Dealing with black bears while deer hunting
#22
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 1,862
RE: Dealing with black bears while deer hunting
If your sweating it that bad, wait until light! Fart or something. When I do that I can definitle clear and area!
Seriously, I can't see what the problem is here with bears. If we are hunting we have weapons with us don't we? If you don't think a bow is good enough to defend yourself with then throw the bow away and hunt with gun only. I knew an old timer once who was invited to hunt some new land that his nephew bought. He got wind that someone spotted a bear on the property and he didn't want to go anywhere near the area being afraid of a confrontation. Heck, he was going to be hunting with a gun, what in the world was he so scared of? Not very easy to understand such thinking.
#23
RE: Dealing with black bears while deer hunting
There was an article I read a long time ago about bears. Grizzly and black bears. And there was something in there that stuck with me and I think it is true as he did a good bit of research form what I recall.
He stated that on average, 1 in 10 black bears will stand their ground or charge when confronted by humans. However, it may be the 100th bear you see or the first.
In my 45 or so years of hunting and more hiking where black bears are present, would guess I saw 30 or so bear. There was only one time when a bear challenged me. I was walking my dog on a leadon a dirt road and asI rounded the bend an we saw each other, he paced back and forth across the road several times. Distance was less than 50 yds and the dog was barking. After about a minute of this he walked into the woods, only to come back out and do the same thing all over. Believe me, when he came back out, and he was a good sized bear, I unholstered my 29. I hollered at him a couple times and he finally walked into the woods. He didn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling so me and the dog backtracked out of the area.
Last year, after shooting a doe late in the day with my bow, I walked back to the truck to put my bow in a grab a flashlight and called my friend to come help me track her. I was following the blood trail as my friend came walking through the woods. as he approached, we heard somthing crashing ahead of us. Another 60 yds in the dark and we found my doe. But something, and we assume was a bear, had drug her about 15 yds from where she fell. As I dressed her out we could hear whatever it was, circling around us. This is in PA so it may have been a coyote but unlikely.
I hope this makes you feel good.
He stated that on average, 1 in 10 black bears will stand their ground or charge when confronted by humans. However, it may be the 100th bear you see or the first.
In my 45 or so years of hunting and more hiking where black bears are present, would guess I saw 30 or so bear. There was only one time when a bear challenged me. I was walking my dog on a leadon a dirt road and asI rounded the bend an we saw each other, he paced back and forth across the road several times. Distance was less than 50 yds and the dog was barking. After about a minute of this he walked into the woods, only to come back out and do the same thing all over. Believe me, when he came back out, and he was a good sized bear, I unholstered my 29. I hollered at him a couple times and he finally walked into the woods. He didn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling so me and the dog backtracked out of the area.
Last year, after shooting a doe late in the day with my bow, I walked back to the truck to put my bow in a grab a flashlight and called my friend to come help me track her. I was following the blood trail as my friend came walking through the woods. as he approached, we heard somthing crashing ahead of us. Another 60 yds in the dark and we found my doe. But something, and we assume was a bear, had drug her about 15 yds from where she fell. As I dressed her out we could hear whatever it was, circling around us. This is in PA so it may have been a coyote but unlikely.
I hope this makes you feel good.
#25
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location:
Posts: 141
RE: Dealing with black bears while deer hunting
My friend had a run in with a blackie in the great dismal swamp in VA. Deer quotas are very liberal and he shot a few deer the first week out. On his way to the stand (at o'dark 30) a few days later he busted "something big" most definitely not a deer. An hour later while on stand he saw the bear again. Evidently he was attracted to the gut piles. He said the bear was literally 3 feet below the base of his stand, looking up sniffing and "whoofing". He simply lowered his 870, flipped the safety off, aimed 3 feet to the right of the Bears head and touched one off. He never saw that (deaf) critter again.