• The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
    Price is $300 $250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
    Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.

  • Today marks the 24th anniversary of 9/11. I pray that this nation does not forget the loss of lives from this horrible event. Yesterday conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was murdered, and I worry about what is to come. Please love one another and your family in these trying times - Spark

Random Thought Thread

Smithhammer said:
Definitely. I spent 12 seasons leading extended backcountry expeditions in AK and have lived for the last 17 years on the edge of the Yellowstone/Grand Teton wilderness, where every time I head up a trail I'm immediately in grizz country. And I attribute the fact that I've had very few close-up bear encounters during all that time to exactly this ^.
Click to expand...
Same as in the urban jungle. Know your terrain, and know how the predators operate. Same principles...different arena.

I guess those bells found in scat along the trail are a clue as well. 🤣
 
bluemax_1 said:
I prefer something that goes BANG. The other person can carry the spray. I'll be the backup.

Read too many accounts of fatal bear attacks where after hunting and putting the animal down, they confirmed that it had bear spray residue on it.

From everything I've read, bear spray works on curious bears. It doesn't seem particularly effective on attacking bears. Not to mention if you watch one of the numerous Grizzly charge videos on YouTube, they're ridiculously fast. The bear would be through the cloud and on you before it even realized there was any bear spray.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's always good to have a rifle, and me and those with me would have rifles and such. But some people are against guns. I would still have the best bear spray that I could buy and hopefully not have to kill the bear.
 
Just this past September a black bear popped out of the underbrush onto the trail about 30yds ahead of me. It had its nose down on the trail and wasn’t aware of us (my wife was with me) yet. So it’s ambling towards me and I want to make a noise to make it aware of me, but I also don’t want it to take off before my wife sees it. I banged my poles together, bear looked up, did a 180 and ran a bit down the trail then bolted off into the woods. My wife only got to see its backside. That’s the fourth one I’ve encountered on the AT. They have all moved off rapidly as soon as they are aware of us.
 
In 7th grade our entire French class spent a week camping at 'French camp'. To help improve our French, English was forbidden. We landed our canoes on the beach of an island and started walking up a trail. There were several black bears coming down toward us. My friend yelled Run There's Fucking Bears! We ran back to the canoes and took off. He didn't get in trouble for speaking English, or for swearing...
 
Fortunately most bear ‘attacks’ from surprises or getting too close to cubs are simply warnings and cease once the bear decides you are not a threat. A guy I know had a brown bear knock him down and stood over him and then walked away. The guy is as tough as nails and freely admits pooping his pants when it happened. A mauling patient told me simply “if she wanted to kill meI would be dead”. Truly amazing animals and I love being able to live where they roam. My closest dangerous encounters were me being careless at the time. Sneaking along quietly by a stream in tall reeds after a rain is not a good idea! Lol
 
My favorite bear story I've told before. Up in the High Peaks Region of the Adirondacks...bear walks into our camp. My buddy tells me "Don't look now there's a bear behind you." I look over my shoulder and see nothing. I tell him there's no bear. He tells me again there is.

Finally I see the bear over the other shoulder and he says "what should we do?" I say that we just make some noise and let it do what it wants. If we can get him to leave fine. If not, just give him space.

The bear climbs a tree, cuts the paracord with which I had suspended our supplies between two trees across a small creek. Drops the bag, forages a couple of things immediately and then takes a leisurely massive dump to add insult to injury.

Then drags off the bag containing our food for the next few days.

Next day while the guys are going up Mt. Marcy, which I'd been up lots of times before, I said that I was going to track the bear and see if I can find any supplies that weren't ruined.

Followed the rather obvious trail of debris and found the bag. The only things left were a bottle of Jack Daniels, a bag of some kind of herb, (cough), and a packet of chili powder. Everything else, even stuff that was in cans, was either bitten through, eaten or otherwise ruined. I was pissed he hadn't eaten the chili and at least gotten the runs and a burning ass.

Smart friggin' bear. We ended up getting some supplies from other backpackers we met over the next few days to tide us over until we hiked back out to Keene Valley.
 
000Robert said:
Yeah, it's always good to have a rifle, and me and those with me would have rifles and such. But some people are against guns. I would still have the best bear spray that I could buy and hopefully not have to kill the bear.
Click to expand...
I have killed one bear and hope to never do so again. I love watching them and just being in the same surroundings. I gave up hunting years ago and prefer to just enjoy the animals. I am armed much of the time when alone in the woods, and all of the time when my wife is with me because I would rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
 
beeinak said:
I have killed one bear and hope to never do so again. I love watching them and just being in the same surroundings. I gave up hunting years ago and prefer to just enjoy the animals. I am armed much of the time when alone in the woods, and all of the time when my wife is with me because I would rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
Click to expand...
Agree 100%

Our property is open to all critters around here as long as they don't present a threat. We moved here because they were here and we love the terrain.

My guns were reserved for hunting felons at work. (And of course concealed carry now that I'm retired from that.)
 
Blues:
Your story made me laugh because bears are so smart and crafty. Here they are notorious for puncturing fuel containers, oil drums, cans, and ATV seats.

I used to sleep in a tent on our property while exploring where to build a cabin. Bears tore up my tent while I was cutting trail, then later that day urinated on my pillow. We got the cabin built a little faster being motivated after that🤣
 
beeinak said:
Blues:
Your story made me laugh because bears are so smart and crafty. Here they are notorious for puncturing fuel containers, oil drums, cans, and ATV seats.

I used to sleep in a tent on our property while exploring where to build a cabin. Bears tore up my tent while I was cutting trail, then later that day urinated on my pillow. We got the cabin built a little faster being motivated after that🤣
Click to expand...

One morning when I went outside I saw the yard around my in-ground 500 gallon propane tank was all dug up and excavated...I thought WTF? Turned out a bear located a ground nest as there were chunks of "honeycomb" everywhere. Those guys can dig. Glad they didn't tear up any of the lines.

What I found amazing was how delicate they can be when they want. I watched a sow and cub doing the balance beam on my deck rail back when I used to have bird feeders. They knocked nothing over during the entire event.
 
beeinak said:
I have killed one bear and hope to never do so again. I love watching them and just being in the same surroundings. I gave up hunting years ago and prefer to just enjoy the animals. I am armed much of the time when alone in the woods, and all of the time when my wife is with me because I would rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
Click to expand...
Your wife sounds really scary.
 
B beeinak

I've only been up your way once, but it was breathtaking.

We spent about ten days backpacking in the Wrangells, mostly up the Kuskulana toward Mt. Blackburn.

Then spent a week or so in Denali. Our last night there, we were camped in Polychrome Pass and a wolf came into our camp hunting ground squirrels. She walked right up to us, lowered her head submissively, and when we didn't act aggressively, she went about her business feeling the ground with her paws and then pouncing and digging them out. It was remarkable.

On the way out I mentioned it to a ranger there and he said he knew that (she) wolf and said it was extremely rare for anyone to see her. It was a huge highlight for me. (The caribou were a gas too...with their hooves sounding like "castanets".)

I'd go back in a minute.
 
tokerblue said:
I think the ATF should take the A and T out of their name. When's the last time they actually did something meaningful with those?
Click to expand...
Years ago they'd work cases in concert with our outfit to combat smuggling cigarettes (and maybe booze as well, but I don't remember that), across reservations between the U.S. and Canada. (It involved various organized crime groups who'd pay to have the use of the reservation for their criminal enterprise.)

I think the Alcohol end of things was only handled administratively. I can't remember any of the agents I worked with doing anything related to alcohol.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top