doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Are you serious?

Walk in for the flush and out comes …

https://www.outdoornews.com/2022/10/20/bird-hunter-survives-attack-from-nearly-700-pound-grizzly/

Well, it happens. It isn’t really a new thing, it’s just a thing that has always been present in that part of the world.

Was just watching a deer hunters trail cam pictures at work. He had images of a smallish black bear on them, has had family on the property for most of a hundred years, and never has seen a bear, or signs of a bear.

Fortunately, bear was more like Boo-Boo bear, than Yogi. He should be asleep in a week or two.

Best,
Ted

11 year old Alaska boy stops bear with his shotgun and birdshot.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elliot-clark-alaska-boy-shoots-bear-charging-family-members/

I had mentioned it in the past. About tenish years ago, I arrived for a MT bird hunt, and a local paper was running a story of a bird hunter that shot a grizzly from off the hip, when it stood up, just feet in front of him. This past summer, I believe an experienced guide was killed while fly fishing in the Yellowstone, and friends couldn't stop a grizzly that pulled a camper out of her tent and killed her. Morale of the story, that's not a half bad reason for keeping a decent revolver handy and practicing with it, it seems the hunter did.

I'm a doublegun man ...........99+% of the time I'm wingshooting and for clays. However, were I to ever have the opportunity to hunt birds in grizzly country I just may revert to my Winchester SXP that rides beside me in the truck everyday. It has replaced a doublegun for that purpose. Birdshot certainly is not the most favored load for bears but having several loads waiting, already in my hand when a bear steps out, would be comforting me. The young boy in the article proved it can be effective at hand shaking distance. Were I not bird hunting in AK I would prefer it stoked with slugs.

Recommended to me by a veteran of the American special forces and a retired military "contractor", for self defense, I have found it to be quite a capable platform. And, it shoots dead on where I'm looking. I was really taken aback when he pulled this off the rack and handed it to me. I was expecting a longtime veteran of the Middle East wars and instructor in close quarter combat to go with something I "assumed" to be more reliable, like a Benelli or Beretta, etc. Nope, his recommendation was that at the price of these, and given their simple quality and reliability, buy two or three and keep them in strategic locations.

https://www.winchesterguns.com/products/shotguns/sxp/current/sxp-dark-earth-defender.html

Stan--amigo mio. Have you ever read Hemingway's "True At First Light"?? In that novel, he details how a tree-perched leopard he shot with his 30-o6 survived the drop and badly wounded, ran into a mangrove tangle-he killed it with his 12 ga. M12 and loads of no. 8 birdshot- deadly n CQC scenarios, as the lad in AK proved. i thought I read somewhere that our special ops. folks liked the Mossberg 500 12 in Riot configuration over the M12, M1200 and 870 "cornshellers".. I would like to own and shoot a H&H Paradox double. Reliable and foolproof, IMO. RWTF

I lived and hunted deer and elk on Kodiak Island of 14 years. Over the years I had several encounters with brown bears, one at smelling distance. I can tell you that an instant fear of a prehistoric type sets your entire system to some sort of automatic response. A bear will just scare the holy crap right out of you, the only critter I ca come close to is a fully coiled rattle snake at less than striking distance.
The lad noted in the story did well and got a lifetime story as well!

I had a close encounter with a Brown bear, if not at knife range, then at short machete range. Stopped its charge under 50 feet with a single shot to the left eye, which went right into its brain. That was multiple decades ago and I still get a knot in my gut when I think about it. Bears are so much faster than you could imagine, unless you’ve come across one in its backyard. Mine was a medium size, for a brown bear, that seemed like a VW Bug sized monster, with a turbo rocket propelling it. They move twice as fast as they ought to and fearless does not cover them. My respects to anyone who encounters one and gets to tell the story.

These stories always remind me of bear attack prevention ideas put out by the Wildlife folks. The suggestion by the Wildlife agency was for hikers to carry pepper spray, wear bells on their clothing so not to surprise bears, and always look for bear scat. Someone asked, "how do I discern bear scat?" The Wildlife agent said it's easy. "Bear scat smells like pepper and has little bells in it."

craigd could be this guy.
A good friend of mine was hunting birds in Choteau, MT about 7-8 years ago and had the same thing happen A sow with cubs came out of the bush chasing his lab saw him and switched. He fired 1 shot in the air and 2 shots at the bear. It retreated into the bush. Next day the Wild Life officials found it dead in the bush. When my friend first shot the bear was about 20 feet away. Many times previously I had accompanied my friend on hunts past the same bush.

About 6-7 years ago, I was hunting elk on the north side of Glacier National Park, in Alberta with archery tackle and was charged by a sow with 2, two year old cubs. With no where to go I turned, ran and started yelling. I think the bear initially thought I was an elk and when realizing I was human turned into the bush. I never saw them again but later in the day shot an elk in the same field. Dressing it out made me real nervous.