Quote:
Originally Posted by AK Mike
That's a fact! I have some great fish/bear stories; last one was down by Sweetheart Creek, south of Juneau. It's a subsistence fishery for red salmon; you can dip net/cast net and get alot of fish. And the bears know about it too! There were a group of four of us and we'd managed to get all the fish we could carry, so we headed back to the boat. The trail is narrow and winds through the woods along the creek. My friend Matt was in the lead, both hands carrying bags of fish and he stopped with a brown bear on the trail, literally 30 feet in front of him. I was right behind him (with a .375 on my back) also with both hands full of fish. He whispered, "Mike, there's a bear right in front of me, what should I do?" I whispered back, "...don't give him the fish." Then I started laughing and he just stared at the bear as it wandered off in the woods. Made for an interesting afternoon and another memorable great day in Alaska! There's been almost zero documented cases where bear have attacked when people are in groups....not saying it can't happen, but if you want to play the odds, take a buddy or two!
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Yea the reason I am even interested in picking up a weapon is a story similar to that.
Trout fishing in Vermont with a group of guys. I went off on my own, found a good run and I caught this monster..... Fish was so big it actually broke my landing net. So I ended up leaving him there on the bank, and went out to go get my buddies and bring them down to this stretch of the river. Went and got them, and came back all in about 15 minutes. By the time we were back, there was a BIG black bear who had made his way over, and was sniffing around my fish. We gave him a lot of space and just walked back the way we had come, but if I had been standing there holding the fish when he walked up I'm not sure what I would have done.... and he was there within 15 minutes of my catching the fish so he wouldn't have been very far away.