Posted on 12/26/2017 7:46:58 PM PST by Simon Green
To paraphrase The Stranger, sometime the you eat the bear and sometimes the bear almost eats you . . . Bear Meets Match After Stalking Sitka Hunter
For a few memorable moments, Ryan Wilson was both the hunter and the hunted.
“I was hunting deer; (the bear) was hunting me,” he said, telling about his confrontation with a full-grown brown bear in the woods north of Sitka last month.
Wilson had time for only one shot, but it was enough to stop the charging bear in its tracks.
And what round did Mr. Wilson use to drop that bear with a single shot?
The bear was only 20 yards away and closing fast when Wilson shot it in the head with his .300 Winchester Magnum rifle.
“A little heavy for deer, a little light for a bear,” Wilson said of his rifle.
Maybe, but Wilson had apparently mastered the three fundamentals of hunting; shot placement, shot placement and shot placement. And it wasn’t as if he didn’t give the big ursa fair warning. He was pretty clearly being stalked.
Wilson had the higher ground by about 10 feet, and was surprised to see the bear making its way toward him, walking stealthily and silently in cat-like fashion.
“It wasn’t making any vocalizations or noise,” he said.
Wilson figured the bear just didn’t know he was there. He had a round in the chamber of his rifle and flipped the safety off, just in case. He whistled to get the bear’s attention, and expected that once the bear was aware of his presence it would be on its way.
“It kept silently coming toward me; I yelled, loud,” Wilson said.
At a distance of about 30 yards, the bear went from walking stealthily to a full-speed charge.
All’s well that ends well. Wilson did his duty, informed the state Fish and Game deapartment and harvested the claws, hide and skull for them. Will he be venturing out into the Alaskan wilderness on his own again?
As for whether, as a result of the experience, he would hesitate to go back out in the woods, Wilson said he is just thinking about taking a bigger rifle, or carrying a backup pistol.
But in general, Wilson believes “probability” is on his side.
“I mean, what’s the chance of it happening again?”
Well, the probability of finding that particular bear ready and able to attack him again is now near-zero.
He didn’t use his “bear spray” as his first defense ... oh dear, getting killed by a bear will probably be less painful than the pain and suffering that will descend down upon him by PETA.
The head,claws and hide,
That’s a lot of Work!
I'd want a bigger rifle and not a pistol if a Brown Bear was charging me!
Can anyone think of a backup pistol that would even begin to approach the capability of a .300 Win Mag?
Why do I think this reporter spends a lot more time in front of a keyboard than behind the sights of a real gun?
“Can anyone think of a backup pistol that would even begin to approach the capability of a .300 Win Mag?”
I have a hard time thinking of a .300 Win Mag as “light” for anything in North America.
L
That's exactly what Roy Cleveland Sullivan said!
I'd want an M2HB, myself. Preferably while inside an M1 Abrams.
If I have to restrict myself to what I can carry in the real world, though, hm.....how about an AR-15 chambered in .50 Beowulf? A 400 grain bullet at 1,800 fps in a lightweight semiauto utilizing 10-shot magazines seems like good grizzly medicine.
Not stated—I could only assume the 300 win is single shot and he wanted a revolver with more rounds as backup.
But clear the author was not up to snuff on firearms.
bkmk
Head shots are difficult on browns and grizzlies as opposed to black bears. Their heads are thicker, lower profile. Easy to get a ricochet. 300 Win-mag is plenty for hunting bear, but a little light for stopping them.
The punchline to this joke is, “Admit it: you don’t keep coming back for the hunt.”
454 Casull
Pretty big round for deer.
I once owned 44 magnum long barrel revolver. I believe it would not only make a good warning shot but also stop the bear.
He didn’t use his “bear spray” as his first defense ... oh dear, getting killed by a bear will probably be less painful than the pain and suffering that will descend down upon him by PETA.
>><<
He can keep the bear spray and use it on a PETA idiot that bothers him.
Mrs. L has a 629 she likes a lot. But her usual load is a 210 JHP over about 9 grains or so of Bullseye. For a Brown Bear I’d think something around 280-300 grains and solid would be a better choice. But even then it’d be light for an animal of that size.
L
I have known many an Alaskan who hunted with a .375 H&H. A friend has a story about his dad having an encounter with a bear and that very afternoon trading his .300 for a .375.
Me, I stay in the lower 48 where a .308 will do the job...
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