Big bear country

[Zip]

Does anyone here regularly muzzleloader hunt in big bear -- grizzly, polar, brown, kodiak, etc. --country? For that matter, does anyone here specifically hunt big, aggressive bears with a flint or caplock? What do you use and have you ever needed extra patches to wipe up after yourselves? :rotf:

 

[BrownBear]

I've been hunting Kodiak country for 35 years, the last 10 deer and such with muzzleloaders. The first 20 years I was here I used a Muzzleloading SxS 12 for ducks, geese, ptarmigan and snowshoe hare, but quit when steel shot came along.

We live an hour out of town and actually get Kodiak's in our yard now and then. You expect to see them every time you go out in the hills and are surprised if you don't.

My preferred bores tend to run a little larger than most guys, but in truth that's whistling past a cemetery. The biggest way to stay out of bear trouble is to use your brain rather than your trigger finger.

Been charged half a dozen times in all my years, and every single time I deserved it, I earned it and I got it. Never had to shoot one yet, but most guys are going to shoot sooner than I am willing to do. There's a lot to reading bears and their intent, recognizing a false charge. I admit the paperwork and hassles of a DLP (Defense of Life and Property killing) is enough to keep anybody with half a brain from shooting unless it's absolutely necessary. A muzzleloader has no disadvantage to a repeater, because the bears come so fast you only get one meaningful shot anyway if it really is a charge.

And yeah. Having a bear rumbling and slobbering and popping it's teeth and coming at you at 200 miles an hour is cause for Preparation H. Especially if you let them come to 20 feet or so before shooting.

BTW- I've been meaning to ask this for a long time.

What's the historically correct alternative to Preparation H? :wink:

 

[Zip]

7 yards BrownBear, how do you hold your mud??!!!
All I've had to deal with is the ornery, crabby blackie. My partner's been bluff charged twice and he still thinks about it when we tent camp in the backcountry. Ha, he used to spend half the night awake watching the tent's flap until I told him bear don't know or care where the front entrance is nohow, they'll come in from anywhere. Now he spends the whole night awake...well, I think he's getting old like me and give up caring. Last time his snoring was enough to put the fear in any respectful bear (and deer) in ear range.

My hat's off to you folks who share real estate with griz and Kodiak. Stay safe, shoot straight.

 

[Pete Gaimari]

You know how that goes. Hunting stories are like fishing stories.

 

[Zip]

Ha, Capper did I tell you the one about the catfish that ate my boat with me in it? Fired up the Evinrude and had sushi for dinner! :grin:

 

[BrownBear]

7 yards BrownBear, how do you hold your mud??!!!
All I've had to deal with is the ornery, crabby blackie. My partner's been bluff charged twice and he still thinks about it when we tent camp in the backcountry. Ha, he used to spend half the night awake watching the tent's flap until I told him bear don't know or care where the front entrance is nohow, they'll come in from anywhere. Now he spends the whole night awake...well, I think he's getting old like me and give up caring. Last time his snoring was enough to put the fear in any respectful bear (and deer) in ear range.

My hat's off to you folks who share real estate with griz and Kodiak. Stay safe, shoot straight.

There are lots of clues, learned from 3 dozen years of watching bears beat the holy manure out of each other, bluff charging, real charging, killing each others cubs, knocking off a few cows and even one horse.

The biggest contradiction and hardest thing to overcome is sneaking around the bushes looking for deer or elk, while you're supposed to make noise so you don't surprise a bear. Me? My first choice is to leave when I come across fresh sign.

There's some pretty loud guys around who got their bear smarts from the Disney Channel and Animal Kingdom. They snipe at folks who've lived in the bush with animals for the bigger part of their lives. Who ya gonna listen to? :rotf:

 

[Pete Gaimari]

I know how to make you take me off ignore. :rotf:

 

[Bearbait2]

Mr. Zip,
In the past we have regularly hunted Grizz with both caplock and flintlock.
We now do so with a HH Longbow and cedar shaft.
Best Wishes

 

[luieb45]

Any pics of bears taken with muzzleloaders?

 

[Bearbait2]

Mr. luie b,
No sir. Not something I do, for personal reasons.
(No disrespect intended to others who choose to do so.)
Best Wishes

 

[Zip]

Was hoping you Alaska and Rocky Mtn. boys might chime in and pose a few pics to liven up the party. Is bigger always better, given correct shot placement, in your opinions? How many use .62 cal/larger smoothbores vs. .54/.58 rifles, PRBs vs. conicals, powder charges? :hmm:

 

[BrownBear]

Carrying and using are two different things. I whistle past the graveyard by carrying 58's and 62's while hunting other stuff, but I wouldn't even consider taking on a Kodiak with one.

One of my hunting pards is a lifetime flintlock hunter and has been guiding for Kodiaks for 35 years. And he refuses to guide a hunter for Kodiaks using any muzzleloader. If anyone knows more about muzzleloaders and Kodiaks than this guy, I'm yet to hear of him.

Another hunting pard ignored him and took a smallish bear (8') with a 72 smoothie. Even after a good shot it took a companion with a 375 H&H and another with a 416 Remington to break it down and keep it out of the alders. It certainly would have died in 30 seconds or even a minute from his heart/lung hit, but that was a lot longer than anyone wanted in so much cover. He's building a 75 cal right now, but plans to take a moose with it and give up Kodiak hunting.

Another hunting pard is in the final throes of building a switch barrel 72 flinter with both smooth and rifled barrels. His original intent when he bought the parts half a decade ago was to christen it with a Kodiak. He's now planning a moose christening.

Could you find a guide to let you stick a ball in a Kodiak? Probably. But I'm willing to bet the guide and his packer would put rounds in it too before your gun finished rising in recoil. I don't see the point in claiming such an even as a "muzzleloader kill." And that's the point of my bear guide pard.

