The reality of wilderness animal attack and carrying firearms

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Yes, I own a gun. I shoot uspsa so I know how to shoot, I always prefer to carry a gun on me in the woods if I have the choice I'm not in bear country but I've got other problems where I am. So yeah I do when I can aka when there's not a hole bunch of sheeple around.
 
If you feel you need to carry a gun, by all means carry one. I'm not telling anybody NOT to carry. You are getting extreme views on both sides of the fence here... it is up to you to process it. Maybe if it was legal in Canada to have a CCW, I would... who knows? But perhaps because it is not so readily available, I have found alternative (and effective) means to protect myself and my family in the wilderness. The OP did direct this thread to "wilderness animal attacks and predators".

You have every right to view bearspray as ludicrous. Just as I find it sad that folks view the wild as an "adversary". It has its dangers, but if you learn how to live with it, you can negotiate the obstacles. I have said it before, "Knowledge is the fear killer". Increase your awareness/understanding and decrease the risks.

As for the clothes, fire making, FAK, shoes analogy to protection... that works fine, just don't forget the climbing gear, flare gun, PLB, tazer, helmet and body armour the next time you go out. Infact, do you drive a motor vehicle, cook with a gas, take an elevator, swim in the ocean, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes or read in low light? Its funny how the mind can often times "cherry pick" dangers or insert false fear where there is none.

Fear makes people do a lot of unnecessary things. It also has a way of propagating itself and leeching into all aspects of your life. Don't let it rule over you and don't allow the fear mongers paint the portrait of your life for you. View the facts and make the descision for yourself. Gun or no guns, it really doesn't matter to me what you choose.
 
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Esav Benyamin said:
Threat analysis considers two factors:

the likelihood of an event
the seriousness of the result​

Whenever either of these factors approaches a maximum,
the intelligent response is to prepare for it thoroughly.
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Yep, seldom carried a firearm to the woods outside of hunting season until the meth problem got really bad here about ten years ago. Now it depends on where I'm headed.
 
Gotta love my old S&W 357 Highway Patrolman. Great pistol, and the only one I'd carry if I didn't live and travel the Northern Rockies.

For me the Freedom Arms 454 Casull is my hammer carried up front in an harness system. We have grizzly, moose, wolves, mtn lion, black bear and such. But I also carry to be practiced up in case I get an opportunity at elk and deer during season as well. It's a tool that just makes sense and will take game down.

If I need to suppliment it for small game hunting an auto 22 pistol is the ticket, and for popular desinations where I run into more population my Springfield XD-9 or 1911 commander 45 goes with as well.

If you don't want to carry fine. But while I try to avoid bad situations, I realize that I was born with thin hide, no claws, no fangs, just like everyone else.

With my 454 I can stand up to large game or anything really, and the 22 makes eating small game possible.

These are my tools for my area. If I lived in another location I'd ditch the 454 and pack the 357 for sure.
 
Interesting thread. My only comment - when hiking; make noise, animals don't want to mix with humans. As you cans see from some of the posts there wasn't a lot of time to react so, if you are going to carry a handgun; it needs to be readily available - chest rig? Take care with food; try to avoid getting any on your backpack, clothes and clean from hands. It always amazes me how far away I can smell cigarette smoke; imagine how well an animal can smell food.
 
Hello everyone! Ironic as it is, this last morning i went out really early on a hike to take some pictures in the morning light. I was on a ridge and i heard something charging up the ridge at me, i looked but couldnt see anything and the noise was getting much closer real fast, so i ran down the trail and out of the bush..the whole while hearing whatever was chasing me huffing and puffing right on my heels.

Whatever it was stopped chasing me and when i got out into the clearing and I caught my breath i was very curious as to what chased me....i was in thick thick bush, so it must have been a bear...so with Junglas in hand and a fox 40 whistle in my mouth i crept back into the bush to see who my ambusher was.

