Need Help With Grizzly Bear Question

[dakor]

My stopping gun is going to be a 12 gauge with 3 inch sabot slugs. If we have to track a bear if I am lucky enough to shoot one I will trade guns and carry the 12 I dont like the idea of a scope in the thick stuff. My 12 holds 5 shots and it is a semi auto if that doesnt stop him if there is a charge I dont think anything will. I just hope it drops on the first shot from the 300 or 375 and there is no tracking. As for a 200 yard shot I was pretty much torn apart on another forum for wanting to shoot from that distance I was told that is to far. I did not think that would be to far for either gun they still has lots of energy. I guess if I am out in the open and need to take a 200 yard shot they said that would be alright

I guess I will have to wait until I am up there and see what happends. Brent that area you told me about is it mostly open or the thick stuff and what do you think is a good shooting distance? Also are there lots of hunters? Brent you also said you hunt Moose alot can you kinda explain the antler restrictions to me in that area because it is confusing on how the book describes it

That is my back up plan if I cannot get a Brown Bear I wouldnt mind shooting a Moose or a black since you can use the tag for one of the three.

 

[Guest]

Dakor, you are right. If 5 shots from the 12 gauge slugs don't stop him, you're in trouble!

 

[Guest]

Dakor, you are right. If 5 shots from the 12 gauge slugs don't stop him, you're in trouble!

 

[Brent]

John,
Brent, I dont really need the thing. If I buy it the thrill ends too fast. If I build it I can entertain myself more.

How true, can't blame ya there.


Dakor,
No prob.

One thing first - Make **** sure your semi-auto bang bang functions flawlessly! Wouldn't that suck! Reminds me - My buddy bought a 12ga Mossberg Mariner right before we went up King finshing on the Willow a few years back. Got up there and test fired it at his relatives place before heading down the trail and the **** thing left the spent case in the chamber. Extractor just jumped off the rim! Well, after pushing out several with a stick we knew we had a one shot wonder is all.

He took the rifle back and exchanged it for another, only to have the same exact problem! He took it back and got the Winchester Defender like mine, works like a dream. Never have heard of anyone having that problem with their Mossberg even still, just the two we fired.

The area I was telling you about was Klutina Lake. You can drive there, but when you get to the lake you need a boat. It's 35 miles long and you know the good spots aren't at the end of the road. That's the place on the way to Glenallen. We're planning a trip up there after talking about it this last weekend some more.

Range - I'd really like a guy with me to get within 125 yards, it's just so hard to hit 'em again if they take off and they're real far. If they run at you or away it it's much easier, but they're still smaller at that range. If they're clean out in the open, long way from the thick, I'd take a longer shot if I couldn't get closer.

When you get really, really close to one in the woods your perspective on Big Bear will change in a way only that will induce, I guarantee you. When one charges you it'll really scare the **** out of you, you now have a perspective that will only induce. I'm sure you have some idea being around Black Bear and it only gets better with the Bigger Bears. They are truely awesome with their all speed and power!

Moose - More than likely you'll be hunting in unit 14-A. The new regs aren't out yet, but likely will be that any Bull you shoot must either be:
1) 50" spread or larger.
2) At least one brow palm must have 3 legal points on it.
3) Young Bulls, most having not yet formed palms (2 year olds) must have no more than 2 points on one side (fork) to be legal. The other side can have any formation, one side qualifies it as legal with either a 1 point (spike), or a fork.

Note - A legal point is taller than it is wide, period. If the point forming is 2" wide, and 1" tall, it is not a legal point yet. With that in mind, if one side on a youg Bull has two clearly legal points and third point is forming but not a legal point yet, that side qualifies the Bull as legal, regaurdless if the other side had three clearly legal points which made that side not qualify as a spike or fork.

On the other hand, if you are counting brow tines (3 to be legal in that area) because he falls short of the alternative 50" requirement, you want every possible point to be counted legal that you can. If one point of a possible 3 is still just a bump/hump or what ever you want to call it and the other two points are legal... don't shoot. If you do, and F&G check you on your way out they will pull out their nifty little jailer key rings for Moose antlers. It has different size pieces of pipe on it instead of keys though. Guess what they're for? The 1" ID pipe is 1" long, 1-1/4" pipe is 1-1/4" long, 2" pipe is 2" long etc. When they slip those pieces of pipe over any suspected illegal point, whether it sticks out the top or not will decide if you're in deep doo-doo or not. This is how they determine if any suspected point is taller than it is wide. Error on the side of caution and bring good glass with you.

