Grizzly stories
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As a follow-up to the big cat thread let’s talk about Grizzlies. Anybody have a great story?
I ran into one on Slough Creek in Yellowstone a few years ago. We came around a bend and saw the bear going over a hill for a brief few but scary seconds. I had bear spray ready to go but he just kept going and must have heard us coming around bend. Even at say 75 yards the animal looks like as big as a car!
Great thread.
When I finished high school I took a trip up to Lake Huron, where a friend had a couple gradnfathered-in cabins on islands out in Georgian Bay.
First off I would like to say that if you want to read some truely great Grizzly stories you need to pick up the book Crown of the Continent by Ralph Waldt. He was a Naturalist for the Nature Conservancy on the Rock Mountain Front in Montana and he has some amazing stories about some really big bears!
My one and only encounter happened about 18 years ago. I was hiking in the Jewel Basin in Northern Montana. It was early June and I was on a solo over night back pack trip and was hiking into a small lake to see if the ice was off yet. The trail took me across this avalanch shoot and when I got half way across the thing I heard a noice and looked up and about a hundred yards up this shoot was a big male Griz chewing on a goat carcass! He saw me at the same time and bluff charged me and I am here to tell you that he only took about four big steps and he was with in 25 feet of me. If you can imagine legs and snow flying and this woof woof woof noice that is what I saw. I about pissed myself as I stood there trying to figure out what to do.
In July 2002 a buddy and I were fishing in Alaska. We took a day fly-out trip to fish for big Bows on the Illiamna Lake drainage basin. We landed on a small lake, where the pilot pointed in the general direction of the river we were going to fish, told us it was about a 20 minute hike, “stay on the trail, I’ll pick you up in five hours, and good luck.” We managed to find the river and started fishing bead egg patterns under the stacked King salmon.
I was fishing a deep chute just below a little branch that came into the river. I was standing on a little triangular gravel shoal at the mouth of the branch and could see up the branch about 30 yards before it curved to the left. My buddy was taking a break on the bank behind me and he could also see up the branch. A big fish had just broken me off, and I was head down absorbed with re-rigging, when I hear “Dude, heads up!”
I looked up in time to see a small (300-400lbs) sow brown bear charging down the branch toward me; teeth bared, ears back; water splashing and rooster tailing behind her. She was about twenty yards away.
I knew I was supposed to stand tall raise my arms and yell at her, but I dropped my rod a ran backwards tripping like an idiot for 15 feet until my buddy’s repeated coaching from the bank sank in. “Dude, DON”T RUN!”
I stopped and she pounced.
She jabbed her head into the shallow glacial stream and reemerged with her teeth sunk deep into the flesh of a silvery King. She was about 30 feet from me. She plopped her belly down into the cool water and began to feast.
I took a deep breath and slowly stepped backwards to the opposite bank, while my buddy just chuckled.
He had been watching her for several minutes before he warned me. She was chasing fish in the shallows up towards the bend. I was too busy tying on new tippet to see her, but he had realized that she knew we were there and wasn’t threatened by us. He was just enjoying the show and didn’t see a need to tell me until she started charging fish in my direction.
After he explained all of this to me I relaxed, but when I first looked up I thought she was for sure coming after me.
We watched her eat just a little bit of the fish (eggs and belly fat), then roll over on her back and drop into the chute that I had been fishing. She continued to drift down stream playing with drift wood and anything else she could get her paws and jaws on. It almost looked like she had a happy go lucky grin on her face. We watched her bobbing up and down doing somersaults and splashing the water as she disappeared around a bend.
Quote:In light of the cougar thread, how many have ever seen black bears while fishing?
I see black bears almost yearly while fishing. Unfortunately I have never managed to get a picture because they always seem to turn and burn as soon as they see you!
Back to the Griz side of things I am attaching a picture of some Griz tracks that were about 15 feet from my tent on a hike I did in Glacier a couple of years ago. We saw Griz sign around every corner, but never saw the bear itself.
Joel
One more just so you can get an idea of how big of a paw this is. I wear a large glove and that is my hand in this picture.
Great stories. I’ve ever only seen one griz in the wild and that was in Denali.
On the way to Alaska in 2004, we stopped to eat a picnic supper just a 150 feet off the Alaska Highway in the Yukon and found this after we ate. At another stop we saw fresh scat. Sure gets you looking over your shoulder, and makes you wonder what you would do if you had a break down and help was hours away. We helped one couple that were on a new 100th anniversary edition Harley. His throttle cable stop had come off, and they were stranded.
At Liard Hot Springs we wanted to go to the upper springs to see the rare orchids that they have there. In August they close it because a man and woman were eaten by a grizz a few years ago. The grizzlies move into the area to feed on berries and other things.
They also have huge black bears. The owners of the combo campgrounds/gas stations/restaurants regularly shoot bears that come into the campgrounds and don’t go away.
Different kind of world up there.
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