Sure enough I got charged by one of the biggest black bears ive ever seen. I started blowing my whistle and waving my arms and it veered off as most bear charges are typical to do, but then he turned around and came at me again, i did the same thing, I backed away blowing the whistle and waiving the junglas over my head...after that attempt it ran off and so did I.. that was enough excitement for one morning.

Funny thing is i had been caryying my mossy 590 on every hike in bigtime cougar country ( lots of tracks!) and this time i was in my inlaws subdivision just on the edge of town by a big river..the whole thing took place within 300 yards of an elementary school.

i couldnt carry a firearm in that instance( to close to the school) and was well within city limmits...so what do you do?

Walk with a dog a big knife and a fox 40 whistle i guess?

in that scenario carrying a 44 magnum-357 or 45 acp would have been ideal..but that wont happen in this sheeple filled country.
 
dextersp1 said:
Interesting thread. My only comment - when hiking; make noise, animals don't want to mix with humans. As you cans see from some of the posts there wasn't a lot of time to react so, if you are going to carry a handgun; it needs to be readily available - chest rig? Take care with food; try to avoid getting any on your backpack, clothes and clean from hands. It always amazes me how far away I can smell cigarette smoke; imagine how well an animal can smell food.
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You're correct in general but an interesting fact is in Mozambique/Kruger Park border area where refugees have to cross lion country at night they were told to make noise by banging pots and pans.Instead of the desired effect of avoidance they created a Pavlovian response the equivalent of a dinner bell.Hundreds of refugees are eaten by prides of known man-eaters.

In Tanzania the lions actively hunt and eat humans.They walk right into the village and attack people in their huts.They are called "Spirit Lions".
Food for thought.

Man-Eating Lions: Stalking the Spirit Lions
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/photography/africa/tanzania/lions-maneating.html

The man-eating Lions of the Kruger National Park
http://safari-stories.blogspot.com/2008/09/man-eating-lions-of-kruger-national.html
 
Alright story time my favorite.

My many run in with with black bear has been five ocasions involving the same bear. When I first meet him he was still a adolecent weighing maybe 100ibs. he was alone and had discovered the magic of my niebors garbage night. To get to thier garbage he has to walk from his greenbelt through my easment to their house. On the way there he stopped one night to check on what that yapping noise was. So he climbs 10ft up one of my redwods to peer over my back fence. This is where i woke up and came outside to catch him eyballing my dogs from the tree. I grabbed a slighshot that was sitting in the platters box and started zinging rocks at him. he jumped off the tree pretty fast. Next time was a complete repeat, with the slingshot about six months later. The thrird and last time he was looking over my fence a year or so later, i was ready. i had loaded a supersoaker with a mixture of vineager and cayane pepper but he had grown since our last meeting he now probably weighed over 200 and could place his paws over my fence revealing just his head when standing up. It was noverber mating season so he was doing jaw popping over the fence when I got to my squirt gun, but having his mouth open proved a bonus. After spaying him in the face he made some very displeased grunt and ran off.

The only other times ive seen him is taking a strool to my niebors garbage, and one time running up a tree as the dogs and I came down the trail.
Ive run into another bear because I mistakenly though buring my leftover bird into a blacked crisp would mask the smell. I was wrong and a pretty big brown bear was rumaging through my firepit at 2am. The best part was after yelling at him to get out, he actualy sat down to pick through the pit. Then looked over and gave me this classic, "what are you gonna do about it".
 
i wouldnt dream of being in bear country without bear spray, i have yet to hear of a single event where bear spray has failed to be effective on a bear, but i have heard of many stories where a gun (yes even large caliber rifles, and shotguns) have failed to be effective,
im not saying guns are bad but just like a knife or arrow, you have to hit it in a vital spot for it to matter. bear spray only has to be in the area of its face which seems like a bit easier of a target to hit
 
The moral to this never ending discussion... my take anyway.
Spray... Good
Fire Arms... Good
Knives... Last resort [for me anyway].... ;)

All of the above... Best

To many variables to rely completely on just one mode of self defense/protection/whatever you wish to call it.

