. . . for various values of 'exciting', of course.
A Homer [Alaska] man shot and killed a charging sow brown bear at Humpy Creek last Friday. Kim Woodman, 57, shot the bear five times with a 10mm handgun before the bear fell about 6 feet from him. While backing away from the sow, Woodman fell and accidentally shot himself in the left foot.
Woodman was able to get to his skiff and return to Homer, where he checked into the South Peninsula Hospital emergency room. Woodman had no injuries from the bear, said Jack Blackwell, area superintendent of Alaska State Parks, Kenai-Prince William Sound region.
Blackwell said Woodman surprised a brown bear with two cubs while hiking about 4 p.m. July 29 off the trail along the southwest fork of Humpy Creek in Kachemak Bay State Park. The bears were probably feeding on pink salmon in the creek. Woodman filled out a defense of life and property report, and Park Ranger Jason Okuly and Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Jason Herreman went to the scene and found the dead sow bear. They reported the sow had two gunshot wounds, one below the right eye and one in the chest.
They recovered the skull and paws to prevent trophy looting. The carcass was about 6 feet from where Woodman tripped.
“It was fairly close,” Blackwell said.
There's more at the link.
Six feet? That's halitosis range as far as big bears are concerned! I'm not surprised he shot himself in the foot when he fell - he was probably still trying to get a bead on the bear, and didn't notice that his foot was suddenly in the way. The heat of the moment will do that to you . . . Also, according to the article, this wasn't Mr. Woodman's first deadly encounter with a brown bear. I suspect he was trying to make absolutely sure that he survived this one, too!
Peter
14 comments:
WAY too close for comfort!
bears are nice from a distance. A large distance
Suddenly I don't feel silly practicing shooting while moving with a BB pistol
I expect that had he been carrying a 9mm or even a .40 S&W the story would have ended quite differently.
Properly loaded the 10mm can approach the ballistics of a .41 Magnum with the advantage of a magazine capacity well over the revolver's five or six shots.
Still, what I've always heard is that if you expect bear trouble you carry a long gun. Twelve gauge shotgun loaded with heavy buckshot or slugs used to be the weapon of choice though I understand that the aptly named Marlin Guide Gun lever action in .45-70 has become quite popular as a guide backup weapon on hunting expeditions in bear country.
Most folks who travel in bear country (meaning practically anywhere, here in Alaska) consider the .44 Magnum to be an entry-level caliber. But even grizzlies have been, ahem, discouraged by a .45 ACP when hit enough times. A hiker in Denali Nat'l Park managed to turn back a charging grizzly with his 1911A1 a couple years ago, after emptying his 8+1 rounds at it. (It was found the next day, where it bled out overnight.) When asked why he shot the bear 9 times, he said, "Because I didn't have 10 rounds."
One aspect of shooting any dangerous wildlife in Alaska is that you are legally responsible for collecting the head and pelt for surrender to state wildlife officials. This can be a fair amount of work and tends to discourage shooting bears unless you really need to. Guess shooting yourself in the foot gets you a pass on that though.
Bears are best encountered from a distance. I'd prefer it to be at greater distance than most have been at. My closest encounters (less than 25 feet) have been in cars, thankfully, but it is never a comfortable feeling. I do not want to think about having to face a charging brown bear sow.
So the Department of Fish and Game does official trophy looting, because RHIP?
I grew up in Alaska. Yes, seeing big bears close gets the blood flowing. Knowing they are very close and NOT seeing them (at night in a tent, heavy brush or tall grass, etc) can be quite a bit more thrilling. There have been times where I was thinking anything less than an M45 50BMG quadmount was undergunned. But when all you have is what you have, you deal with it as best you can, resting easy in the knowledge than you packed a change of underwear.
I don't have anywhere near as many good stories as my brothers, but yeah. Exciting is a good word for it.
Well, 10mm is rated for polar bears. So he made that choice correctly, at least.
I used to carry a 12 gauge with 1 3/8 ounce Brenneke slugs. That was a hard kicking gun. Still felt like a toy with angry bears around.
IIRC, there was an incident a few years back where a fisherman killed a bear with one shot from a 9mm. I assume the slug went up the nasal passage to the brain, it is a honeycomb of thin bone there.
Screw that! the trophy head and pelt belong to Mr Kim Woodman, the man the bear came within six feet of making him its trophy(and meal). Not some mewling Fish and Wildlife bureaucrat.
I had a math prof in High School whose Halloween costume was a grizzly skin, with its head over his, a necklace of claws and teeth, etc. At the school Halloween party all he would say was "Ugh. Me mighty hunter!"
We got the story at our next calculus class. He'd been bow-hunting for deer somewhere back-of-beyond (he told us where, but I don't remember after 30+ years) with an experienced guide. They were several days hike into a wilderness area when they were charged by a large grizzly. The guide quite properly attempted to shoot the bear with his rifle (don't ask me what variety -- I probably never knew), but something went wrong resulting in no high-speed lead leaving the rifle. (Again, don't ask me what the problem was. If I ever knew, I've long forgotten). My math prof told us that at that point he basically assumed he was dead, no matter what he did. But since he had his hunting bow at the ready, and had a quiver-full of arrows he said to himself "I'm dead, but at least that bear will know it messed with me." Very shortly later, he had a dying bear at his feet with three arrows in it, and a severe need to change his underwear.
This was before cell-phone days, so the guide got on the radio with the nearest game wardens. It eventually turned out that the bear in question had an infected paw, and was known to have been causing trouble in the region. The authorities decided that the circumstances rendered it a righteous kill even though he'd only been licensed for deer, and allowed him to keep the skin, claws, etc.
My math prof considered himself incredibly lucky to have survived, and said he would NEVER have chosen to go after such a bear with bow and arrow. My opinion is that anyone who bags a grizzly with bow and arrow has a truly solid claim to being a mighty hunter. But if they set out to do so intentionally, you should probably say soothing things while you back away from the crazy person...
I'm thinking that unless you are operating a fully enclosed, and armored, military vehicle*, a charging bear has the Right-of-Way!
*A HUMVEE wouldn't suffice, I suspect.
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