James B

I have been real close but no charge took place. It will get your heart started though.

muley69

Well, heres what I learned researching for a speech at the U of Montana, that I think are usefull. The first documented case of a Griz stalking, killing, and eating a human just occured a few years ago, and remains the only case. So the good news is, grizzly bears don't hunt humans for food. If you ask a 100 people what to do if a bear attacks, probably 90 of them will say curl up in a ball and play dead. If a black Bear attacks, you need to fight for your life, if you curl up and play dead they will most likely kill you and the same is true if attacked by a mountain lion. If you are in your tent andsleeping when you get attacked by a griz, you need to fight for your life, playing dead will likely result in the bear killing you. As a general rule, if the animal doesn't feel threatened and it attacks, fight for your life. The time to play dead is if you surprise a griz, or if it feels threatened. Another thing to look for is if you surprise a bear and it takes off running, stops, and starts to come back in agressively, it most likely is comming all the way so get ready to be attacked.Once the bear stops and turns to come back in, you can assume it has had a change of heart about running, and that doesn't bode well for the hunter.

hillbillyhunter1

good post muley. I believe that lots of time if it is a non-surprise type of encounter where a griz is actually using a more investigative and methodical approach, it is usually a sub-adult to young adult male who is still trying to learn what's edible and what's not. And if you just lay down instead of fighting back in that scenario--you just became edible. I guess it could also be an older or injured bear that has become predatory. Although I've only seen one in the wild, I'm totally facinated by them. The one I saw was actually climbing around on a giant scree slope above the highway near augusta. I spotted him as we were driving--so not much of an encounter, but still awesome though.

quiksilver

I had a black bear charge me last turkey season. I was moving out a logging road, trolling for a hot bird, and just wandered between a sow and her 2 cubs.I saw some movement about25 yards to my right, and there stood a big sow, eating skunk cabbage. She hadn't seen me, so I thought I'd just slink on by. I had no reason to believe that there were cubs in the area.

Imade it about 5 feet before I spooked 2 cubs that had been hiding in some brush on the opposite side of the path.One of them got tangled in some vines and started bawling. The sow immediately turned and charged, butinstinctively, I had alreadystarted running. I made it about20 yardsbefore she got up onto the road, between me and the cubs.

I turned and took the gun off safe, and was backing away from her. She took a pretty aggressive posture and popped her jaws a couple times, but it was clear that she wasn't coming any further. She was just standing her ground. We were face-to-face at 10-15 yards, and I was pretty nervous. She and I apparently decided to call it a draw, and walk away to fight another day.

If it were dark, I'd have been in big trouble, because I wouldn't have known what was happening. Not a Grizzly, but a pretty scary moment.