Armaments appropriate for UP black bears . . .

OK, black bears live here in the central U.P. I have had one in our garden in our town of 10K plus and another that ran through our yard. I have seen bear poop regularly on trails I have hiked. But I am not aware of any bear/human encounters here that have caused human injuries or deaths. When I go camping I don't carry any kind of deterrent but do practice camp cleanliness and hang food. Also, I don't cook bacon.

OTOH, I have a friend that has camped with his sons and had two loaded armaments in the tent -- IIRC, a shotgun and a rifle, but maybe a pistol and a rifle. Anyway . . .

What is really appropriate. Am I being too nonchalant about a potentially deadly matter? Should I really be carrying weapons? Spray? Anything?

If I were in grizz country, I'd definitely have canister and spray. But here??

I'd be glad for your input.

I wouldn't do anything different that what you're already doing. Black bear attacks are extremely rare, while gun accidents are dang common.

Proper food storage and using your noodle work for good ursine relations in most places.

Cheers,

If I were at all worried about it, I would just bring bear spray. That is about 10 oz extra weight. But it sounds like it would be worth it.

I'm in blackbear country too...everyone I know (all of 2 ppl) that have had encounters with bears just made lots of noise and that scared them off...banging pots together, that kind of thing. I'm just planning on carrying the world's loudest whistle

http://www.mec.ca/AST/ShopMEC/HikingCamp...ety-whistle.jsp

Handy if you get separated from the group, too

Matt

Black bear territory here also. I've only ever seen one. It was about 70 yards away, smallish - either a juvenile or female, and as soon as it saw me it took off in the other direction. As long as you keep a clean camp I don't think you have much to worry about.

I've had a few close encounters with black bears (under 50 feet.) In one case, while trail running, I accidentally ran between a mother and her cubs. She was about 20 feet away.

In all cases, I relaxed and looked away from the bear. They almost immediately lost interest and went about their business.

Staring at a bear to take a shot might induce the attack you are trying to avoid. Stopping an attacking bear in its tracks would take a very lucky shot. Encounters usually last just a few seconds. It would be over one way or another before you got the gun out.

I've found the same technique works for dogs, too. If I pretend they aren't there, they leave me alone.

Disclaimer: This is based on personal experience and may not match other popular opinions.

I have had different experiences. I run into several bears every year. Habituated black bears are not that easy to run off, however, you need not carry weapons! I have had many bear encounters, some really up close! Treat EVERY bear encounter as a potential problem. If on the trail or off-trail, detour around them and be careful not to appear threatning (I always talk to them calmly while I walk by and do not look back at them). Look around to see if a cub is nearby. Getting between mom and cub is not good. In camp, just being clean is not enough in areas of habituated bears. That is why bear cannisters are REQUIRED in much of the Sierra. I have had a bear roll around my bear cannister then come and poke his nose inside the tent! Repeated attempts at running him off with noise failed. I had to get out of the tent and literally run him off screaming and waving with my trekking poles. Throwing rocks sometimes helps. The minute a bear comes into your campsite, make it very clear to him that he is NOT welcome! If your food is not protected, he will get it. Do not try to take it back. By the way, bear spray is not legal in some national parks.

I think bears are territorial. They KNOW your campsite is YOUR territory. So you can be aggressive within your territory. They also know that the woods are their territory, so in that case, you are correct- play your appropriate role as the intruder and avoid them and do not act like the agressor. The NPS is now recommending agressive action if a bear comes into your campsite. This is a change from thier previous recommendations.

I grew up in the UP (Norway). You didn't say north central or south central. Are you in Ishepeming, Negaunee, or Gladstone?

I have had several encounters with black bears in the UP but I have never come across an habituated bear. The ones I saw always ran off. We never hung our food camping unless it was recommend in the area.

If you an in an area that recommends hanging, then hang. If you think you are going to be around habituated bears then carry bear spray. Otherwise I personally wouldn't act any differently than you are and I think your friend is acting on fear. Bears are pretty actively hunted in the UP. There are not that many areas where they are protected. They tend to be pretty afraid of humans.

Just keep in mind the "culture" of the local bear population. UP bears, and MI bears in general are not going to be the same as Black bears anywhere else. Up here the black bears are considered more dangerous than grizzlies.

