Anyone ever come close to a sow and cubs like that?
Yep, a good handful of times while going in and out of stand sites.
One particular story though that I'll tell you Is one no one should ever do. My dad and I were scouting some new bear hunting area's back in 1991. We were driving on an old dirt road back in the sticks and out ran a sow and 2 cubs in front of us. Dad slammed the brakes on and we jumped out cautiously and chased the cubs up the tree beside the road to get some footage on tape. The sow bluffed her charge a handful of times getting within 10 yards every time and then turning around and running back about 20 yards. She eventually quit charging us. In the mean time I got the camcorder out and filmed the cubs in the tree. Like I said Its something one should never do. Most of the time the sow will not hurt you but there could be that one time she does. If you see a sow with cubs, stay the hell away from her and things will be just fine.
I've read that as well. It stated something along the lines that although black bear attacks are more rare than their brown bear counterparts, more humans have been eaten by black bears than browns. There was like only something like 17 confirmed brown bear attacks in the past century in North America where the person was eaten.
Actually there's more black bear encounters then any other bear. Reason being, there's many more of them around.
Hoyt you asked If she will stick around. Chances are If there's not ample food there she'll be on the move. If there's allot of natural food there she'll stick around. A bear's favorite food is berries, acorns, bugs, plants, etc. Bear are more plant and bug eaters then meat eaters.