got charged by a black bear today

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paintballdude902

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i was out deer hunting around 5 oclock and i was going to check a section of a beanfield. the trail i take to get to it is boardered by the woods an a swamp

about 30 ft down the trail i hear something in front of me and stopped thinking i had just spooked a deer the a dang bear came running at me so i fired 2 shots from the .30-30 one hit it in the shoulder the other was a tad low but it went away (today is the last day or bear season here) so i decided to go after it figuring i had already shot it im gonna try and not let it go to waste when i took a few more steps i found a cub in a tree so i left thinking the mother might still be around and i called some friends that do alot of bear hunting and they said the mom was probably either dead or ran pretty far away so i went back int he woods with 2 guys we searched for about 2 hours and figured that it was too dark to do any good now so were heading back tomorrow i feel really crappy now for 2 reasons 1 i wounded a bear and couldnt find it or finish it off and 2 it was a sal with a cub and now i may have just orphaned a cub :banghead::(



would you guys have done the same thing i did?

it didnt click until i saw the cub that that is why it charged me
 
I agree, Bear charged you, what are your options? I don't think you had any choice. You wouldn't want to leave your family without you, would you?
 
Third option which I'm glad you didn't take is that of not defending yourself . . . you would have been injured or worse, with folks out in the woods searching for you. You reacted properly & did what you needed to do. I'm glad you are okay.
 
Call the wildlife service for them to look for the cub (which, I would think, should be in the same general proximity).

Look for that bear! Be ON THE ALERT as it could STILL be alive!

And, YES, you absolutely did the right thing!

Too bad your rifle didn't have a bit more umph behind it, but, as they say, "oh well!"
 
Your dismay is understandable but I don't see that you had any good alternative.

The cub is likely old enough to fend for itself, albeit lonely for a while.

It might be prudent to tip off the Game Dept. about the possible presence of a slightly wounded adult bear.

:cool:
 
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If you hit it in the shoulder, I think you mean broadside? At 30' from a 30-30 then she probably ran off and died. If not she'll be back for her cub.
You did the right thing in defending yourself. Better the bear then you.
 
Well, if it was a mother with cubs, then it wasn't a predatory charge, but a protective charge. So in hindsight, running, standing up and yelling, playing dead, any number of things would have "worked" and kept you (and her) alive, though possibly wounded. BUT, you of course had no way of knowing that so certainly yes you did the right thing. Just glad you're alive and well - scary incident. Did you not find any blood trail?
 
thanks guys idk i just feel bad that i shot something, wounded it and couldnt retrieve it plus it had a cub


im about to go meet my brother inlaw and boss and were gonna try and find them but it rained last night so idk if it will do any good.

premium i found about 5 drops in the woods but by the time we got together and figured what we were going to do it was getting dark we stayed and looked for probably an hour after dark but it didnt do alot of good
 
With internal bleeding, it may not be far off at all. Make sure you look under overhanging vegetation, and under anything where it could be hidden.

Around 1982 -- When I shot my black bear (about 165 pounds, as I recall), when I finally got up the courage to go over (about 25 yards away), after throwing sticks and stones where I know I dropped it in the wild blackberries to make sure it was dead, it was wedged underneath a fallen tree that was about 3' off the ground. It was quite a bit of hard work getting the bear out from under that log with all that "dead" weight. I shot it in the neck with a .270 handloaded with 130g Hornady spire soft point. It didn't know what hit him and he basically dropped like a ton of bricks as his neck was broken and his head was flopping around as I was moving him.

The reason I'm saying this is if I hadn't know precisely where it was when I dropped it, I may have never have found it. That meat was just like eating roast beef! The bear had been on a diet of blackberries, so I guess that helped with the taste. Another thing, after I see how close I was when I shot that bear, it convinced me to take up handgun hunting. I now hunt deer and black bear with my S&W 500 (I occasionally use a rifle).

Look closely for signs of blood drops and the way any leaves on the ground, weeds, etc. may have moved or been disturbed. I have a feeling you will find it, and not far from where you shot it!

I wish you the best in finding it! Let us know your results in searching for the beast!
 
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Are you asking what I would have done before or after I soiled myself?! You did well. Regardless of the bear's reason for charging, I would have fired.
 
inspector thats small for around here our bears are considered small if its under 3 and good is 5+ but we also had the record black killed around here in like 98 or so

this was around a 3-350 a pretty big sal



i spent around 2 hours looking today but it rained last night so there was no blood left first thing is i went back to where i shot from found my casings and from there i went to where i remember the bear going but no luck im thinking maybe i got lucky and grazed it just enough to get rid of it but i did find fresh bear poop so when the second session of bear season opens in december i know where im going

i searched umder every dead tree in the thick brush i went around 500 yards into the woods and 300 yards to each side but it may have gone into the swamp so i never would find it back there
 
its just got part to do with i was taught not to kill anyhting i wont eat or not to shoot anything with a baby since you want the baby to grow up

so i just violated 2 of my personal hunting rules
 
u know how much baby cubs go for these days??? u can get 20k per cub if u sell it to the circus!!!!!:what:
 
<ahem> It's SOW, not "sal". A mama bear is a sow, just like pigs and hogs. Glad you came out OK, let us know if you find her.
 
I hope you were wearing your brown pants!

I know you feel bad about it, but not much you could do. Some might say it was a false charge, but no way to know that until your smelling bear breath. I think most of us would have done the same thing you did. Glad your ok.
 
soory ron i guess its regional thing we call them sals here

yeah salt i know that most charges are bluff charges but it was coming at me awful fast so i didnt want to find out
 
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