BTW- Before anyone gets their panties in a bunch over me calling an 8' bear nose-to-tail "smallish," that's a local term. A bear has to top 9' to be respectable and 10' to be "big." I know folks shoot 8' and smaller Kodiak's each year and haul them home to praise for their "giant" trophy bear. Taint so in the real world of Kodiaks.

 

[Bearbait2]

Howdy Mr. BrownBear,
Having never hunted Kodiak Brown Bear, I do not feel qualified to offer an opinion regarding the use of a muzzleloader in pursuit of same.

For the benefit of others who may not have hunted here in Alaska, may I respectfully offer the following:
An Interior Grizzly would be considered quite respectable at 7 foot and an 8 footer is a large Bear and considered quite an accomplishment to obtain.
Those who have not had the opportunity to observe the difference in size (mass) between a 7' and 8' Interior Bear, might be quite surprised imho. Same goes for Kodiaks, 8' as compared to a 10 footer.

As an observation, I would like to state that what our Bears may lack in overall size, they make up for in general orneriness and aggressive belligerence. (Heh, heh, heh.) Never to be taken lightly.
Am certain you probably feel the same way about your Brown Bears (Only probably even more so?).

Thank you for sharing your insight, for the benefit of all.
Best Wishes

 

[Pete Gaimari]

I thought the really big ones were 13-15 ft?

 

[Bearbait2]

Mr. Capper,
They only seem to be, when 10 yards away. :shocked2:
Best Wishes

 

[Pete Gaimari]

I'd be saying my prayers at 10 yds.

 

[BrownBear]

Howdy Mr. BrownBear,
Having never hunted Kodiak Brown Bear, I do not feel qualified to offer an opinion regarding the use of a muzzleloader in pursuit of same.

For the benefit of others who may not have hunted here in Alaska, may I respectfully offer the following:
An Interior Grizzly would be considered quite respectable at 7 foot and an 8 footer is a large Bear and considered quite an accomplishment to obtain.
Those who have not had the opportunity to observe the difference in size (mass) between a 7' and 8' Interior Bear, might be quite surprised imho. Same goes for Kodiaks, 8' as compared to a 10 footer.

As an observation, I would like to state that what our Bears may lack in overall size, they make up for in general orneriness and aggressive belligerence. (Heh, heh, heh.) Never to be taken lightly.
Am certain you probably feel the same way about your Brown Bears (Only probably even more so?).

Thank you for sharing your insight, for the benefit of all.
Best Wishes

Actually, for living among, I'll gladly take our browns over interior grizzly any day. Most of the time the Kodiaks are pretty mellow unless you mess up big time. Sure a sow with cubs or any bear defending a cache is going to be cranky, but in my experience even bluff charges are rare and real charges rarer still.

Interior grizzly is a lot tougher character, crankier and much less predictable I think. I've been charged twice by interior grizzly in my nearly four decades up here, and I didn't feel like I really deserved either one, based on what was happening. They just saw me and lit the afterburners. And not knowing interior bears as well as Kodiaks, it was a lot tougher decision not shoot. Didn't do it and glad I didn't, but it was a very near thing both times.

Probably the best way to summarize my impressions of the differences between the two is this: If Kodiak's had the personalities and attitudes of interior grizzly, I doubt anyone could do much river fishing, much less live as near to them as we do. We have a salmon stream 1 mile from the house to the east and another 2 miles to the west. They pass through our neighborhood and often into yards all summer long as the move back and forth between them. And nobody particularly worries about them.

If they were interior grizzlies it would be a different story altogether! :shocked2:

I'm real sorry we don't have any black bears around here, but you can keep your grizzlies! :rotf:

 

[Idaho Ron]

I know some of you have seen this pic before. This man is a friend of mine and he was the one that lead the hunters to Russia, he shot two of the bears and he mounted them all. it is an amazing picture of amazing animals. I felt small beside them. Ron

 

[BrownBear]

Looks like my neighbors! The bear in the middle wearing blue jeans looks a little puny though. :rotf:

Those are fer-sure trophy bears. They don't often get that large or larger, but "smaller" is still going to be plenty taller than him.

You'd never expect to see so many in one place and funny thing to my eye, without your bud standing in the pic, those bears wouldn't look big at all- no frame of reference. Put one of them among average bears, and you would think "big" at a glance.

Remarkable photo, and thanks for posting it again! :hatsoff:

 

[Greenmtnboy]

Man those are huge.
I shot a 4 yr old Brown Bear off my boss in 2003,the year all thos folks on the Keni got attacked also the year Tim Tredwell the freek got turned into bear poop(good riddence) with a 44 mag loaded with 24 grns of H110(hot) behind a 300 grn solid.
I was 20 yrds when I shot it through both lungs It got off my boss and wondered into the bush.
I got my boss back to the lodge,got my blood trailing border collie and the 375 H&H mag and went hunting that young small four yr old.
I found him laying down doing the bob and head weave(dead but not yet)I dispatched him and proceded to bone him out, I found that my ball went through both lungs just above the heart, 20 min after I shot him he was still alive.
:shocked2: :shocked2:
Figured out that because it was still early spring and his heat rate was slow enough to keep him from pumping out :shocked2:
I switched to a 45-70 guide gun after that because that young 400 lb bear was at the lodge only because the adult 8&9 foot bears drove him off the rivers. The same bears we fish around every day.
This was a bear about the same size as the one that attacked my boss.

This was an average bear that would come out to feed during the daylight hours still much smaller than evening(adult) bears.
I found a skull of a bear that died of old age(30 yrs). The top of the skull was just under twenty inched across. :shocked2:

Can't have enough gun IMHO
:thumbsup: