- Joined
- Aug 25, 1999
- Messages
- 37
Think you're man enough? Well a 68 year old man did it and lived! It was in my local paper today. Here is the story copied from their web site. It's a bit long.Sixty-eight-year-old Gene Moe couldn't have been in a more vulnerable position when the Kodiak brown bear came for him on Monday.
He had nearly finished butchering a Sitka blacktail deer. The animal's hide and quarters were set aside near his rifle. His hands were inside the deer's carcass, removing the tenderloins.
That's when he heard slobbering and the thunder of heavy feet coming through the devil's club in a thick patch of forest on Raspberry Island, 35 miles northwest of the city of Kodiak.
The hunter, a 50-year Alaska resident, looked up to see a charging bear less than 10 feet away.
His first thought was that his time had come.
Looking up to see the bear, Moe recalled from his hospital bed Wednesday, "I know I'm done."
But he wasn't going down without a fight.
The Anchorage contractor, whom a nephew describes as "one tough old buzzard," figured he had just enough time to do what damage he could with the weapon at hand - a hunting knife with a 6-inch blade.
"I tried to get him in the eye the first time," Moe said. "But I missed. I hit his head."
The animal didn't seem to notice. The knife bounced off the bear's thick skull.
After knocking Moe down, the bear clamped its jaws on his right shoulder and started to shake.
"This one wanted to kill me," Moe said.
He could think of only two things: keep the bear away from his face and hang on to the knife.
Bears, he knew, instinctively try to grab for the head of an adversary - be it another bear or a man - to disable it.
The knife, he knew, was the only hope he had of fighting off the animal - no matter how pitiful a weapon it might have been under the circumstances.
Moe is unclear about what happened next, but the bear eventually let go of his shoulder and grabbed his leg. By now he was a wreck, with cuts all over his arms, legs and shoulders. But his spirit remained strong.
With an arm free, Moe could finally fight back.
He stabbed the bear again and again and again with the 6-inch blade, driving the knife in as deep as he could. He doesn't know how many times he stabbed the bear. He doesn't know whether the blood that coated everything was his or the bear's.
All he knows is that he was fighting for his life.
"Finally (the bear) backed away and went over and laid down," Moe said. "Probably the 10th or 15th or 20th time I stabbed him."
With the bear close by, Moe somehow found his rifle.
He pointed the barrel of the rifle at the bear, who was just 8 to 10 feet away. He remembers thinking he loaded 220-grain slugs in his .30-06-caliber rifle because the big bullets are capable of killing a bear.
He shot the animal in the chest, he said. The shot, he said, probably killed the bear, but Moe fired twice more to be sure.
Afterward, he thinks, he heard brown bear cubs bawling from the brush. He remembers worrying that they might come for him next.
Unable to stand, let alone walk, Moe started crawling toward the beach, dragging his rifle.
"I had to crawl for about a mile and a half," Moe said. "I laid down to die a couple times" along the way, he said.
Each time, though, he found the resolve to continue. More than once, he prayed.
"The Lord let me out," he said.
Moe pressed on. About a mile from the beach, he finally abandoned the rifle.
"I wanted to keep it because I was worried about the cubs," he said, "but it was too much (to carry)."
About 200 yards from the island beach and not far from the hunting camp, Moe's son and two other hunting companions heard him crawling through the underbrush and investigated.
They were shocked by what they found but immediately began first aid - stuffing whatever they could find into gaping wounds in Moe's shoulder, arms and leg.
"You're in such shock at that point," Moe said, "you don't know anything."
After loading Moe into a skiff, the group headed for the nearby Silver Salmon Lodge. Lodge owner Peter Guttchen patched Moe up a little more and called the U.S. Coast Guard in Kodiak by cellular phone.
The Coast Guard had a rescue helicopter on the scene in minutes.
On Wednesday morning, a still-sedated and groggy Moe couldn't thank all the rescuers enough. Without their help, he said, he wouldn't be alive. As it is, he is expected to recover.
"I protected my head and face," he said. "It's my arms and legs that are a mess."
Moe had lost deer to brown bears while hunting in the Kodiak area before, but those bears never attacked.
"I never thought this would happen to me," Moe said.
Now, that's a tough guy! He's in a world of hurt buy he had the grit to make it. My hat's off to him. By the way the same paper had another story about another hunter who didn't make it. Different encounter entirely. Bears 1 humans 1. Wooooo Hooo!
shiro
He had nearly finished butchering a Sitka blacktail deer. The animal's hide and quarters were set aside near his rifle. His hands were inside the deer's carcass, removing the tenderloins.
That's when he heard slobbering and the thunder of heavy feet coming through the devil's club in a thick patch of forest on Raspberry Island, 35 miles northwest of the city of Kodiak.
The hunter, a 50-year Alaska resident, looked up to see a charging bear less than 10 feet away.
His first thought was that his time had come.
Looking up to see the bear, Moe recalled from his hospital bed Wednesday, "I know I'm done."
But he wasn't going down without a fight.
The Anchorage contractor, whom a nephew describes as "one tough old buzzard," figured he had just enough time to do what damage he could with the weapon at hand - a hunting knife with a 6-inch blade.
"I tried to get him in the eye the first time," Moe said. "But I missed. I hit his head."
The animal didn't seem to notice. The knife bounced off the bear's thick skull.
After knocking Moe down, the bear clamped its jaws on his right shoulder and started to shake.
"This one wanted to kill me," Moe said.
He could think of only two things: keep the bear away from his face and hang on to the knife.
Bears, he knew, instinctively try to grab for the head of an adversary - be it another bear or a man - to disable it.
The knife, he knew, was the only hope he had of fighting off the animal - no matter how pitiful a weapon it might have been under the circumstances.
Moe is unclear about what happened next, but the bear eventually let go of his shoulder and grabbed his leg. By now he was a wreck, with cuts all over his arms, legs and shoulders. But his spirit remained strong.
With an arm free, Moe could finally fight back.
He stabbed the bear again and again and again with the 6-inch blade, driving the knife in as deep as he could. He doesn't know how many times he stabbed the bear. He doesn't know whether the blood that coated everything was his or the bear's.
All he knows is that he was fighting for his life.
"Finally (the bear) backed away and went over and laid down," Moe said. "Probably the 10th or 15th or 20th time I stabbed him."
With the bear close by, Moe somehow found his rifle.
He pointed the barrel of the rifle at the bear, who was just 8 to 10 feet away. He remembers thinking he loaded 220-grain slugs in his .30-06-caliber rifle because the big bullets are capable of killing a bear.
He shot the animal in the chest, he said. The shot, he said, probably killed the bear, but Moe fired twice more to be sure.
Afterward, he thinks, he heard brown bear cubs bawling from the brush. He remembers worrying that they might come for him next.
Unable to stand, let alone walk, Moe started crawling toward the beach, dragging his rifle.
"I had to crawl for about a mile and a half," Moe said. "I laid down to die a couple times" along the way, he said.
Each time, though, he found the resolve to continue. More than once, he prayed.
"The Lord let me out," he said.
Moe pressed on. About a mile from the beach, he finally abandoned the rifle.
"I wanted to keep it because I was worried about the cubs," he said, "but it was too much (to carry)."
About 200 yards from the island beach and not far from the hunting camp, Moe's son and two other hunting companions heard him crawling through the underbrush and investigated.
They were shocked by what they found but immediately began first aid - stuffing whatever they could find into gaping wounds in Moe's shoulder, arms and leg.
"You're in such shock at that point," Moe said, "you don't know anything."
After loading Moe into a skiff, the group headed for the nearby Silver Salmon Lodge. Lodge owner Peter Guttchen patched Moe up a little more and called the U.S. Coast Guard in Kodiak by cellular phone.
The Coast Guard had a rescue helicopter on the scene in minutes.
On Wednesday morning, a still-sedated and groggy Moe couldn't thank all the rescuers enough. Without their help, he said, he wouldn't be alive. As it is, he is expected to recover.
"I protected my head and face," he said. "It's my arms and legs that are a mess."
Moe had lost deer to brown bears while hunting in the Kodiak area before, but those bears never attacked.
"I never thought this would happen to me," Moe said.
Now, that's a tough guy! He's in a world of hurt buy he had the grit to make it. My hat's off to him. By the way the same paper had another story about another hunter who didn't make it. Different encounter entirely. Bears 1 humans 1. Wooooo Hooo!
shiro