The 50" tip of the day -
You think a set of antlers is about 50", but how the hell can you tell when it's 1/2 mile off, or even 200 yards for that matter? Well, it's pretty simple if they hold still looking at, or away from you long enough to measure them up. Measure? One thing about a full grown Moose, it's head is almaost exactly 10" wide, which turns out to be a big, big bonus. The Moose looks at you when you grunt to get his head up. In your spotter, or binos, you see the right side sticks out a hand width over double the width of his head. Good, that means it's what, 2, 3, 6" over the 20" you're looking for on that side. You have a look at the other side and it is sticking out right at exactly twice the width of his head, maybe a hair more. Is the Moose 50" or larger? You bet he is. You have 20" on one side, but the other side is more than likely 2-6" larger than 20". That 40" plus the head's width of 10" and you probably have a 52" or bit bigger Moose in your view.

This technique for measuring is shown in a fish and game vidio you can barrow from them, which most have never even seen.

Very few young bulls that start forming palms have "less" than 3 points formed by then and qualify as a spike or a fork, but I shot one a few years back that was quite an exception. It had "4" points on one side, 2 nice legal points on the other but only a bump on the start of the palm. Legally he was still a fork, something else explained in the vidio.

Brow palm and main palm -
There is litterally a seperation point between these front and rear palms, it's called the bay seperation. Most often it's pretty easy to identify the points that it falls between, sometimes it can be more difficult. If you shoot one that you think has three brow tines but later find the one point was actually the first one on the rear palm... you're in deep doo-doo.

Just make sure you study the Bull good and know it's legal, or let him go if you can't make a determination. Make sure your Grizz does not have a cub in sight. If you make a mistake, they'll have no mercy and accept no excuses.

My buddy shot a 48" bull about 3 years ago up near Delta and he really lucked out with them just taking his tag and confiscating the Moose. He's lucky he ddn't loose his rifle and his wheeler, and get slapped with a fine.

The rules up here are confusing as hell, not to mention they push you to buy top end optics which is pure BS, as the average hunter never will. Illegal kills just left to rot for fear of prosecution number in the several hundreds, a product of their lack of research and silly rules. By the time you get up here it just may revert to "any Bull", my buddy on the game board said this in January. They've never proven it is helping the population, just making more honest hunters criminals. I think they either have to document it has helped or it will be reversed, that's what I'm told. Originally they had 5 years when they changed from the "any Bull" rule statewide, and it's been long over 5 if not 10-12 years since that change.

Up past Willow has every kind of terrain, swamp, tundra, low brush hills, high brush with clearings, thick timber, you name it. If I get up there in the mean time I'll take some pics with you in mind. Same with Klutina Lake.

 

[dakor]

Well Brent when I come up there I just might have to bring you something or buy you dinner since you have helped me alot!! Thank you!! As for the shot gun I have a Rem 870 Pump I might bring but I thought my Beretta Auto would be better for rapid fire it has never jammed on me before (Never Say Never) but I just might take the pump for piece of mind. I will also have my 41 mag on my hip so like the old saying goes I will use 5 on the bear and one on my self

But like I said I hope it does not come down to that. I do believe you when you say the big bears get the blood going I have seen them up close we went to this Wildlife Park in Washington and they had Brown Bears there and even with them behind that little barbwire fence I might add

and we were in the car about 10 feet away from them feeding them bread that got the blood going. I never have felt so small before in my life so I can about image how it is in the alder thicket 35 yards away and no car and no fence in between you. I have another question for you lets say I buy a Brown Bear tag and my B-law and I do not get a Brown bear and he has to go back to work can I legally go hunt Moose or Black Bear with that tag on my own? Or would the G&F consider me hunting Brown Bear because the License says it on it?

 

[Brent]

No sweat, hope you have a good time when you get here.

Well, you might have found a grey area there. I'll check on that, I honestly don't know.

Yeah, you'd probably never have a problem but, the 870 is the best bet. Wish I still had mine, but my Winny serves it's purpose just the same.

It is definitely an awakening when you know it's all up to them whether or not you're their next lunch.

