Same bear? Maybe, maybe not….looks kinda small. But the game camera picked up these shots last night, just seven hours after Id been standing right there.
Am I worried? Not really. Black bears can, under certain conditions, be dangerous but so can any other animal. They are also not as notoriously hard to kill as a grizzly. My 10mm or AK ought to be just fine for this sort of thing. Just gotta keep my eyes open and exercise some common sense when it comes to having lunch up there.
I have seen black bears twice behind our house. As soon as they have seen me they leave quickly. They roam quit a bit around May/June.
Black bears can open car doors like a can opener, as they have claws shaped like fish hooks. Also helps them climb trees.
There was a bear that transited O’Keefe creek several times a year. My old horse Kahn would get very interested every time he’d go through there.
And then a buddy and I went out to slaughter gophers up Black Cat Gulch road with .22’s. He also took his bear tag and .270 just in case…sure enough, he got his first bear that day.
I know you can send some lead down range with the AK, but I honestly think I’d prefer a bit more punch, like the 45/70. If only it held more than 5 rounds.
At what I would imagine would be the short distance of an encounter, and the rapidity of onset, I think the faster followups of the AK have a lot going for them.
FRT that bad boy. There’s some fast follow-up shots.
.45/70 works for a black bear.
.308 works for a black bear.
.30-06 works for a black bear.
12 ga. slug works for a black bear.
For almost everything…….shot placement, shot placement, shot placement….seems to work. Pray and Spray……..not so much. 3 round bursts from an MP-5, yeah, ok….But it is still shot placement ish.
Cheers,
Ben
I hate to give you an excuse to pick up another boomstick but a 12g with slugs sounds like a good idea. Maybe one of those “pistol” type with a “brace”-compact and handy.
I already have a half dozen 14″ 12 ga. shotguns sitting around here. I prefer something semi-auto and abit less recoil so I can throw as many projectiles downrange in the short amount of time Id imagine Im going to have.
Zero
They can scoot incredibly fast
I saw one scoot across the Alaska Glen Highway one morning while driving in to work with traffic just near what used to be named Ft Richardson and is now Joint Base Elmendorf/ Richardson
It covered a distance of easily 400 yards from one side of the road across the median to the other side in what took only seconds
It’s good news. Food comes to visit you.
Funny…I suspect the bears are thinking the same thing.
So how you planning to wash clothes up there? My pants would need a lot of help……
Perhaps the way our ancestors did only 120 years ago…
It’s not particularly difficult.
Yup, it’s not. Hand it to the Mrs. and say “Honey, you got this?”
lol I bet you guys barely taste the spit in your soup.
Same way anyone else washes clothes. Throw ’em in a washing machine and hang ’em out to dry. I suppose until I get that kinda infrastructure in place I can just use a tub of water and a plunger.
Around here in NH we’ve been dealing with bears for a couple of decades. We raise chickens and rabbits so prime bear attractants.
NH Bears are territorial, so shooting one just gets a new one to move into the empty territory. That you found two so soon beings up the idea of a Momma Bear and her cub. That can be BAD Juju.
Our Bears ARE Trainable. Normally bears ignore electric fences as only their nose and mouth are sensitive to them. SO, we deploy a strip of raw bacon on our electric fencing just before we expect them to come out of hibernation.
Once zapped they stay away pretty well. Our local Beekeepers keep a strip of bacon out all season. Local dogs seem not to be very trainable LOL.
BTW Bears LOSE their training in hibernation so forgetting to do the annual bacon training is a problem.
All my small livestock neighbors now do this, the few that poo poo’ed it lost their chicken houses to that destructive powerhouse.
It’s a local coffee chat to discuss the “First Bear SCAT” of the season as our area’s bear meets up with that bacon.
As our winters are often quite mild and bears might have short hibernations all of us around here are good at mentioning to everybody that bear scat was spotted.
If he was at the same place, you were just 7 hours previously, he could have smelled you and was tracking you down to see what you were…
It’s possible you had the aroma on you of what you’d eaten earlier that day…
Especially if you were wearing the same clothes that you’d eaten you meal…
They have an excellent sense of smell, as good or even better than a canine…
Also, you don’t know how many of them, there are, in your area…
It might be best to follow Pioneer/Ranger practices…
Never be out of arms reach of your long rifle… and always wear your side arm…
Better safe than sorry… If at some time we never hear from you again, we’ll know why… LOL
Having been closer to a bear than anyone should ( what is tent thickness? forget hearing each other breathe we could hear heartbeats). Hundreds of thousands of years of making bear skin rugs and rendering down bear grease has taught them we are bad to be too near. If you need to bear proof a area ( while sleeping/ cooking/ food storage) the best thing I’ve heard is a sheet of plywood with 2 inch or longer roofing nails about 2 inches apart across the entire sheet ( bear punji stakes) surrounding entire area. They cannot pass without severe injury,the kind that may be fatal in the wild.
Only problem is it works the same on you or other bipeds ( you’ll only make that mistake once). You may try marking your territory to inform him to stay away