vichris

Last year while scouting I found a dead (moo)cow right at the edge of the timber on top of a mountain that had had a recent burn. I was in that area hunting about a week later when I came across a couple of guys up there on their ATV's. I stopped to talk to them and they told me that that mtn was one of the only places they had good cell phone coverage. Sooo.. the next day after hunting I head up there to call my wife. It's just getting dark but I take off my pack and lay my bow on a stump and start chit chatting with my wife. While I'm talking I see some crows fly off over by the dead cow and decide to go check it out. Well when I get to where the cow is/was I can see its been moved further into the edge of the timber. I walked right up on it and was about 15 feet from it when suddenly a bear lifts its head from behind the carcass. Well I decide I better back off a little and start backtracking. I also made the mistake of saying to my wife on the cell phone"whoa.... there's a bear". Well she's freaking out. The bear decides to standup on its back legs..... I guess to look bigger or maybe just to get a better look at me. Well I decide I better get back to my bow pronto and start moving a little faster back to my stuff. About that time the bear drops down on all fours and starts coming toward me and I of course had to tell my wife "its coming after me". Now she's really freaking out. Suddenly it dawns on me "what the heck am I doing". I turned around and lifted up my hands and yelled and growled at the bear. Well "she" decides I'm more than she bargained for and turns to run. That's when I noticed the cub that was with her. They both run off into the timber. Well I go back to talking with my wife and she's thinking that I got attacked because she heard me yell and then heard me growl and thought it was the bear growling. I had to spend an extra half hour calming her down. I've had a couple of close encounters with both bears and mtn lions but this one made me think a little differently about bears.


Anybody else have any close encounters with "dangerous game"?


I got a little revenge on one of that bears cousins this year. Here it is.

V8Ranger

Ya,I think I would have crapped my pants. Thats a nice bear. I have never seen a bear in the woods while hunting. I have seen tracks, once, but never the bear.

elkhuntinut

I have had them close a few times in Colorado and Pennsylvania. The one instance I can remember was a few years ago in PA and I was bowhunting. It was about 1 hour before dark and I see momma and 2 cubs about 70-80 yards away going slighty away from me. About 30 minutes later they are coming back right towards me. When they get about 30 yards momma sees me in the tree. She walks about 10 yards from the base of my tree looking right at me. Kinda spooky, anyway I decide to take off my treestand seat and sort of toss it at her to get her to get on her way...doesn't work[:@]...she sits on her rump and watched me for a few minutes until she decided to move on.

It was a fast walk to truck that night

V8Ranger

WOW!!! I would have been at full draw waiting to see if she was going to come up and see me. They can move pretty fast and I would make sure I was ready to protect my self for sure.

Schultzy

I've had numerous bear crawl up my stand tree when bear hunting. I've had them as close as 6" to a foot. I could see the sparkle In there eye's, I could hear every breath they were taking. It really hasn't bothered me any with them crawling my tree. I got much more shook up when they climbed down and presented me a shot at 12 yards. 3 different times It's happened, the 1st time I was 15 years old so I think I did pretty good In keeping my cool. 2 out of the 3 bear that have crawled my tree I have gotten.


My very 1st bear ever. He crawled my tree with In 6" and then crawled down. I was 15 years old. The bear dressed out at 175lbs.


My 3rd bear crawled my tree with In a foot. I was 19 years old In this picture. The bear dressed out at 150lbs.

TexasBowHunter

Guys, those a re some good stories (b/c they turned out good), we don't have bears whereI hunt so they scare the heck out of me. Schultzy, with me being ignorant to bear, it seems you have a brass set on you brother...But then again you grew up around them, hunting them and most likely know them pretty well, but still you got brass my friend....I don't think they would have made to the base of the tree without me slinging one at them and if they did I would probably look like a cat squirrell jumping tree to tree....

sr77

My buddy went up to Alberta 2 years and had a bear up his tree sniffing his boot through the bottom of his treestand. He has it all on video, it was hilarious, he came unglued, he is cursing at it, you can tell he is freaking out. It climbs down down and it is 5 minutes until my buddy stops muttering profanities under his breath lol.


Shane

vichris

I've had several other encounters with bears too. The one I posted was the only one that made my heart race a little though.

About 500 yds from where I got the bear I posted the pic of... is a place on my GPS I named"5 bears". In 2005 I was still hunting for elk. Late in the evening I hear some noise and along comes this little brown bear. He cruises past me and I did'nt think to much more about him. I didn't have a bear tag so I wasn't that interested. The next morning I'm back the same spot.....I had seen several elk in there over the past few days and along comes a smallish sow with her little cub. Then the same small brown bear I had seen the night before. He stopped about 40 yds from me and started sniffing around. He starts digging for grubs and turning over small rocks and just hangs around. I'm in total camo with scent lock and sprayed down with scent killer and face mask sitting in a make shift blind. The little brown bearcomes right up and sniffs my boot for a second then just goes aboutlooking for something to eat. He finally moves on after about a half hour. Then along comes another bigger black bear and moves right through. I finally called my grown son and he comes over and just as he got there here come another big bear. This guy is a bruiser but again he just cruises right on by. None of them gave any notice to us and I don't thinkany of them heard or smelled us. Now if that big bruiser had come up and smelled my foot I definately would have been drawn on him.

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Rob/PA Bowyer

This year I've had 1 300 lb near my stand on 3 occasions. It doesn't bother me in the least to walk in and out in the dark knowing he is there. They run at the slightest boo. Now that momma and cub, she was just making sure and I'd give her concern more than a boar.

That was a cool encounter you described.

Here are 3 videos from this years sightings.

1st Sighting Video

2nd Sighting Video (close).

3rd Sighting, coming down from 40' up a tree.