Montana man survives grizzly attack

Casper Star Tribune ^ | June 28, 2003 | n/a

[decimon]

LIVINGSTON, Mont. (AP) -- A retired Montana railroader turned mountain man knew the odds were good he'd have a close encounter with a grizzly bear someday while alone in the back country.

"It finally happened," Bob Johnson said Thursday from his hospital bed in Livingston. "She tried to kill me."

Johnson said he was attacked by the grizzly Wednesday in the Tom Miner Basin, north of Yellowstone National Park.

He said he couldn't remember how big the bear was. "How can you tell, when the SOB is trying to give you dental work?" he said.

Johnson, 55, remembers grabbing the bear by the nose with both hands as it tried to bite his face and throat. And he remembers taking an incredibly hard blow to the head. Doctors used 75 staples to reattach his scalp to his skull.

He also has a deep gash under his right arm, claw marks on his chest and back, bruises all over his body and some deep teeth punctures on his left forearm.

Johnson still hobbled several miles to his truck and drove to the B Bar Guest Ranch for help.

"He was not a pretty sight," said Aaron Davis, the chef at the ranch. "That scalp wound was downright gruesome."

Johnson said he was moving quietly through the woods, looking for petrified rock and believes he probably awakened the napping female grizzly with a cub.

He said he heard a sound, looked up and the bear was coming at him in full charge. The bear knocked him on his back and went for his face.

"I thought, I'm gonna fight until I die," he said.

Johnson, who lives in Clyde Park when he isn't in the backcountry, said family members want him to stay out of the mountains, but "I'll never do that.

"This was just bad luck."

[katana]

Methinks if the bear really wanted him dead he'd be cub food (or cub crap) by now.

He mentioned that he was being very quiet, but unless I'm mistaken it's best to make a good amount of noise in bear country so they have a chance to hear you coming from a good distance and can either move off or stand up and let you know you're on their turf.

All in all, I'm pleased both he and the protective momma made it out of this encounter alive.

[SLB]

Most folks who downplay a "long gun" have never been in bear country. Keep it close at hand and it becomes second nature. On the last elk hunting trip I made in Wyoming, we had a .458 Win Mag and a .44 Ruger that had belonged to a guide in Alaska. He fell out of a canoe and the body was never found. His brother was a neighbor and took his guns along. That .458 packed a heck of a whallop. Thought I had been kicked by a mule. The .44 was fun. We shot everything from robber jays to a porcupine with it.

[Ditter]

I went with my husband on a grizzly bear hunt in British Columbia in about 1986 or 87. Incrediable experience. We took a small plane, landed on a lake, then walked miles & miles thru slushy snow. Finally we found one. A male, 9+ feet. It almost made the book except for an exceptionally narrow skull. When it heard us it turned & looked at us. I almost died of fright right then.

[LibWhacker]

I think Cujo was a St. Bernard.

[Squantos]

My Old Ruger Number 1 tropical left the factory as a 458 Win Mag but along the line someone converted it to .460 weatherby......... I actually kinda like shooting it. Recoil has bothered me once when I fired an early model Daisy AMAC .50 BMG that didn't have a muzzle brake......OWWW ! I was in the hurt locker on that shot.

Stay Safe !!

[SLB]

I almost died of fright right then.

Then I hear the talk here of carrying a handgun and making sure to shoot them in the brain stem. Heck, by the time the fright factor kicks in and your nerves calm down they are on you and you are hoping to get a shot in without dropping your handgun or having it batted out or your hand accidently.

[SLB]

When I went on that trip I was a whole lot younger and about 75 lbs lighter than I am now. Experience and weight make a difference. Your experience with a .50 BMG reminds me of a Vietnam story where one of our squad leaders held a Ma Duece in his hands had it on single shot and pressed the butterfly. Wow, he dropped it like a hot potato. Nothing to absorb recoil except his arms.

[LibWhacker]

Marcus Aurelius looks like any ol' Rover to you? Harumpf! Think I'll tell him you said that. :-)

[LibWhacker]

They look like great dogs. It sounds like you're adequately equipped when you head out for the hills!

[Ditter]

Right. There were 2 big rifles on him fortunatly I wasn't holding either of them. LOL

[Squantos]

Ma Duce ???? Did this guy ever get smart enough to get home alive ?

Stay Safe !

[decimon]

What a cool guy.

If he's a cool guy then I must be a hot one as I'd be hot-footing it out of those hills. :-)

[BibChr]

"I thought, I'm gonna fight until I die," he said.

In the right context and spirit, this wouldn't make a bad life motto.

Dan

[hoosierskypilot]

I pulled this out of my files: "The late Earl J. Fleming, an Alaska state biologist, was perhaps the only man to investigate objectively the bear’s reputation for attacking humans. When Fleming encountered a bear, he neither ran nor shot. At the end of his unique study, he had encountered 81 brown bears, and although several staged mock charges, not one actually attacked."

Don't know as I would have the courage to stand up to a mock attack, though.

[decimon]

Rereading my reply, Uh-huh. Easy to say what you would do while sitting at a keyboard but I know that I've messed up before and likely will mess up again., it sounds like I was chastising you. Not my intent.

[LibWhacker]

. . . at least one hunter that was killed while gutting a Deer or Elk alone.

Terrible. Thanks for the tip on where to shoot. Thanking my lucky stars I've never had to shoot a bear. All I've ever seen in the wild is black bear, which aren't nearly as unpredictable and dangerous as the big old humpbacked ones!

[Porterville]

I never understand the environmentalist that try to live among the bears without proper protection. They seem often to end up dead. The only way I will live around Grizzly bears is if I can shoot them dead if they get too close or if they're behind a cage.

[BibChr]

ROFL, totally caught me offguard.

Dan

[Porterville]

But more importantly than bears, you should always be armed incase you run into some white-trash-hippy-rapist on drugs in the mountains; they're pretty common in Northern California. Some are even killers.

[leilani]

"That was just an old joke; almost everyone in Montana has some sort of firarm." Everyone except Ted Turner and the Hollywood left-loonies who have moved in and started to throw their well-funded weight around the state. Those arrogant pigs are hell bent and determined on pushing every single native Montanan out and doing for MT what they did to So Cal.Which is: to make it a living hellhole. Thanks Ted, Jane, Peter, Jeff, Glenn, and Co. You egomaniacs suck big time, ya know that?(How do you say "And go the hell back on the horse you rode in on in 'Hollywierd'?")