Again I say.....

"Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it".

And that applies to anything... knives, spray, firearm, flashlight, fire starter, and the list goes on & on .......

:)
 
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I carry concealed in the city, in the country, and on the trail. Be safe, be discrete, and be smart about it. Nobody needs to know!

Andy
 
Calebklyne said:
i wouldnt dream of being in bear country without bear spray, i have yet to hear of a single event where bear spray has failed to be effective on a bear, but i have heard of many stories where a gun (yes even large caliber rifles, and shotguns) have failed to be effective,
im not saying guns are bad but just like a knife or arrow, you have to hit it in a vital spot for it to matter. bear spray only has to be in the area of its face which seems like a bit easier of a target to hit
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You're absolutely right..When people get charged, the likelyhood of the bear committing to the attack is unlikely unless its a sow with cubs, so what happens is people panic, maybe take one shot into the air, one shot into the ground, or they freeze entirely unable to shoot or run.

The best way to avoid that is to expect to see wild animals and to make slow calculated movements when you do see one...In my case, i couldnt see the animal..but i could hear it coming..fast. So option number 1 for me was to run, as climbing trees is useless when deal with mountain lions or bears.
 
here in TN I'd always pack a small S&W 317 .22 as a kit gun "just in case" to fill the pot, signal or if I couldn't bypass old no shoulders. comfortable to carry but not very comforting if facing a large 4 or 2 legged threat.

well times changed and now facing old no teeth in our parts so started packing my S&W 686. comfoting but not very comfortable on a long hike. but now with my MP340 i've got comfortable and comforting.
 
wingslevel said:
here in TN I'd always pack a small S&W 317 .22 as a kit gun "just in case" to fill the pot, signal or if I couldn't bypass old no shoulders. comfortable to carry but not very comforting if facing a large 4 or 2 legged threat.

well times changed and now facing old no teeth in our parts so started packing my S&W 686. comfoting but not very comfortable on a long hike. but now with my MP340 i've got comfortable and comforting.
Click to expand...
:thumbup: I carry a 340PD on me, and a 317 in my overnight pack. Heck, they are so light you can get away with carrying both.
 
Interesting discussion. Yes, I'm a gun owner. Since I can legally carry most places, I choose to do so. I also choose to do so DISCREETLY. There's no good reason to alarm the "natives" and, under almost all circumstances, I want my firearm to remain a quiet presence. If others think I'm a weenie...well, maybe I am. But I'm a weenie comfortable with my decision.

I live in rather sparsely populated country with very healthy populations of black bears, wolves and (so some folks say) big cats. I choose to carry in the woods, not because I'm terribly worried about the critters, but because it's a tool that gives me options. There are, after all, "crazy" animals who haven't seen the latest National Geographic special to tell them how they should behave. Perhaps you read about the hiker who tangled with a clearly predatory black bear in Kentucky last week. Off the charts rare behavior? You bet. But if I was on the menu for such a Yogi, I don't think I'd find much comfort in the statistics.

I also concur with those who observe much greater danger is posed by two legged "varmints". Unfortunately, some parts of our most cherished wild country are being used by folks in narco-agriculture and production. I'm not the least bit ashamed to admit that these birds scare the ever-living mustard out of me.

So count me among those who carry, and if I do it right, no one need ever know. Oh, and I think the .357 is a very fine choice for this task.

PC
 
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I've carried a firearm of some kind when in wilderness, for a lot of years. Hard to do in California sometimes, but I still managed it in areas where I knew I might need the extra protection because of wild dogs, etc.

Now that I'm in ID., I excercise my Constitutional responsibilities regularly and it's saved my behind while out shooting with my camera. :thumbup:
 
I've owned guns my whole life and I carry all the time. The 2 legged problems are everywhere. If people I meet don't like me carrying, then I find new people.
 
"If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad..."
Carry it, don't carry it, wear fur in the summer, who cares; just don't look down on others for their choices.
 
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