Bear spray enough?

[dmad]

www.google.com/amp/s/www.adn.com/alaska-news/wildlife/2018/06/20/man-killed-member-of-search-party-injured-in-eagle-river-bear-attacks/%3foutputType=amp-type

[bula]

It can be, it has worked many times. No, it's not my first choice, admit I don't own any. I've never used it, but do believe the reports given as to it's effectiveness which is not 100 %. Nothing offers 100%. Some risk will always be with us in this life ! If due to legalities in another country I'd pack it and go about my fun. Otherwise I see it as a pretty big chunk of belt space used up for something I see that only does one thing. My first choice does several things, in any weather. Thanks for putting up the info, news.

[contender]

Bear spray can & has become an excellent tool for many folks who have encountered aggressive bears. Is it perfect & the best? No,,, but a good mechanic has many tools to do similar jobs. The added tool of bear spray can often be the best if properly applied, and if the bear is not very determined.

I watched a program called; "I was Prey" the other day, and it had a story about a griz attack. The guy was an educated forest biologist, carrying a 10mm & bear spray. When he was charged,,, he deployed the spray, and the bear kept coming and attacked. During the attack, she finally broke it off as, in his words, "sniffeled & sneezed, most likely from the bear spray." She left, and yet, she returned & attacked him a second time. He never got the chance to deploy his gun. During the second attack, it was knocked out of his holster & away from his reach.

Also, the best place to carry it is on a quick release on the front of your chest.

Personally,,, I'd carry both if I was in an area where there is a chance of an encounter. A can of spray, and well chosen handgun with proper SD loads.

[Snyd]

Very tragic situation there at Eagle River last week. Hopefully they'll find that bear. The wifey and I just got back from around there last week.


Here's an incident that happened a few years back on a trail we've hike many times. I ALWAYS pack 355gr of wfn 454 bear spray  My wife's not a shooter, sometimes' she'll pack bear spray. It might be better than nothing but maybe not. Depends on the bear, situation and which way the wind is blowing. Forget about using in a tent for sure.

These people were very fortunate.

www.newsminer.com/north-pole-woman-uses-insect-repellent-to-fend-off-granite/article_cddf6c53-3e9b-5ccb-9d49-593713fb8dec.html


She says..."“It was a very surreal experience,” 43-year-old Jones-Robinson said on Friday, a day after the ordeal. “All I could think about was this bear is

so close to me I can see its teeth. I could have kissed it. I wished I had a gun.”

“It charged, and I used my bear spray when it was about four feet away and then I fell with my pack on and dropped the bear spray.”


When the bear tried to bite her dog, Jones-Robinson smacked it in the head with her walking stick. The girls had returned by now and were cowering behind their aunt, as was the dog.

“It charged again, and I hit it over the head and held out my bug spray like this,” Jones-Robinson said, brandishing the bottle of Natrapel in front of her. “I hit it like three or four times.”

The dog, meanwhile, tried to attack the bear each time it charged, adding to the chaos.

[bula]

Think that dog earned it's milk bones. Chaos may haved saved one of their lives.

[bigbrowndog]

I do think a handgun used for bear protection is a good candidate for a lanyard!!!

Trapr

[coldtriggerfinger]

The guy with the 10 should have been deploying 10mm bullets instead of airesolized pepper oil.

There should really be no debate .
A dead bear can't hurt anyone. Unless it falls on them.
This financial+nature faker issue causes too much stress up here.
The commercial services board wants to protect bears at all costs so guides can sell bear hunts and tour operators can sell tours.
Liberal/progressive nature fakers want everyone to worship the bears and wolves and all related foolishness.

If everyone that bumped into a bear, killed that bear right then and there. We wouldn't need all these discussions.
See a bear , kill that bear. If everyone did this and with wolves too. We would have a lot more moose and deer and caribou and sheep and goats to hunt and eat.
Now that's a good thing!!!

Doesn't surprise me that a college edjucate got himself killed by a bear.
A big part of this problem is people with more money or education than sense !!
A bear is a bear, they don't care about anything but what they want. And sometimes their desire to get or do what they want overcomes their God given fear of humans.

I saw in the 2nd vid clip that someone had a Korelian Bear Dog ! That brought a big smile to my face.
What a wonderful dog they are . A breed Specifically bred to £μ©# with brown bears. !!!
If anyone has a husky/German Shepard/golden retriever cross they tend to make an awesome bear dog also. Especially if there is some wolf mixed in.
But just a good ole husky is generally a great dog for fighting brown bear.
About 100 times more effective than an aresol can !!!!

[bula]

The dog thing. Can go either way, the dog meant from day one to be bear defense, guard. Yes. After that they can be a determent or trip off an attack. Funny story of me walking dog after dark near Westline Penn.. Was funneled into the guard rails of a bridge over some very pretty trout water and saw a fair to middlin' bear vault the rails on the far side, into the road bed. He crossed over the bridge portion towards us but then got goofy, looking at us, but really, just the 60lb lab with me. Head going side to side, sniffing like crazy, but stream pulling scent off to the side. A car came down the hill behind him and sent him, gladly for us, over the rail and 10 plus feet down into the stream. SPLASH ! Think he did a cannonball ! Heard later that a very grumpy female n cubs around and he may have thought my black Lab a cub.. 

