How to properly kick a bear

[dirtlooter]

I see that our experiences are fairly similar! I am 64 years old and have seen a lot of Black Bears in my life with the exception of almost 5 1/2 years in the U.S. Army and nearly 6 years I lived and worked in Key West, Florida. I have been charged twice by Black Bear Sows thinking I was a threat to her Cubs, once in Northern Mountains of Randolph County in West Virginia and the other in the high mountains of Cocke County here in East Tennessee. Both times, I stood my ground and they backed off and left. Another time while Bow Hunting in West Virginia on a grown up logging road, I heard movement under the road bank, so I quickly backed into a little washout on the upper road bank. It is a good thing I did because within 30 seconds, two Cubs and a 300+ Sow Black Bear came up into the logging road. They were feeding on Poke Berries and actually came within 5 feet of my hiding spot. It is a good thing I was in full camoflauge and the wind was blowing up the mountain, otherwise I might not be here to write this. Also, there were several occasions of being stalked by Black Bear while dragging Deer out of the woods. However, the most fear I have ever had of a Black Bear was again while Bow Hunting in West Virginia. I had seen this Black Bear at 500 yards down a mountain the year before and never expected to see it where I was hunting a mile away but like you said and I knew that they can feed up to 20 miles a day. In the late afternoon after work, I drove to my secret Deer hunting spot but found that some other hunters had found it out and where I normally parked, there was at least 10 cars and trucks. Not having much time to look for another place to hunt, I parked and dropped down the mountain below the National Forest Service Road, found a fairly big tree at the edge of a flat near an old logging road and climbed up it with my' treestand. I had not been in the tree more than 15 minutes before the same Black Bear, the largest Black Bear I have ever seen or ever hope to see, comes walking up the old logging road and to within 30 yards of the tree I was in. The Black Bear was huge and although it is hard to gauge size when you are looking down at a Black Bear from a treestand and scared crapless, I swear that that Boar Black Bear was close to 5 feet at his' back, close to 3 1/2 feet wide and nearly 7 feet long while on all fours. Thoughts of World Record Black Bear run through my' head while standing in my' treestand and the whole tree and probably the ground under the tree shaking because I was shaking that bad. It was dark when I came down out of the tree and although the Black Bear had walked out of sight before dark, I had no idea where he was at when my' feet hit the ground. That same Black Bear was killed the next year illegally over bait and was never entered into any Record Books.


Frank

the very most that I was scared/concerned was while in a climbing tree stand. I had climbed as high as I could get on this tree for the limbs and was sitting quietly waiting for good daylight. We had a heavy fog so I just sit tight and stared down at the ground below me. Suddenly I saw a form appear right below me and as I studied it to see for sure what it was, I saw the long tail swish back and forth. I was bow hunting and watched quietly as it scanned ahead into the fog. just as quietly as it had appeared, it was gone into the fog and I had no idea as to where it had gone. I have seen mountain lions numerous times and they are I am the most concerned with. A friend up the road from us caught a mountain lion dragging a buck with game camera.

 

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[Honest Samuel]

If you are going to kick bears, make sure that they are dead.

 

[Prime]

You should get her a t-shirt that reads "I kicked a bear in the ass and all I got for it was this t-shirt".

 

[Trezurehunter]

I have 2 Black Bears in my basement. Didn't have the nerve to kick them though. I just shot 'em.

 

[dirtlooter]

I actually had a pretty good sized bear get under my house (raised foundation) one night, he bumped into the floor joists etc as he moved around. Between me and the dogs being there, he finally found a better place to crash, elsewhere.

 

[Tpmetal]

I have been around bears in one way or another for 50 years. Have seen what they can do to vehicles and campers besides homes. Have known of them killing hogs(actually to get their food) and killing various livestock and pets. I do nor fear them but have a lot of respect for them and what they are capable of doing. The object (unless hunting them) is to give them a wide berth. we hear about getting between a sow and her cubs (which I have done once) but it is the big old males that are the most dangerous, if they kill you it is because the mean to eat you. yep, see a lot of very stupid people, heck, they have TV shows full of them. I have eaten bear meat numerous times but I no longer have any desire to kill another one to eat. I guess the scariest I have ever been was when I walked up onto the carcass of a young deer that just been fed on by the killer, big bear. I can only guess that it had moved off because it smelled me coming. anyways, I quietly and carefully backtracked away, ever watchful.

I worry about the young male black bears more. They are the most likely to attack as they have not fully learned the benefits of forging vrs constantly chasing down prey. Large males I have found generally show much less interest in me in my bear encounters as well.

 

[against the wind]

I heard someplace that you are supposed to carry a bell and pepper spray in bear country. It is important to be able to identify the kind of bears in the area. One way to tell what kind of bears you are dealing with is by looking at bear scat. Black bear scat has lots of fruit and grass in it. Brown bear scat has little bells in it and smells like pepper.

Brown bear scat taste a little sweeter than black bear droppings.

 

[dirtlooter]

I worry about the young male black bears more. They are the most likely to attack as they have not fully learned the benefits of forging vrs constantly chasing down prey. Large males I have found generally show much less interest in me in my bear encounters as well.

yeah, the young males are suddenly on their own and having to do everything for themselves as well as avoid the bigger males. We have several apple and pear trees that the bears tend to hammer pretty hard. A lot of people don't know how to quick age a younger bear but the juveniles appear to have really long legs with smaller heads. Sows around here rarely get over 200-225 lbs. The juveniles will weight from 65 to 110 lbs for the most part. Last year, we had a juvenile slowly making his way below our house and headed for our neighbors. I called them and told them to look out their back windows to see the small male bear. This bear might have made it to 80 lbs at best but the neighbor was telling everyone how this 350 male bear passed twenty yards from his house. I call it the big eye syndrome. Juveniles end up at houses more often, they are hungry and will eat bird food or anything else that will fill that empty stomach. I had to remind a woman that they are still very wild and could really hurt her very easily, she was feeding one pretty regularly for a while.