Been hunting all my life, and never had a Bear encounter even though they are plentiful in South Louisiana.
Ive had multiple pictures on my game cameras of, Louisiana Black Bear of varying size and sex, found bear prints in my camp yard, and even had a Deer Archery target mauled in the camp yard, but still never laid eyes on one in person.
Then early last year while bowhunting my property in the ArkLaMiss, I was setup in a ladder stand in a real good spot right by a drainage slough.
Right at dark I hear something headed my way, thru the thicket, and all i can see is a dark patch that seemed to move down towards the waters edge about 15 ft across from me. I watched a while thinking I was about to get a shot on a monster buck, but after a while, i just got a strange feeling, and decided it was too dark to actually get a shot with the bow anyways so i turned on my headlight, and there was about a 300lb Male Black Bear looking up at me.
Now I wont say I was scared, but there is this realization that came to me, that all of a sudden, im not the Top Predator in the woods this evening....
So, I did what you are supposed to do in that situation, I stood up and hollered LOUDLY... HEY!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING

? GET OUTTA HERE!!!
He was totally unimpressed with my display and just looked at me glaringly... So I kept it up, waiving my arms, and hollering, trying to get him to hi tail it outta there, well to make a long story short, after several long minutes of hollering, he kinda reluctantly headed off in a direction that I would have to walk to get back to my camp. I hurriedly got down, and started walking back to the camp at an accelerated pace, all the while hollering like a Banshee, thinking he might flank me along the way at any time. Luckily I made it back safely to the camp with my hide intact, my heart pumping, and a pretty good story to tell of my first Bear encounter. Im sure it wont be my last. Two weeks later I killed a Huge 35lb Bobcat on that same stand. Cant wait to hunt it again this fall.