Heather- did you get to your bay area conference and where did you end up hiking?

There are some situations where a gun may be appropriate. Loaded guns in the tent are just asking for an accident if you do not know what you are doing. If you can wake from a deep sleep, have your wits and then aim and really shoot a bear in the dark, good luck. I am a firm believer that only those very proficient in the use and safety of firmarms should carry them. For the rest of us, bear spray is more appropriate.

I completely agree with that.

Honestly, I'd feel more comfortable dealing with a bear that walked into my camp than having a person with a gun there.

We have black bears here too. There is one that hangs out near a campsite on a popular trail in the Ouachita mountains down in Arkansas (the Eagle Rock Loop I think). In every report I've heard of, the people that encountered it did nothing but wait for it to leave. I suspect that bear will get ballsy soon, probably this Spring or Summer. I mentioned in a post about it that I replied to that they need to start teaching that bear that it is unwelcome, and not one local backed that up. I honestly think it's because they think they'd like to see it too, and I'm concerned that people are purposely going to the spot where its been sighted to get a glimpse. If that's the case, then baiting the bear is probably going on too.

The first problem with that is a person may be injured or killed in an encounter with the bear. After that the bear will be killed for sure. The other is that the bear is much more likely to get killed by a hunter. I'm not against hunter bears there, but I don't think they should be trained to walk right up to a gun barrel and stand there thinking they are going to get a treat to eat.

Anyway, I never carry any weapons when I hike or backpack. I don't use a canister or even hang my food very often here, and I seldom use trails or campsites. I see bear scat every now and then, but the only bear I've ever seen here was hiding from me when I saw it. I left, the bear stayed put, and we haven't crossed paths since. (I've also gotten a little more cautious about sticking my nose into spots where bears might like to hang out. )

Yup I agree. The advice I gave is no where close to how I deal with bears here in California.

+1 on what Heather and Wandering Daisy said: It depends on the bears in the area. It also depends on the firearm proficiency of the person; it takes a lot more training and practice than most shooters have gone through for them to rely on a firearm as a weapon, in my opinion.

I'd also add that it depends on the culture of the people in the area. I grew up in SE Alaska, where it was almost seen as irresponsible to not carry a gun for bear protection. Now I live near Seattle, where carrying a gun on the trail would probably end up in 911 calls and a lengthy discussion with a ranger. "When in Rome, blah blah blah."

Yes I did - and I ended up at Point Reyes, but in hindsight I think I should have done Henry Coe instead - I got blown out of Point Reyes.

Writing up my trip report / lessons learned / new lessons I still need to learn =)

Unless you have a gun of sufficient caliber to deal with a bear, and sufficient confidence and experience to use said gun when a bear is seconds away and charging madly with teeth bared, you are far, far better off taking bear spray. You don't need to precisely aim while adrenalin is rushing through your body and your hands are shaking and every cell is yelling to run! to use bear spray.

To be honest - I have my doubts on the bear spray. I've seen studies, I own it and carry it. I've done some basic training with it. If conditions (wind, humidity, distance) are perfect I think it will work. My life never has perfect conditions.

So I'm working hard on avoidance! Clean camp, camping away from animal trails, "singing", being aware of surroundings and if you have other suggestions for avoidance, great!

We are talking about black bears, right? I've had 5 or so black bear encounters including one sniffing me while sleeping under my tarp, two on bike rides, one while hiking, two on the side of the road (we got out to take pictures). In all cases, it was hard to keep from spooking them into a mad dash into the woods. It's never crossed my mind to arm myself against a black bear. A dollar store air horn, or a whistle would freak one completely out.
A trash can hibuated bear might be another story but even those are easily scared away.

In many areas of California, you'll see tracks and scat but hardly ever a bear, and then it's the hind end rapidly vanishing into brush.

The habituated bruins often use the national park trails - I've been ten feet from a bear a couple of times on trails, and in response to the yelling and trekking pole waving, the bear has glanced at me as if bored stiff and walked away slowly.

I had a bear sneaking up on me in Yosemite with her cub - I stood up (sandwich in hand, that's what she was after) and stared, and she walked away.