[coldtriggerfinger]

I've had Many , probably more than 60 up close and personal confrontation with brown bear that for the most part, or a good part, my dog or dogs ran off. I've had many more than that but didn't have a dog or dogs with me at the time.
All mine were Alaska Husky or a cross with Husky in them. I never got to try out my Korelean cross on bear. But he was a real dominate spas . And smart. He learned from my greatest dog I've ever known. A village dog from Kake, Alaska. A Shepard, golden retriever, husky and Kupreanof Is wolf mix. Saved my from being mauled 3 times and my wife once that we knew of. And we fought lots more bear together.
Not all , probably not most dogs are good at fighting bears. Read that , driving bears insane until they run off. A dog's gotta have it and an unbreakable good bond with its people. And the people Need to be ready to kill the bear to protect the dog.
A friend of mine wasn't a dog guy. When he came over to where I was working and living . he bought a 4" 500 S+W AND a 375 Alaskan AND talked me out of my 458 Lott and took to packin it also. Place was over run with brown bear. And we worked in the brush with them.
I wouldn't say a dog is more important than a gun. But, a dog and a good gun and the ability to use it. That's the ticket !
Problem is , its harder to find a great dog than it is a great gun.

[Snyd]

I can remember when growing up in Western Montana, my grampa was a lumberjack and he said they always kept a small dog in logging camp to run off the bears. That a small dog was quick and would drive the bears crazy and ran them off. I wonder how one of my Dachsunds would do?!

[coldtriggerfinger]

I think a Jack Russel terrier might do a good job

[magnumwheelman]

I guess I'd carry bear spray if I couldn't carry a gun... honestly... you have to make the best you can out of what you have.... there are huge amounts of people who either didn't, or barely survived a bear attack with a 44 magnum handgun... that's not to say there is a problem with 44 magnums, only that nothing is 100%... I'm "guessing" that bear spray if used properly, & under the correct conditions, "probably" works "most" of the time... obviously with a strong cross wind or head wind it could go from barely if at all effective to actually having negative effects, if all the spray blows back into your face, & makes you a seasoned & easier to kill dinner...

one on the stories relates someone hitting the bear in the nose with his cane or walking stick... unless the bear is starving, or protecting it's young, making lots of noise & challenging the bear probably stands a fighting chance...

I hear curling up in a ball as a sensible defense... ummm... in my opinion only if you've exhausted all other offensive options... maybe it'll chew on you a while, until it gets bored...

even though I daily carry a single action 45 snubbie, IMO, the Ruger Alaskan is the perfect platform for me ( I shoot a snubbie pretty well ) if you don't, a 4" barrel may be better for you... IMO, double action is the way to go... a shorter barrel may be easier to point into the bear if too up close & personal becomes the only fighting option... a double action only requires pulling the trigger... I've read a couple accounts where the person getting mauled never fired they're gun, even though they had it in their hands... I'd suspect either the barrel was too long, for a perceived shot, or in all the pain & or excitement, the person forgot to cock the gun...

of course all this matters not, if you don't have a beastly crimp on your uber magnum, & bullet creep has locked up your gun...

there are so many things that can go sideways in a matter of seconds... I think we're better off throwing everything we have at the bear in that situation, not just relying on bear spray, or a gun for that matter... I'm not willing to totally bet my life on any one or two things... if my last resort is trying to choke him with my big steel toed boot, that boot is going in his mouth, before I curl up into a ball & totally submit to the wild animal...

[coldtriggerfinger]

I'm sure there have been. But I don't know of anyone that has been mauled after several half decent hits from a 44 mag. And I know several people that have killed charging brown bear with 44 mag revolvers.
Now the wrong bear with maybe marginal hits. Even a full house 458 Win mag may not stop or turn a really over the top bear.
There ain't nothing wrong with a SRH Alaskan . preferably in 454 or 480 Ruger. But a really strong roll crimp is called for . Trick is to get busy killin the bear before it's close enough to git ya.
The best early warning system I've found is a good dog or 2 or 3.
The 2 women that got mauled and 1 of them got killed by a bear near the Pogo Mine used bear spray. It didn't save her life. I bet a G26 or an XD9 Sub Compact or an SP101 357 ect would have saved her life. Heck, probably a +P 38 with hard cast 158s would probably have worked .

[450ak]

Such a sad story. She was married for just a couple of weeks. Educated in Bozeman Montana.
An LC9s with 147 grain bullets would have turned that damn bear away.
Always be armed and aware in bear country. Think Col. Jeff Cooper said that years ago. And never trust bear spray

[coldtriggerfinger]

Ya, an LC9S . I was drawing a blank when I listed the ones I did.
My wife's boss is a runner. She has had grizzly's run across the road in front of her. I encouraged her to start packin. She still doesn't. Good Look in gal too. But, like most she probably will think ( oh that will never happen to me ) . Right up until things get bloody. I hope they don't .