Sonier, it's all matter of context. If you fish in coastal Alaska, you will see brown bears every day - bears going up into the 1200 pound range. Most of those encounters will be benign, but you will have the encounters.
In summer I go to Anchorage (which has a growing crime problem) but feel quite comfortable carrying a .380 Mustang since I avoid bad neighborhoods. Yet, if I was employed in some fashion that made it necessary to go into bad neighborhoods, I'd carry my .45 even if it was inconvenient for summer carry. Context.
It's the same in the wild. If I was just camping in Denali with a grizzly population of 1 bear per 50 square miles, then.. eh, I'd carry my Ruger .45 Colt with some buffalo bore level loads. When you fish in coastal Alaska there's a bear density of 1 per square mile. And when the fish are running, they're on the streams with a density of 5 or 10 per square mile (no exaggeration). They're all around you. Many are sows with cubs. Many others are injured, usually in fights with other bears over fishing rights. When you step into the middle of that, you'd better be ready for anything and be armed with the most effective weapon, even if carrying that is a bit inconvenient.
My offer stands. If you ever come up to Alaska in August-September, I'll take you out fishing and show you a couple dozen brownies at close range. It's easy to "get it" when you deal with these animals.
Just two or three days ago, some acquaintances got chased out of a fishing hole by an aggressive bear. It wasn't an actual attack, just a series of bluff charges. They had one handgun between them, and no pepper spray. The bear stayed in the alders along the creek where it was nearly invisible but within ten to twenty yards (alders are like jungle), popping its jaws and making short charges until they swam across the river to escape. Popping rounds into the trees would have just resulted in a wounded bear - pepper spray would have solved their problem.
A few days before that, a married couple I know took ATV's out to a remote fishing spot, parked and walked 100 or so yards down to the river - the alders preventing them for riding the rest of the way in. When they got back, a bear had totally destroyed one of the ATV's and begun working on the other one when they interrupted it. It left as they approached, but they had to tow one of the TV's out over a mountain pass. It took them all night. This is the way it is. These bears get territorial about their fishing holes. Sometimes they'll just push you out with a display, but they are quite smart enough to destroy your vehicle, tent, equipment, etc, to make their point.
This is daily life around here in the summer. Most of the episodes are like those I just described where lives are not really at stake. But occasionally, a bear will just take direct action and when they do you'll want some heavy ordnance, and you'll want something that can make that CNS hit with little to no warning.
