I like camping in U.S. national parks (e.g., Yosemite, Glacier, etc.) where the bears are trained not to break-into hard-sided RVs.
If you have a car, you have to empty out all food (unopened canned goods too), toiletries, water containers, anything scented, etc., and store them in bear-proof/resistant metal lockers. You're not allowed to have any food, toiletries, etc., in your tents. Bears can smell whatever you have in the car and will open the car up. There are videos/photos of bears ripping car doors off at the visitor centers.
But if you're camping in a hard-sided RV, you don't have to empty out your RV bec. the bears are trained not to break into hard-sided RVs.
Now Canadian bears are not as well trained, and some of the national parks in Canada have to put electric wires/fences around the entire campground.
RespondingBack wrote: I like camping in U.S. national parks (e.g., Yosemite, Glacier, etc.) where the bears are trained not to break-into hard-sided RVs.
If you have a car, you have to empty out all food (unopened canned goods too), toiletries, water containers, anything scented, etc., and store them in bear-proof/resistant metal lockers. You're not allowed to have any food, toiletries, etc., in your tents. Bears can smell whatever you have in the car and will open the car up. There are videos/photos of bears ripping car doors off at the visitor centers.
But if you're camping in a hard-sided RV, you don't have to empty out your RV bec. the bears are trained not to break into hard-sided RVs.
Now Canadian bears are not as well trained, and some of the national parks in Canada have to put electric wires/fences around the entire campground.
This is a joke, right?
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More people are killed by black bears than brown bears. Black bears should not be taken lightly. They tend to be less predictable and also are more likely to kill you for food. I used to be afraid of bears, but now I just respect them. I have camped in both black as well as black.brown territory. I have two bears in my house. I shot my first bear with a 44 mag 5 times. Handguns are not good bear protection. ...
You needed 5 shots with a .44 to kill a black? Or was it a brown?
You can hunt black with a bow, and many around here do.
I have lived and worked in bear country my entire career. In my experience they are more of a nuisance pest than a threat. Two of us deterred a black charge once by throwing sticks and rocks at her. Although there are rare instances when they are aggressive, you are more likely to need a firearm on coyotes, as mentioned previously. Or raccoons, which seem not to scare away from your trash that easily... persistently stubborn little varmints.
Unless you are hunting you do not need a one-shot-kill weapon. You only need something to deter the animal. A .22 pistol has done that many times.
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Log off and go camping!
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More people are killed by black bears than brown bears. Black bears should not be taken lightly. They tend to be less predictable and also are more likely to kill you for food. I used to be afraid of bears, but now I just respect them. I have camped in both black as well as black.brown territory. I have two bears in my house. I shot my first bear with a 44 mag 5 times. Handguns are not good bear protection. ...
You needed 5 shots with a .44 to kill a black? Or was it a brown?
You can hunt black with a bow, and many around here do.
I have lived and worked in bear country my entire career. In my experience they are more of a nuisance pest than a threat. Two of us deterred a black charge once by throwing sticks and rocks at her. Although there are rare instances when they are aggressive, you are more likely to need a firearm on coyotes, as mentioned previously. Or raccoons, which seem not to scare away from your trash that easily... persistently stubborn little varmints.
Unless you are hunting you do not need a one-shot-kill weapon. You only need something to deter the animal. A .22 pistol has done that many times.
For bears or people nothing stands up to a 12 ga shotgun , you can buy a 12 ga pump cheaper then a good handgun and it's a lot easier to learn to handle but it's also easy to miss with if you try to go Hollywierd with them, hip shooting is a fools game...aim it and fire.
They make all kinds of add ons for a shotgun, like light holders so you just use your forward hand to flip the light on and where the beam shines the lead goes...
but the best advice is whatever is out there needs to come inside before it's a big enough problem for you to shoot.. walking around in the dark your a bigger target then whatever is out there...it/they know where you are, you don't have that advantage.
I'm only stating this because a few of the posters seem to be not too into guns in general.
I've run head to head with bears a few times when hunting Elk in Montana, never had to shoot one yet, mostly just aimed at them and made a deal in a quiet voice...like..you don't bother me, I don't bother you...ok?? and they all turned and took off...
I like eatin bear but I have enough buddys that go wild over huntin them so why bother,I don't hunt for horns or furs..just meat...they get the hide I get some meat..works for me. and my walls stay plain!! nothing staring at me while I watch TV...lol
As one poster said, don't shoot HP's at bear, very poor penitration, will flaten out on the hide..
A good flat point hard cast bullet is better..a rifle is even better and a 12 ga is best...BUT, use what ya got, just pratice a lot first..
I always wondered what a bear would think of a air horn...I'd be willing to bet it would squirt for a mile!...maybe???
Trip
First shot was in the neck. The bear went down and laid still for about 2 seconds then jumped up and tried to run away. After the second, it was thrashing around violently. I know one of the five shots missed as it hit the bait barrel. There was also some really painful yelling that went on for a while. My point is that we do not want to track wounded bears where we hunt as there are 6 of us on 144 square miles and bears rarely leave a good blood trail. This was a 150lb female with excellent shot placement. I would not want to be trying to stop a bigger bear with a handgun. The other bear I shot was shot with a 30-06 with a 168gr Barnes X bullet at 2950ft/sec. He was turned off like a light. There is no substitute for ftlbs transferred. There is a big difference between shooting a bear over bait with a bow from a blind or tree stand and trying to defend onceself against a bear eye to eye. The key to keeping bears afarid of humans is to continue to hunt them each year. In New Jersey, where they do not have a hunt every year, they have more bear problems than like any other place i have heard about. The bears are not afraid of humans and hit trashcans with the regularity of raccoons. I hear stories of them living in people's crawl spaces. They are in every county in New Jersey. In PA they are in about 80 percent of the state. For the most part, except at campgrounds, they are afraid of peope in PA. I spent a week camped at Promised Land State Park last year and we had a yearling living in a tree next to our camper. The rangers kicked everone else out of our loop. (we resisted and were the only ones with a hard sided camper) The tried to trap it for several days and the bear wanted no part of the culvert trap. It was baited with doughnuts. However, as soon as a camper would leave their site, the bear would climb down and check under the picnic table and in the fire ring and eat anything it found. I was walking one morning and ran accross a tent camper on a walk in site in the next loop who was cleaning up a shredded cooler. The rangers are VERY VERY specific about not keeping coolers in camp. I asked him if they ahd warned him and he said that for the past 4 days he had caried the cooler to his car every night. Last night he did not feel like doing it so he left it out and sure enough Booboo found it. Bears are the smartest animal we have in PA. My buddy shot one aged 32 years. I am sure it had quite an education.
Bears are our friends!
* This post was
edited 06/23/08 08:22am by AWMIII *
I think I may have lied to you guys. I got to looking at the pictures that I took of the paw prints on the camper and realized they only had four toes. I then went on line to find paw prints and discovered that it may have been a couger that wanted in.
I have no idea how to post pics on here or I would. Would someone be willing to post them on here for me if I emailed them??
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