MAULED: Lessons Learned from a Grizzly Bear Attack

[Gemsbok45]

I was carrying a BFR in 454 Casul while Elk hunting in Wyoming last year. Just too heavy. I was battling Covid but a buddy had a 10mm with those new bear loads. I felt that was a better option.
it was a bonded core bullet.

 

[Anbessa Gedai]

This seems an appropriate thread to quote a good friend, and outfitter/bush pilot/guide for many years in the Yukon, plus at other stages of his career, the NWT, British Columbia, and Alaska with immense experience with grizzly bears . . .

"The use of, or reliance on only pepper spray in a bear encounter ensure only one outcome . . . that the bear will survive the encounter"

As to the human's outcome . . . well "results may vary"

 

[pamtnman]

I have no issue whatsoever with your actions and commend you on your survival.

I have enormous issues with the actions of the guide/pilot. If his plan for an aggressive brown was to grab the nearest client and leave the area immediately and hope the other guy figures it out, then he needs to think through a better emergency action plan. While I haven't fished for salmon in AK, I have done a lot of black bear hunting in BC where grizzly encounters are very common. It is beyond my comprehension he would allow his clients to separate like that without simple radios - I don't care if one of his clients stepped out of a James Fenimore Cooper novel. Following up a bear, recovering one, or even on a long stalk, we always have communications. An angry bear is just one of a dozen of things that can happen.

Let's say saving the plane was in his mind more important than looking after his other client. With a couple of $30 dollar Motorolas he could have at least warned the separated client and told him what was transpiring.

Glad he came back.

He’s actually a famous long time and now retired AK guide. Very crusty and eccentric, without doubt! He also has tons of record book kills of every species up there. Multiples. And known for being a fussy fanatic. I’ll have to look him up. The real story from that trip was the enormous king salmon I caught the day before the grizzly encounter, and because I followed the huge fish into the whitewater so it wouldn’t break off, I almost drowned after a quarter mile swim-submersion-multiple spin cycles through the whitewater and strainers in my waders. My frozen, limp rag doll carcass washed up with the broken rod next to the flopping salmon on a sandbar where the river takes a hard left, and a guide who used to advertise in Traditional Archery magazine had just stepped off his boat after his own epic sail from Kodiak Island all the way up to south central AK, and he leapt on the salmon to keep it from getting away while I was lying there retching up water and watching a brown haze tunnel closing in on me. Him and his two buddies from Vietnam then dragged me up onto the bank, made a fire, got my waders off, and laid me next to the flames with my one arm draped over the salmon, which died in my grasp. Eventually our guide showed up white faced. “I’ve never lost a client before. Let’s not do that again.” Definitely a close call but it got my picture in Field & Stream magazine. To answer your next question, no I am not smart, but I have a lot of spirit, which is how other outdoorsmen like Jeremy also end up in these unbelievable situations. The thrill of these wild places is intoxicating.

 

[1dirthawker]

The real story from that trip was the enormous king salmon I caught the day before the grizzly encounter, and because I followed the huge fish into the whitewater so it wouldn’t break off, I almost drowned after a quarter mile swim-submersion-multiple spin cycles through the whitewater and strainers in my waders. My frozen, limp rag doll carcass washed up with the broken rod next to the flopping salmon on a sandbar where the river takes a hard left,

and THATS how clients get separated or injured or drowned, or, or, or! good on ya for hanging in there, there was just plenty of downside on THAT particular course of action. makes a great story if you survive it tho.

 

[BRICKBURN]

Jeremy has started an effort to help the community and those suffering from PTSD.
Please check out the link and make a donation if you can.

Thanks


https://crowdfunding.ucalgary.ca/o/university-of-calgary/i/ucrowdfund/s/grizzly-dude

 

[Rem280]

Jeremy has started an effort to help the community and those suffering from PTSD.
Please check out the link and make a donation if you can.

Thanks


https://crowdfunding.ucalgary.ca/o/university-of-calgary/i/ucrowdfund/s/grizzly-dude

View attachment 539913

I see what I am buying tonight: https://www.grizzlydude.ca/product/...ear-attack-signed-copy-/12?cs=true&cst=custom

 

[BRICKBURN]

I see what I am buying tonight: https://www.grizzlydude.ca/product/...ear-attack-signed-copy-/12?cs=true&cst=custom

He will appreciate it.