Checking on the food storage rules for the area you're traveling to will shed light on the behavior of the bears - Yosemite will levy up to a $5000 fine for not having a canister from the approved list, and the parking lots are full of bear lockers. Go to campgrounds in national forest areas and there will be lockers with broken latches, and the camp host will instruct you to stick stuff in your trunk (huge no-no in Yosemite where the bears rip open cars).

I don't even bother with bear spray in California, but if I were heading to Montana, Wyoming or other states with a grizzly population, I'd pick up a canister before hitting the trail.

My own experience with black bears is here in the PNW, where they are still very human averse and they run away when they see me. But that doesn't mean to me that black bears are timid and harmless, only that Oregon's black bears are pretty reliably timid and harmless.

Bears have a lot of intelligence and personality, which means that individual bears can vary widely. They also spend up to two years with their mothers, learning the ropes, which means that bear populations can develop different cultures over a period of decades. The bear culture in the Sierras in very different than in the Oregon Cascades. So, if someone says the black bears in the Upper Peninsula are considered dangerous, I'm not inclined to contradict them. It could be a local thing.

The only constant with bears that I know of is that they are always interested in food, 24 hours a day, no matter how much they've already had to eat.

You obviously cannot generalize about black bears and they DO have personalities. Every situation is different. It has been my experience that bears that are hunted regularly want to stay away from humans, unless they are stressed by hunger. Bears who have a high success ratio of getting food from humans vs getting shot by humans do not necessarily fear humans. Hunting is not allowed in National Parks, so these bears have less reason to fear humans. Add to that all the tourists who want to feed bears and sloppy food care at campgrounds.

My various bear encounters:

1) Bear in camp - looking for food. Only once- a juvenile bear rolled around bear can then very curious - I swear he was bored and wanted to play!

2) Bears in close proximity to me on the trail-(many encounters) territorial - if startled they may attack, otherwise they just want to establish that they are in charge. Usually look angry for a while, then run off.

3) Bears off in the far distance (too many of these to count) - ignore me, or slowly amble off farther into the woods.

4) Moma bear protecting young - three of these- two ran cubs up the nearest tree and then got on hind legs and glared at me as I backed up and detoured, one I met on a trail where I could not get off the trail resulting in a half hour impasse; cub sent to the bushes, lots of conversation between me and Mama, I finally slowly passed.

5) Copulating bears - growled at me (not sure who was the most embarrased, them or me) but they were more interested in continuing their activities.

6) Bear kiss- sleeping next to my car out in the open and a wet bear nose in my face. After the bear left I got into the car and drove off a mile out if its way.

And I must say, that EVERY bear encounter is terrifying to me! Every bear encounter has a potential for a bad outcome. So far I have been lucky.

This has been my experience as well. Same goes for all the predators. Even Grizzly. I've only seen grizzly 4 times, while I spent some time in Montana mapping geology. One base was in a KOA where the manager was an avid hunter I befriended. Him and his pals were very much into hunting grizzly with .44 Mag, and he told me they KNOW where they are protected and where they are not. Sure enough, when we ran into griz on 3 separate occasions in the forest, they took off quickly. The other time we ran into one in Glacier. Completely different...it was obvious that WE needed to back out of there calmly and quickly. At the time I was there, we were all armed with handguns (except in the Parks) and many of the locals were armed as well.

Most of my black bear encounters fall into these categories;

1) from a distance and they fade into the forest.

2) in camp at night looking for food. Usually this is in an area of heavily used camp sites and I am woke up by the sound of clanging pots and pans.

My policy now is to carry bear spray where there are brown bear. Up to this point, I have carried nothing for black bear, but I look into bear activity to see what kind of problems are occurring before I head into an area.

As an aside, there was an incident of a black bear shooting after it broke into his house in the June Lake area about a year ago. Using a handgun (something like a 9 mm) the guy was familiar with, it took 6 shots to finish the bear off. And that was just a Sierra black bear. Accuracy is probably the biggest factor in having success using rifles or handguns as a defense against bears. Practice, practice, practice or leave the gun at home.

No experience with brown/griz bears, even though I've hiked where they should have been.

My black bear experiences range from Arkansas, where one sat in the trail, holding up a mountain bike race. The kid at the front banged a stick on his handlebars and the bear finally moved off.

Big Bend Ntl' park...racing bears! These bears are so fast and stealthy you'll see their butts putting distance between you and them. "Electra" is a female bear there that raids the trash at the employee village and is habituated.
This is where I got sniffed at 3:00 a.m. Stank like a pig, which is what woke me up. Just laid still...bear lost interest...food/pack was in a bear box.
Sick or lost mountain lions have caused injury in Big Bend, almost every year. I've never heard of a bear/human contact there.

Just west of Toronto, wife and I came up on a bear sitting in the middle of the road, while we were on a bike ride. Thought it was a big dog. Got within 30 ft. before we figured it out. Bear took off into the woods.

Alberta...two mom bears with cubs, two different locations. Bears tolerated tourists that got within 5 feet!! We were more interested in seeing which tourist got their knees bit off. Didn't happen. Bears kept their ground, tourists got their pictures.

Yeah, black bears behave differently depending on where they are but being armed against them never seem necessary.
I've been around cattle, horses, and hogs that have tried to kill me, but still, holding my ground and shooting at one would have proved really bad...for me. They aren't much of a "panic" target, when coming head-on. A dog will do you more good around farm critters.

Dryer,

When I read you saw a bear holding up a bike, I pictured it holding the bike over its head. Thanks for the laugh.

I think that around here just remembering to make some noise so a bear has a chance to know you're there is the best way of protecting yourself against a bad outcome. I try to make a point to do that and I have no doubt that's why I don't see many bears here.

It's a wondrous thing to move through our forest here, off the trail, in the heart of it. It's a very seductive experience and it makes it incredibly hard to resist being quiet and stealthy, but that's stupid.

There are still occasions when I realize I've been moving pretty fast and very quietly and being stupid. When that happens I quickly acknowledge I've been lucky again and I thank my guardian spirits for watching out for me, then I make some noise and stay put for a minute or two.

hmmmm... I grew up hunting in the woods and my father is a pretty serious bird watcher. So, (maybe out of habit) I naturally am quiet and stealthy in the woods. I figure I am there to see nature and don't take steps to prevent that. Maybe its stupid but I am not afraid of bears or mountain lions. I would much rather see these animals than scare them away for minute increases in safety. I keep my wits about myself and don't put myself into dangerous situations. I don't pull Steve Irwin's when I'm out in the woods but I definitely try to see the animals I am sharing the woods with (even if they could become dangerous under certain circumstances). Would you consider that foolhardy?

You should certainly take the appropriate actions for the environment you are in (and I do). But, I see bells, whistles, and loud talking as techniques to slightly reduce the chance of a bad interaction with these animals but mostly to help allay fears that people have. Some people get freaked out by seeing a bear... I don't. I get excited to see such a magnificent creature in the wild.

Well, I do admit my goal is to NOT see bears or moose. I figure their not being surprised by me is worth it. If I want to see a bear I go to the zoo. If I want to see a moose, I watch extra carefully on the way home

I don't constantly make noise - just in places where visibility is reduced - say a willow thicket.

I get excited to see such a magnificent creature in the wild.

Just as long as those magnificent creatures have no interest in treating me like prey, I agree. I noticed a long time ago that prey animals have very different feelings about predators than they do about non-predators, and that my status as an alpha predator makes walking in the wild a much more agreeable experience.

I think this is more of a regional thing. It's probably easier to sneak up on a bear here than in the west. You could never see a bear a mile away here, or even a few hundred feet in most cases.

What I am avoiding is coming face to face with one and startling it. The truth is, even traveling very stealthily the odds of startling a bear are very low, but I have done it.

The bear that was hiding from me was likely there because I came up on it so quickly and quietly. I was stupid enough to stop and take off my pack within feet of where it was hiding, and at that point I'm sure the bear felt trapped and threatened.

My stupidity in that incidence still stuns me. My luck in getting out of it unscathed still amazes me. That the two people with me, who followed me there, did not get hurt still makes me stop and give thanks, and I have to be honest and realize that the outcome could have been much different.

My experience has been that to see wildlife it's best to sit still and be quiet. You have to wait at least 20 minutes before the forest even starts to become active again, and it picks up slowly and gradually after that. Finding a spot near a game trail is best. Deer can see you blink an eye and they react to it. Coyotes will trot right by you and never know you were there. I've never had a bear walk up on me while doing that.

I do that a lot. It's one of the reasons I don't make many miles when I solo, but you can sure see a lot when you do it. It takes patience and discipline though, and some luck. I swear I've had crows come sit in a tree near me and caw like crazy, and keep coming back every few minutes and doing it again. I get the feeling they think it's funny

Some relevant reading (other related articles also linked from the page):

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120306131921.htm

I have taken Gun safty. I have a concelled carry firarm permit. I still debate need to carry for bears? Someone said sleeping with a loaded gun is dangerous? Well a unloaded gun is a Rock and no better! I sleep with a loaded gun every night. Gun training and practice weekly is the correct answer! This is if you choose to carry? Otherwise leave it at home. I still contest bear spray would be most effective. When the good lord says it is time its Time. My wife and children can all shoot and know where they are. But if you have nill for training and do not practice. No one should carry! Without proper permit it is ten years in the slammer. For bears I say spray. Maybe even in a state park and stumble upon drug growers? This is a growing problem as well ,and most likley more dangerous situation! Check laws state to state. They all vary! http://www.handgunlaw.us/ Knowing the law where you are is the gun owners responsibility! Seriously, if you are not confident and practiced with carrying a loaded gun, Take a Rock or bear spray instead. Remember every bullet has ten lawyers attached to it! Take a saftey class or two and consider. It is a Constitutional right that is currently challenged bye careless mistakes .

Rule #1- go in groups. Well, most of us here on this forum are in violation of that rule!

I think gun owners have an inflated idea of their expertise. Military combat vetrans- yes, I think they would be able to respond. The average gun owner and hunter - I doubt it. A hunter safety course is not enough.

I laughed at the comment "every bullet has 10 lawyers attached". How true. Out here in California we also have the animal rights faction. Yogi in court with his own lawyer, LOL.

I also wanted to get response on one element that has not been commented on.

My friend had TWO loaded guns in a tent with himself and two kids. That seemed potentially dangerous from the standpoint that in the event of any kind of encounter there is likely to be a certain amount of chaos and one person may not be able to track what is happening with both guns. Not being a gun user myself, (I don't happen to hunt but am not against it and recognize carrying is a constitutional right), I would particularly like to get a response on this from those who do have gun experience.

It depends - on the owner and the kids. Are you talking a long gun and a hand gun? What age kids? What up bringing? I will tell you I had guns readily available throughout my life, even through my horrible high school years. I NEVER touched one without permission. My family - who ever found out - would have killed me. Not literally, but I would have rathered death over the screaming, probably a good beating and embarrassament. So.... it depends. =)

I am assuming one of the guns was a long gun, unless he take a new york reload.

In my opinion, it would depend on the kids. If they were undisciplined and headstrong there is a potential problem. If they are level-headed, responsible and have been taught gun safety then the risk is much reduced. My 11-year-old granddaughter has been taught safe gun handling since she was old enough to recognize a gun. She enjoys shooting and has her own rifle and target pistol. I would trust her more in such a situation than I would a lot of adults - perhaps most adults.

I would agree, it depends upon the people involved, including the adult who might be groping, half awake, for a firearm in a potential crisis. Children who have been properly trained are often more responsible than many adults. Mine certainly are, and I can scarcely imagine what might have befallen me if I had ever handled a gun carelessly.

Needing two loaded weapons in a tent as a routine matter seems a bit excessive, however. Looks like one might do better at choosing campsites if that is the case - or choose to sleep under a tarp, where your field of fire will not be so restricted and you can identify your problem more easily and at a greater distance.

There are three kinds of gun people in my experience. Those who don't feel they need one, and do fine. Those who are trained and competent, yet don't let the arm become the center of their trip. And those that live in such paranoia (fear without reason) that they become owned by their weapons.
I had a highschool friend who was killed buy his father on a deer hunting trip. They were in a camper...friend opened the door to go out for a break, dad awoke from a bad dream and shot him with a deer rifle. Or at least that was his story. Was dad that impulsive at home? I doubt it.

I've hiked/camped with people...(only once) ;), that can't seem to keep their booger hooks of their guns, knives, etc., and spend the trip worrying about that critter or crazed maniac that would attack their one tent, out of 500 square miles.

Folks if you choose to be armed, please make sure your fears are rational, and for goodness sake get some training and stay trained. Use of any arm must be instinctive, or it's useless and dangerous. If you have to ask a "what kind of arms?" questions on an open camping/hiking forum, you aren't trained!! Not even close. Once trained, the question answers itself.

I think it is an open question as to which is the greater danger, the wild animal or the firearm carried to ward off the wild animal. Statistics may be available. I know that I have dealt with more injuries/fatalities due to gunshot wounds than to animal attacks - the score is something like four to zero.

Well put Dyer!

Oldranger, do I read that correctly? In all your years as a park ranger you never had to deal with someone injured by a wild animal? I would of thought you must have dealt with some snot nosed kid who cornered a squirrel at some point in time. Very interesting anecdotal evidence from someone with considerable experience.

I really like this thread, too bad the OP seems to have disappeared. Perhaps he is out backpacking

If you are interested in this sort of thing, there's books like Death in Yosemite and Death in the Grand Canyon that tabulate all the ways people die in the national parks.

Yosemite, for all its crazy habituated creatures, has only had the one fatality due to critter interaction - a freak accident involving a young deer and a toddler. Not just anecdotal.

Statistically speaking deer cause more human fatalities than the predators do.

I didn't disappear. I've been appreciatively reading the responses.

Just a clarification about the multiple guns situation. In this case the kids are extremely well-behaved and I believe have been very well trained with guns. My concern was not with any of them fully conscious and in the light of day competently handling their weapons, but more with the potential chaos if there were any kind of perception of attack -- flying squirrel hitting the tent, or whatever-- that could have not only one half awake adult but a couple of kids blundering around in confusion or panic from a perceived danger that they couldn't even see. Clearly the adult can only control one gun at a time.

They were either both long guns or one long and one short. . .

I think I've written about this before---but the guy who cleaned our carpets was really interested in backpacking, and when he saw our equipment, he had a ton of questions.

The main one being: what kind of sidearm did we carry.

We don't.

And we asked him what kind of sidearm he carried when he worked in the various towns and cities in our area.

He doesn't

So somehow he was far more worried about meeting someone in the High Sierra than on a side street in Vallejo.

And my fears run the other way.

That is correct. It also includes a couple of decades as a volunteer SAR field hand (That's where the firearm incidents occurred) centered around Tucson, AZ. Interestingly, we did not respond to a single rattlesnake bite either in that period. I have no accurate recollection of the numer of fall victims, and drowning victims we recovered, but it was a numer well into double figures. People die from falls,drowning, bad weather, and automobile accidents, not from wild animals.

I've not been following this thread, but noticed (with complete agreement) the above comment.

Which summarizes very well why I've not been following this thread ...

Bear spray has been a far better proven method as bear deterrent than guns. And actually more people die from accidental ghun shot wound while in the backcountry than from any sort of wild animal attack, bringing a gun actually increases the chance of being killed or injured.

As a “forest ranger” (a forester that works on a state forest) I carry as part of my job but do not carry while hiking. We do have bears here in SC but I would be more concerned with wild hogs. It would take a .357 or larger and a good shot to stop a largeish charging animal, weight I can’t justify. Deer kill more people than bears and snakes and bees kill more people than any other animal. Now an untrained person totting a gun would be scary if attacked by a swarm.

When I worked on Santa Rosa Island (Channel islands National Park) we had to deal with wild hogs. On just one occasion, I and the two young ladies I was with were charged without provocation. Had I been carrying, I would probably have drawn and fired. As it was, a well placed boot right on his snout discouraged Mr. Hog and he departed for greener pastures. The whole episode did impress the future Mrs. Old Ranger.

In terms of actual fatalities, I understand bees kill more people than any other critter. What would be the appropriate caliber for them? - the .218 Bee?

I am always distressed by discussions of what firearms to carry to handle bear and mountain attacks. The weight and money devoted to firearms would be more rationally applied in any number of more useful ways.