My Dad was watching a Grizz once when I was young, him and my Mom. It was about 200 yards away off the road by a pull off down the hill. All of a sudden the Grizz turned and was at a dead run towad them and they run around the car and jump in just in time to see the Bear in right in front of them going to town digging after a ground sqirrel!!! Haha, they thought "they" were on the menu and didn't even see the squirrel. He said it didn't take that Grizz 5 seconds to top the hill, scared the hell out of 'em both.

Down on the chain 10-15 years ago my Dad was building a runway for an airport. They'd see a Big Brown on the runway and the boss, Kemper, he'd take off and catch up with him in the pickup. He said even the big ones would run side by side the length of that runway right at 40 mph, never let up the whole way. He said what was even more impressive was they hit 40 at the snap of the fingers.

 

[Gowge]

Please read this article - just happened in ALASKA.....

Hunting guide mauled by wounded brown bear
ATTACK: Scott Newman attributes incident to two cardinal errors.
By PETER PORCO
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: April 28, 2004)

Scott Newman, a hunting guide from Petersburg, recovers in the Sitka Community Hospital on Tuesday.

Scott Newman of Petersburg says he's naturally a calm person. He proved it Monday evening as a wounded brown bear on Admiralty Island crunched the bones of his left foot and moved up to chew on his leg while Newman methodically tried to free a jam in his rifle.

By the time the bear chomped on his inner thigh, Newman let go of the rifle and his hope for another shot and tried pushing the animal away with his hands. The bear then began cracking the bones of his right hand and forearm.

Newman, a 39-year-old hunting and fishing guide, told the story of his mauling Tuesday by telephone from his bed at Sitka Community Hospital. He was bandaged and in splints. Doctors had yet to close his puncture wounds, so as to let them drain. He was in a lot of pain, he said.

Nevertheless, he spoke matter-of-factly, going over details with precision, and blaming himself for two mistakes, neither of them very rare on guided hunts.

Newman has been guiding for 17 years, 12 of them as proprietor of his own business. He is called a "superb guide" on the Web site of Field & Stream magazine.

Monday was the last day of a 10-day bear hunt in the vicinity of Pybus Bay in the southeast corner of Admiralty, about 75 miles south of Juneau. His client was a textile businessman from Mexico City. Others on the trip included the client's wife; Newman's 15-year-old nephew, Levi Newman, who worked as his assistant guide; and a cook.

"We saw only 10 bears for the whole trip," Newman said. That included a decent-sized bear on the fifth day, which they let go. On Monday, from Newman's skiff on Little Pybus Bay, they spotted a boar along the beach of the small peninsula that separates the smaller bay from the bigger one.

"I parked the skiff downwind of the bear and we did our final stalk on foot," Newman said. The bear busied itself behind a bunch of driftwood logs. They'd see a leg, then its head. It seemed to back away.

Newman next made the first of his mistakes, he said: He left the side of his hunter and crawled toward the water for a better look. When the bear started climbing over the logs, the client became excited and fired two or three rounds.

"I wasn't able to whisper, 'Wait 'til he turns his side,'" Newman said. He now fired several rounds of his own, big 400-grain bullets from a .416 Remington Magnum.

"I think I got a frontal shot," he said. "I thought I really hit him hard. I was pretty confident he'd be dead" in the brush where the animal ran.

Now came what Newman considers his second mistake. It was 7 p.m. and would be dark in two hours. He didn't want to wait until morning to skin the bear, not with another hunt coming up in a few days. He decided then to follow it, to ensure it was dead and to skin the carcass while they had light.

Newman found a large pool of blood where the bear had been hit and a spoor leading away from the beach into the brush.

He zig-zagged across the trail, circling quietly. It was clear the bear was bleeding from both sides. Newman guessed it had been hit as many as half-a-dozen times.

"I was fairly concerned because he'd gone quite a ways. There was dark blood. I knew he was hurt, but I didn't think he was mortally wounded, so I probably had a live animal on my hands."

Newman was looking at the ground when he heard a twig break. He slipped the safety off and heard a low roar.

"He was ticked off," he said. "He appeared instantaneously. He looked like a freight train coming at me. I knew I had to make the shot really count. I took an extra split second, leaned into it and torched it off. I was fairly certain I hit him in the chest."

