ORIGINAL: RandyA
In places like Canada and Alaska where hunting is allowed they sure don't have the problems that Wyoming and Montana have. Here it is quite common to see grizzlys in the middle of the day right out in the open. My son has video of 9 grizzlys, in one day, in the same alpine drainage, while sheep hunting here in Wyoming. And when I hunted Canada, in B.C. and NWT, you rarely seen a bear and about all you did see were tracks.
Not true at all. We have lots of problems with bears up here. In fact, we have already had two maulings this year, and the season is just getting under way. This time of year, we have lots of problems with bears hanging around Anchorage, Wasilla, Soldonta, etc. The moose that stick close to town are calving, and the bears are hunting the calves. Once the salmon runs start, the bears tend to congregate around the salmon streams. You can see brown bears pretty regularly fishing some of the more popular salmon streams.
My take on grizzly bears -- personally, I love hunting where there are bears. Seeing a grizzly, knowing they are around, having them come into your camp -- it just adds something to a hunt. It's just amazing. Last year we had a lot of bear problems, we lost three of our caribou to bears. I had a bear at 30 yards, and I have to say, it was pretty unerving. If she had taken two more steps, I would have shot. Luckily, she finally decided to do the right thing, we had other bear encounters though. I shot a moose right before dark, and we knew we were having bear problems. Our meat cache was between the moose and our camp, so we had no desire to walk bloody past that meat in the dark with all of the bears.
Anyway, we gutted the moose and split him open, peeled the hide off most of him and took out the tongue, intending to come back in the AM to quarter and pack him. We beached the raft and were walking (just about dusk) to camp when I spot a HUGE grizz coming up the gravel bar at us. It was a ****ty situation to say the least. The bear was about 150 yards, no cover between us, and he was big. We were just getting ready to shoot him, when our pilot who had not buzzed us for five days comes overhead. He sees the situationa nd dive bombs that bear, it was just like a made for tv movie. What a HOOT! We got up the next morning, our pilot dropped in as he now knew we were having bear problems. We told him to come back at five pm, and we would have that moose ready to fly out of there.
Grizzly bears are amazing, and everyone should have the chance to hunt in grizz country. It is something special. Unfortunately, some people do not realize that the big bears demand respect and they take foolish chances, and some people pay the ultimate price.