'Hey Bears! Get out of here!" The first time I yelled this....they didn't even look up, just kept walking towards me. Now they were about 50 yards away, my safety was off and I yelled again "HEY BEARS! GET THE **** OUT OF HERE!" That got their attention, the first stood up, sniffed the air and I yelled the same for a third time. The three of them almost ran over each other as they did a 180 and hauled ass. I stayed where I was till Dennis came up. I told him the story and he said, "Wow, pretty cool."    Um, yea, my thoughts exactly.  :-)
That evening, I was doing a similar hunt in the same way, but going downhill on an adjacent ridge. It was getting dark fast and the wind was blowing about 15 mph...again...in my face. All I could think about as I checked a meadow...jogged through the timber....checked a meadow...jogged through the timber  ...was...."Where are those damned bears?" I got to a meadow in the last five minutes of shooting light, looked out and was disappointed to see nothing. I did not have enough light to make it to another one. I stepped beside a lone spruce tree that was next to the timber, but in the meadow and as I came around it I spotted a nice mature bull, all alone, at 25 yards, at the same time he spotted me. I pulled up and fired just as he made his first jump and managed to get one more into him in the next 20 yards before he went over the rise and out of sight. Both shots were in the "boiler-room," he was an older bull, just a 5x5, but one of the most exciting I'd ever taken. As Dennis and I started field dressing, in the dark,....all I could think about was, "Where are those damned bears?"

Griz Country Tips:
Tip One: Ed Hake leaves all the door zippers open on his wall tents. Reason: If they want in, they'll just tear hell out of your tent and go in. You've all heard about how to store food in bear country, so do it and open those tents up and let 'em in. For the most part, they'll nose around a bit, maybe chew something up like a chair, or a wooden box, get bored and move on.

Tip Two: Put an electric fence around your camp. Use either a solar or a good D-Cell mini charger. The thinnest electrical fence wire works fine. On my mountain goat hunt in 09, we came back into camp after being gone for days. We came across the Griz tracks about a half mile from camp...headed towards camp. They went straight towards the tents and you could see where he touched the fence and tore things up during the shock. When he got his "bearings" back (had to do it) he went over the fence which was now on the ground. We could follow his route through the snow, first to the sleep tent where he stuck his nose in but did not enter. Then the SOB went to the cook tent and rather than using the open door, he tore a hole five feet long, nine inches from the unzipped door. He went into the tent, knocked a few things around and left. I know, it does not sound like it works, but it does. Ever since Ed started using the electric fences he's had much fewer incidents of bears in his camps. And I'd bet you 100 to 1, this particular bear probably won't try the fence again.
Live well, hunt hard
Ron