He worked the bolt to chamber a second round but "short-stroked it," jamming the rifle. "****," he said as the bear barrelled forward, knocking him down.

"Now I'm on my back kicking this bear in the head, trying to get him off me. He's biting my left foot, giving me a compound fracture, crunching the bones in my left leg. I'm trying to get my gun to work."

Newman feared that a bad tear in his thigh could sever the femoral artery, so when the bear bit him there, he switched tactics.

After the boar chomped his hands, however, it broke off suddenly, turned to the side, turned back as if still interested in Newman, but finally walked away.

"When he dropped down, he appeared very sick," Newman said. He thinks the bear, found dead later just yards from that spot, was then only moments from dying.

"It was that frontal shot at 10 feet," Newman said. "It was a mortal shot, and he had just another 30 seconds to live, and in the meantime he chewed on me very good."

As soon as the bear turned away, Newman grabbed his rifle and ran 25 yards away -- on adrenalin, he said.

"I sat down and started yelling for help, then realized I had my hand-held (radio) and called the Coast Guard. ... 'I need a helicopter now,' " he told them, worried still about the femoral artery.

The artery was intact, although Newman did lose a lot of blood. But he never lost consciousness.

"I had a definite sense of calmness. I was very calm about the whole thing. I don't know where it came from. That's just the way I am. I was never freaked out about it. I just knew what I had to do to get out of that situation."

Levi Newman and a man from a nearby lodge helped stabilize him until he was evacuated by Coast Guard helicopter 90 minutes after the mauling.

Levi also worked to skin the bear and get the hide and the others back to Petersburg on Tuesday evening.

 

[Gowge]

Big Grizz can cover over 20 yards a second - two quick strides! How many times can you shoot aimed fire at a moving target in five seconds? Want more time?

GOOD LUCK!

 

[dakor]

Well with my 12 auto 2 shots I suppose with anything else one shot. I did read that post and I will say the mistake the second guy made with his wife is he hit the bear high now if a Browns vitals are like a Black bears wich I believe they are they are low in the body in a ball lungs and heart. So any shot that is higher then the middle of the brisket you are not hitting anything. As for the heart being blown apart that could have been the last shot that put the bear down who knows it might have been the wifes first shot but when the Adrenaline starts pumping in any animal they are tough to kill. Now if his first shot would have hit both lungs or the heart and they did the same thing leaving it over night it would have been game over for the bear. As for the first guy the shots in the bear were not good either that is why shot placement is so important!!

 

[Guest]

I guess andrenalin junkies get a kick from this stuff... Me personally, I don't have the thrill for this type of hunting... there are so many bears here that it really isn't hunting until you shoot the bear.. then YOU are the hunted.. but thats my perspective...

 

[dakor]

Well Ric I guess you can have your opinon and I can respect that. I am not really a junky I just have a list of animals I would like to take as trophys before I leave this earth and a Brown Bear,Black Bear, Big Horn, Dall Sheep, Moutain Goat and Elk are high on the list. I am 27 years old right now and God willing I should have enough time to take a few of them. With my sister moving up there I am going to take that as a sign to get my *** up there and do some hunting because I have always wanted to hunt Alaska I just never could afford a guide. Now I do not have to have one so I am going. I also am planing on going after some Halibit and do some sight seening since I will be up there for 16 days.

[ 04-29-2004: Message edited by: dakor ]

 

[Guest]

hey more power to ya.. I'd take the opportunity as well....

myself I'd go for "Boo Boo" hunting...great meat!!!

then the ultimate.. Dall Sheep.. I'd have to get Chris to build me a lt wt LR rig though ;-)

 

[Gowge]

Then about this time two years ago off the Mile 40 - Denali Highway..... .458 Win Mag didn't get it done either.

Injured grizzly attacks hunter
HARROWING: Woman kills bear at close range as it attacked her husband.


By Peter Porco
Anchorage Daily News

(Published: September 14, 2002)
In 35 years of hunting, Larry J. Miller of Wasilla has seen 100 bear kills, he said, including 10 of his own. But he'd never before seen the fight in a wounded bear like the grizzly his wife killed early this week as it was attacking him.

The day before, Miller shot the bear twice from 200 yards, ripping out flesh and shattering bones but apparently leaving the bear strong enough to walk away bleeding puddles in the alders of a mountainside near the Denali Highway.

