My friend dropped me off this afternoon about 4:00 prior to going to his stand. I was slipping through the woods heading toward my stand. I got maybe 40 yds from it and I caught movement a bit to my right. I quickly eased down on one knee. A few seconds later here comes a bounding black bear cub with mom ambling behind with another cub in tow. (If you guys remember the pic I posted earlier in the year, I believe this is the same trio).
Mom found an old stump that intrested her and she was pulling pieces off it only 25 yds away. Probably looking for larve or whatever. The two cubs were having a ball running back and forth below me. One got up on his hind legs and was scratching his back on a tree. They were so cute. At one point one of the cubs was within 15 yds of me. Then, mom satisfied with her snack or bored decided it was time to leave. She gave a little woof and started walking away. The cubs right behind her. The whole episode lasted maybe 10 mins.
After that incident, I didn't really care if I saw a deer or not. That was one of the coolest things I ever saw. I did video it but the batteries in my camera went dead and I only got a few seconds of the cubs playing. (note to self - keep fresh batteries in the camera).

You were lucky that mom didn't see you.

Nahh, these were black bear. I wasn't worried. We're always running into them around here. You get to know when they're aggitated. They'll lay their ears back and hump their back (like a cat). Or slap a nearby tree, huff at you. They will rarely come at a charge right off if ever. They first try to negotiate by intimidation. Now if it was a momma griz I probably would have gotten a stain in my shorts.

You're talking about a bear without cubs. All we have is black bears too, and when I see cubs. I go the other way.

Muley I had 50 lbs on her...
If she wold have started to come up the trail I was on, I would have let her know I was there. But the woods where I hunt are fairly thick and she was so close before I could do anything but wait her out.

While a close encounter with a black bear can make you nervous, normally you're pretty safe. Although I agree with Muley.. I see a bear with cubs.. I go the other way. I have watched them bear scratch their backs on trees. Its pretty cool.. I agree.

When I was in the woods just up from the house I found a boundary tree were a bear had been clawing the tree about eight feet up the trunk. And his claw marks were impressive to say the least. What freak you out is standing there, I could see my house.l

In my younger days I use to bear hunt a lot. We trained our dogs year round and had more fun training dogs that we did in kill season. The coolest thing to do is go down to the nearest bar and find the biggest, ugliest, and meanest fellar in the place and invite him to go bear hunting with ya. Make sure you ask him in front of his buddies so he cant back out. Then when everyone is ready to go and all loaded up on Saturday morning with the perspective recruit on board you head out with the rig dog on the box and start driving and wait for the strike. Once the dogs have got him treed make sure you tie the dogs back and find a club about 3 to 4 feet long and about as thick as a man's wrist. Now this is where the fun part begins. Remember the big bad dude and his buddies that you invited down at the bar, yep its time for them to take part. Hand the big bad ugly dude the club and instruct him to just stand at the base of the tree and tell him thats how you build the dogs anticipation...LOL... When he starts pounding on the tree and the bear starts down and trust me he will reguardless of the dogs. tell him not to stop. This would be the point you see his big yellow streak, well maybe brown it really depends if he's dumb enough to stand there while the bear comes down...I know yall think I am joking but honestly this is the way its done. The bear will generally jump out on the lower side of the tree providing you have the dogs tied back on the upper side. Once the bear jumps out turn the dogs loose and the chase is on and the big bad ugly dude well his reputation will be described as chicken dung, but man its fun.

V/R
Mike

Thats funny. I thought you were going to say that you told the dude to climb up and knock the bear out of the tree.
I had a friend/outfitter in Idaho who used to run hounds for mtn. lion. Whild training, when the dogs had a lion treed, it conditions were right, he would climb up and while the dogs had the cats attention, he would yank it out of the tree by its tail and the chase would start all over again.
He had one hound he called Spaz. This dog had no fear - or brains. My friend told me that a dog can get right up in a lion's face and be barking without the lion making too much fuss as long as the dog didn't look the lion in the eye. Once it did, the lion would swat at it. He said Spaz never quite figured that out and he had to sew him up a couple times. Once after he had to re-insert his intestines after a lion put a huge gash in his belly.

To a person that sees bears only bout once a year that would of been pretty exciting. I know you were just kidding about the having 50 lbs on her but wild animals are amazingly strong. I found an slightly injured small doe last year and tried to move her off the gravel road to my cabin. I thought I can pin this rascal and carry her off the road. She bit, flailed and just went plain nuts. I got her off the road and waited for her to calm down. She weighed about 75 pounds but she was mighty strong. I would sure hate to try to fight a bear weighing 50 less then me after fighting that doe.

Yeah, we're pretty weak compared to animals.