Another paper of interest to topic at hand:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15974255

One of the key phrases: "most nonvenomous injuries are probably caused by farm animals." This report does not distinguish between wild and domesticated, and lumps cows, horses, bears, sharks, alligators, etc. all together under "other specified animal."

What I learned: a fraction of all deaths are caused by animals (this covers a decade).

I bet it did!!

When I was a teen we raised a few bulls. When they were young we wrestled with them a bit. When they got horns we used to play with them by tugging on them and having tug-of-wars with them. When they got to be about 1000 lbs they wanted to knock us on our butts and would come charging full bore at us and try and take a shot at us, so then I started to punch them in the nose. When they started coming back for seconds of that we ate them and I learned that we really should have turned them into steers a long time before that.

So, if you want to use a firearm on a bear at close range, a 12-gauge with slug, I hear, is your only good choice.

Choosing a handgun would be an error, & BTW concealing it beforehand would not provide any advantage of surprise versus the bear.

Shooting a black bear as safety measure, however, would be highly dubious strategy. If successful, also very messy.

And weighty, at least here if you shoot one in self defense I believe you have to pack the entire critter out and give it to the Fish and Game people.

That is funny--my dad had a thoroughly tame bull that a kid could ride--the only trouble was he had no sense of self. Dad was scratching between his horns one day and the the bull got to sort of nuzzling him and ended up pushing dad backwards into the side of his new pu truck. He pushed hard enough to leave a large impression of Dad's backside in the quarter panel just behind the cab. He never did tell Mom.

-- More on topic--
I was running a loop trail at Cane lake State Park a couple of weeks ago with a friend and we ran up on a sm/medium black bear - we were talking as we ran and the bear saw us about as quick as we saw him. He sorta looked us over (we stopped) and then moseyed on about his business pretty nonchalantly. I doubt that we got closer than about 30 yds of him. We had seen scat a mile or so back up the trail so were sorta looking for one. It was the first one I've ever seen while trailrunning. I was a bit surprised that the 1st was in South Arkansas!

My buddy just had to drag out the old joke that "he wasn't worried cause he only needed to out run me" (he can-easily). Running or fastpacking a firearm big enough to make a difference with even a small blackbear would be a ridiculous encumbrance. IMHO

thanks again for the ongoing posts.

I've done a lot of hiking up here in Alaska, esp on the Kenai Peninsula and a lot of hunting as well on rain soaked Prince William and SE AK islands. I've hike almost every trail on the Kenai Peninsula and have NEVER ran into a bear (Thank You God)but know folks who have and if they're not aggressive or real hungry, you'll never know they were there or just leave you alone. My friends were never charged. Most hunters tho carry heavy duty calibered firearms everywhere when they're hunting even small Sitka Black-tailed deer, just in case. A deer down overheard shot is a bear dinner bell, esp on Kodiak Island. A 338 Win Mag or 375 H&H is common for hunters up here. A lot of the REI crowd/hikers up here don't believe in nor carry firearms, but most of them aren't too pro-gun anyway but do carry the bear/pepper spray. Some of the more dumber ones don't carry any protection and would have the nerve to look surprised if they were mauled or killed. I have no problems with bear spray. Me? I always carried a S&W 44 Mag. I got smarter and now carry a 454 Casull which with a good hard cast hot load will go completely thru a big grizzly at any angle. They have their way and I have mine. I like the Boy Scouts motto, "always be prepared". For just black bears tho, some good bear spray should suffice. I was always told a grizz will normally just maul you but an aggressive black bear will kill you then eat you. Of course, we just had a hiker mauled and eaten up here by a grizzly in Denali Park for the first time, so go figure. If I were worried about black bears where the populations aren't as high as they are up here, I'd just go with the bear spray mainly to save weight. We have had instances up here where bear spray just pissed grizzlies off more but for the most part, it works, esp on black bears. If I were worried and really concerned about it, I'd learn how to use and carry a firearm, the least caliber I'd go with is a 357 Mag. 357's are pretty devastating on a black bear. You can kill a black bear with any deer caliber including the little 243 Winchester, which is a 6mm bullet. 44 Mag is better but a 357 will definitely put the hurt on a bb. Most of the time if something hurts, any normal animal will try and get away, of course if their adrenaline is pumping...your call there.