The bear did not die until the following day as they searched for the animal, and not until Larry's 50-year-old wife, Brinda Miller, shot it three more times in the chest at close range with a .338-caliber rifle while it tangled with her husband.

Miller didn't know how the animal was able to stand and keep charging him.

While skinning it afterward, the couple saw that "the bear's heart wasn't even there," he said. "The part that holds your shoulders together, it was just demolished."

Larry Miller's right calf was punctured a few times by the bear's teeth, but he suffered no other injuries. His wife was unhurt.

"There ain't a man alive that done what she done," he said about his wife, a 100-pound woman he calls his "hunting buddy."

Miller, who'll be 53 later this month, and his wife and their dog were after caribou near Butte Lake, a few miles south of Mile 40 on the Denali Highway. On Monday, after riding six-wheel off-road vehicles to a spot where they'd seen numerous caribou, Miller shot a big one, he said.

They dressed the animal and took it a quarter-mile to a small unnamed lake on the mountain. It was about 4 p.m., and Miller looked down and saw the grizzly eating berries in an open patch.

"My wife says, 'You gonna shoot it?' 'I don't know,' " he said. "We spent an hour looking at it."

The winds were strong, however, and Miller feared the bear would soon catch their scent, so he decided to shoot it, he said. In telling the story, he always referred to the bear as a "him," knowing, as they found out later, it was a sow.

"I popped him, hit him right above his shoulders," he said. The bear ran in a panicked circle. Miller fired again. He would learn later his second shot hit it in the leg. The bear disappeared in the alders, and the Millers waited a spell before heading down.

In the berry patch, they found "meat the size of a tennis ball, and whole pieces of bone I shot out of him," said Miller.

"You ain't never seen so much blood in your life," Miller said. "I said, 'He's got to be dead."'

The blood trail ended, however, near a creek coming down from the lake.

"Man, this ain't good," Miller remembered thinking. "We'll come back in the morning and he'll be dead, and we'll take care of him then."

They rode eight miles to camp near the highway and hung the caribou meat. Next morning, they were back above the alders. Looking down to where the bear's trail ran out, they saw a small flock of ravens.

"He's dead right there," Miller said. "Not a problem."

They shed rain gear, coveralls and other heavy clothing and headed down into the alders. For 40 minutes, they zigzagged but without a sign of the grizzly. "Well, I've had enough," he said. "We need to get out of here. Something ain't right."

They returned to where Miller first shot it and spent an hour searching through the alders. Their dog, a Russian bear dog, said Miller, was ahead of them and now came tearing back, followed by the sow that Miller says he didn't really see clearly until it was on top of him.

"The noise it made, like nothing you've ever heard -- snapping, snapping, snapping. This happened in two seconds. He knew who I was. He could smell my guns or the caribou meat on me, something."

The bear hit him and he fell back and started kicking as the grizzly tried to bite his face and neck, he said. He struggled to take the safety off of his rifle, a powerful .458. The bear was biting him across his calf.

He yelled for his wife to shoot. The final act in the two-day drama occurred as man, woman and bear struggled in a tight cluster no farther from each other than 5 feet, Miller said.

"She stuck the gun over my face and fired." The stunned bear hung back, breathing froth and spurting blood. "There was this horrible noise out of his throat," Miller said.

"The next time he grabbed me between the ankle and calf and picked me up and shook me like I was a half-a-pound kid."

Miller was only a few feet from the bear's chest and his wife was afraid she'd hit him, but she fired again.

"She's not even aiming," he said. "She's just pointing like you point a stick at the big part of his body. Every time she pulled the trigger, he'd put me down."

The third hit finished the grizzly but not before it stood swaying and finally fell forward.

Brinda Miller started to cry.

"I told her, 'You did good, you did good,' " he said.

 

[Brian Rybicky]

Dakor,

If your takeing a shotgun for back up, go with the remington 870, I have both of the guns you mentioned, and the remington has never failed me, and you can beat the hell out of them and they will keep shooting, my beretta 391 has failed twice on me, both were mechanical failures, then again this gun has over 5000 rounds thru it, If my *** was on the line I would go with the 870, you can shoot it almost as fast as an auto, and you dont have to keep them clean.

Brian