Bear Revenge

I've taken an awful lot of bears over the years. It's a good practice to NOT get down too quickly and to just observe a downed animal. Depending on the hit, critters sometimes (surprisingly) regain themselves. For large bears; an insurance shot certainly is a good idea even when the bear appears to be dead.

They refer to them as "Dangerous Game" for a reason.
 
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50 years ago hunting the Adirondacks at a family friends deer camp, one of the hunters wounded a black bear. We trailed it into a cedar swamp. Oh joy! We finally got to a spot where we could see him. Looked dead. Older hunter stopped everybody and told hunter to shoot him again. What for, he's dead! Hunter shoots bear and it ROARED LOUDLY! HOLY CRAP! He got shot 5+ more times in blink of eye since we were maybe 50' from him! Talk about life lesson learned! Heck, my rifle wasn't even chambered since there were 5 others! Shorts got thrown out that night!
 
I think you guys are looking at this wrong. Nobody knows how this actually played out except the bear and the man, and we can't get their stories. I'd much rather be killed by a bear that I was trying to kill, than die in a diaper surrounded by strangers, years after my mind has failed. If my last minutes are in mortal combat with a predator that I was actively hunting, don't pity me, or call me a fool. It's easy to forget that hunting is an inherently risky activity, and all the more so when hunting giant Russian brown bears. He wasn't an idiot, but he made a mistake. Maybe he has killed a hundred brown bears in his life, and on his last day on earth, bear number 101 won the fight. I hope for a worthwhile death some day, not wasting away in a nursing home for a decade or more.
 
I think you guys are looking at this wrong. Nobody knows how this actually played out except the bear and the man, and we can't get their stories. I'd much rather be killed by a bear that I was trying to kill, than die in a diaper surrounded by strangers, years after my mind has failed. If my last minutes are in mortal combat with a predator that I was actively hunting, don't pity me, or call me a fool. It's easy to forget that hunting is an inherently risky activity, and all the more so when hunting giant Russian brown bears. He wasn't an idiot, but he made a mistake. Maybe he has killed a hundred brown bears in his life, and on his last day on earth, bear number 101 won the fight. I hope for a worthwhile death some day, not wasting away in a nursing home for a decade or more.

I can think of much better ways to move on to the hereafter, other than either of the scenarios you proposed. LOL
 
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It's easy to armchair quarterback these stories without any details.......I wonder if those that do have ever hunted the thick brush where sight is measuredin feet at times? I personally know a man who is a very expirenced hunter who was attacked by a black bear while tracking it. He didn't die, and the bear did but it was hairy for a little while. It was lung shot and I believe he waited 20 minutes before beginning looking. Not all animals die at the same rate of speed and sometimes even decent hits can be odd. I had a close brush with a archery shot cougar that I waited 45 minutes before tracking due to thick brush and hazy shot location- shot at 12' in thick brush in what felt like self defense even though I had a tag. Rain prevented me from waiting longer as I was worried about blood trail washing out....(Its called the Wet Coast for a reason) Blood trail lead me to believe it was a good hit and fully expected it to be dead after that length of time. Thankfully it was too weak to attack me but it was alive and jumped when I was within a couple feet of it in thick brush......took several years for my nerves to recover but I still feel you have no choice but to attempt to recover game you have wounded. I do believe that dangerous game has a much stronger drive or will to live when wounded after reading Peter Capstick's African hunting stories.
When I read these stories, I take them as a caution to remind myself that predator vs predator can end up with the hunter the hunted.
 
It's true that we all make mistakes and here is a whopper that I was involved in:

I was bear hunting in Canada with a buddy. It was a guided hunt and we were hunting at two different sites that were several miles apart. My buddy hits a bear broadside and it takes off. They followed the double blood trail (bleeding out both sides) for awhile before the guide decides that he should pick me up before they pursue the bear any farther. It was well after dark when they got to me.

I had the only handheld GPS. I set a point at the guides truck in the middle of no where when we got out. We got on a heavy blood trail that went waaaaaaaay farther than anyone believed a heavily bleeding bear could go. We all assumed there was a dead bear at the end of the trail. We followed along with our tiny flashlights until we saw no more blood. I was looking down at the illuminated screen of my GPS to determine where we were in relationship to where the guide's truck was. All of a sudden I hear them yell out "LOOK OUT- THERE'S A BEAR"! My first reaction was to laugh because they were just trying to have a little fun with me. When I looked up from the screen, I was totally night blinded and couldn't see a thing. But ............ I could see two tiny lights running away and crashing through the brush so I ran in the direct of the fleeing lights.

When I caught up with them they said, "didn't you see the bear? It was close enough to touch you"! :eek::eek::eek: The answer was no - I couldn't see anything at the time. Now what? No one had a firearm!!!! The guide screwed up big time. I used my GPS to make a bee line back to the truck and my buddy grabbed his .308. With the GPS we were able to get right back to the bear which was mortally wounded but still alive. One shot to the head and the all the excitement drained away and my buddy got his bear.

Sometimes the most unpredictable things happen and you need to be prepared. The guide should have had a gun and should have told the hunter to take his gun. But the collective opinion was that the bear was dead at the end of the rainbow. What a stupid mistake was made that will never be repeated. It is one of the reasons that I prefer to hunt bears in the good ol' USA; I always carry a 5" 629 when afield here.
 
50 years ago hunting the Adirondacks at a family friends deer camp, one of the hunters wounded a black bear. We trailed it into a cedar swamp. Oh joy! We finally got to a spot where we could see him. Looked dead. Older hunter stopped everybody and told hunter to shoot him again. What for, he's dead! Hunter shoots bear and it ROARED LOUDLY! HOLY CRAP! He got shot 5+ more times in blink of eye since we were maybe 50' from him! Talk about life lesson learned! Heck, my rifle wasn't even chambered since there were 5 others! Shorts got thrown out that night!
Moral is listen to the old guy I suppose.

Not really the same but nonetheless it reminds me of a saying I've heard:

"Beware an old man in a profession where men die young"
 
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