Originally Posted by
Oldtimr
Locking your food in a truck cab is a good way to one day find your truck destroyed. If you have no trees to hang your food you should dig a cash and put steel doors on it with a heavy lock. Bear spray is not made to be sprayed around as a deterrent it is a last resort made to be sprayed in the bears face so that its eyes burn so badly it can't see and it has a hard time breathing. It sounds to me like you are no where prepared enough to be doing what you are doing in an area that has predators that kill and eat humans and you need some expert advice on how to do it. I suggest you contact the wildlife agency that has jurisdiction of the state you are mining in. Those animals are doing what they do, you are in their backyard and you need to learn how to safely be there and how not to attract trouble to the best of your ability. You don't say what kind of shelter you are living in or if you have bear proffed it.
We have no other option. I realize what a bear could do to my truck but I'm hoping we hear and react before it comes to that. The emergency button on the key ring has worked before. Hit that and all the lights start flashing, horn blasting etc... Depending on where we decide to mine our base camp could be set up in April and left until November. We are now working areas where we are mobile. Some are set up and taken down within as little 3-4 days to a week or so. We are small scale prospectors, no huge equipment, or employees.. We move around and look for areas to be mined. We hunt, just not for flesh. When you say "not to attract trouble" that is what we seek.