This week we’re going to do a deeper dive on Grizzly Bears. Talk about recent attacks, and the increasing frequency we’ve been running into them.
In Nevada, feral horses are in the headlines again after animal advocacy groups are mad about the conditions in which horses are gathered on public land.
We continue to see changes for the 2023 hunting seasons as state game agencies account for the toll last winter took on wildlife populations. Recently, both North Dakota and Montana just announced tag reductions.
The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation just detailed how over 10.7 million dollars will be spent in Wyoming on wildlife and habitat projects.
The Wildlife Society bulletin recently published an article talking about how there is shifting attitudes within it’s membership base, particularly with the role of hunting and trapping.
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#repealtheWildHorseandBurroAct Allow their numbers to be controlled!
I live 8 miles East of Ovando, MT, along the Northfork of The Blackfoot River. This is Griz Central. I sleep with a 44 Magnum Redhawk next to my bed, IN MY HOUSE! We have bear incidents here every year. Bears in a garage, bears destroying a gas grill on the patio, raiding chicken coops, a Grizzly Bear taking a sleeping woman out of her tent and mauling her to death right in Ovando's downtown area. The point is, like a thief, if you give a Griz an opportunity he will take advantage of it. Grizzly bears are opportunist. Give them nothing to pique their interest and you will sleep much easier. Roast a venison and leave the unwashed roasting pan in the sink, with nothing more than a screen in the window, and you may have a surprise late dinner guest. I guess the important thing to bear (pun intended) in mind is SITUATIONAL AWARENESS!
If I am out in the bears element, I wear a Desert Eagle L5 44 Magnum in a chest rig. I keep it loaded wit Underwood Ammo 245 gr flat nose FMJ ammo staggered with PMC 240 gr truncated cone jacketed soft nose ammo. This combo offers 9 rounds of bone breaking and tissue disrupting firepower. All in a very easily employed fast shooting hard hitting relatively controllable handgun. I never take to the woods unless the Desert Eagle is fully cleaned and properly lubed. Leave nothing to chance. BE PREPARED!
While tending to chores after dark on the ranch I carry a RIA VRPA40 12 GA pump loaded with staggered buckshot and slugs. This firearm has a high intensity CREE LED light that is blinding with a fingertip control switch. It's handy for skunk control as well with a quick magazine change to 7 1/2 shot.
I may be a bit "Bearanoid" , but after seeing 15 Griz over the past six years I have lived here, I have learned not to put anything past one. And as far as "Bear Spray", I wouldn't trust my life to it.
Sleep easy, Ovando Ron
Marcus, Randy and staff, how many Additional "wild / free roaming" horses were added to the western states in the late '90's and early 2000's when the horse slaughter industry was restricted and then shut down in the United States?
They can eat and kill you
Or kill you and eat you
Their choice
Do more updates about the Wild horses
Every grizzly captured needs to be sprayed multiple times before release rubber bullets ect
Bears are just being bears. They were here first. We destroy the habitats and crowd out the bears. People also do stupid things,look at Yellowstone! Bears, elk , bison, wolf whatever some people don't have a brain apparently and need to get too close or torment the wildlife. If bears or anything else reacts and hurts or kills a person so be it, it is ridiculous that we hunt down and kill any animals that kill someone. If you don't want to take the very tiny risk of a bear hurting you, or a moose, elk, alligator or whatever its easy. Don't live there! If you have to sleep with a gun in your home go ahead , but it really
Does make you look bad, misinformed and rednecky. It also impacts how rational people look at you, as well as extrapolate that to the communities in the area and the state. These things also hurt the hunters, few bad seeds can ruin a crop.
Is there any reliable resources where you can see grizzly and black bear attacks and human deaths there is so much misinformation on this. And was it people doing wrong things or just bad luck?
I have only had encounters with black bears both bow hunting. One I was lucky and in a tree when a sow with three cubs came in. I had shot a ruffed grouse under my tree and the cubs wouldn't leave it. Took me 20 minutes to get them to leave. Yelling and throwing branches from the tree, it was getting dark fast and I was about to shoot the sow in the rear with a judo tip and they left before I had too. The other was a very large boar I was in a blown down tree on the ground. He walked 3 feet from me never looked just kept walking.
How I feel about grizzlies, fair is fair I just hope I’m the winner. If the grizzly wins so be it that’s nature, bears live in the woods stay out if you don’t like the risk.
Interesting stuff! 😊
Great work guys! I love your team Randy!
Get better audio equipment the snow sound was unbelievable
Any grizzly sightings or encounters there around bozeman. I stopped readying the chronical, but curious. I know in the 80s there was a few grizzly problems with the homes up close the cottonwood trailhead. I figure if one kills a kid in the valley there or at big sky….that might be the turning point for how we manage them.
I personally love adventuring in grizzly country and I’m also solo. Have had good luck for 40 yrs of doing it but I always feel in the back of my mind, it’s numbers game and will have that close situation one day. If it wasn’t for my kiddo, I’d want to be left on the mtn if killed by a grizzly as a way to give back to what gave so much to me over the years. Early mornings are the times most people run into bears, especially with a stick and string at 5am! As a hiker, you just need to wait until 8-9 before starting and giving them time to get back in the timber. Hiking open country is far safer too than the timber.
Lived in anchorage for 5 yrs and hunted them on the peninsula twice ….never had a situation with a bear. 30,000 bears and low bear kill numbers. My dad sold his jeep in bzn to Bart Schleyer…..read the story on Bart. Even a bear and tiger biologist and researcher can be killed and eaten by a grizzly bear.
Those statisticts include all the people that dont even step foot into the woods…Its alot higher for the guys that are hitting the woods in grizz country on a regular basis.
I got a little freaked out in the upper canyon in may when I hiked solo into a lake at 5am in hopes video grizzlies ……and I fell asleep (62 sucks more than 42!) when I got to the lake. This nap is 1/2 mile from a fresh moose calf kill I sat over and then went in close to video. Woke up after a few mins i assume a little freaked out! Lots of people nap on trails in grizz country but that early in the am, I don’t recommend!
“We all gotta die sometime Alias” dying and good grizzly death would be sad for family but an story to tell in heaven! Lol! I take it seriously but try to still joke about it to. I carry spray on my trail bike handlebars for those blind spots on the trail and in the timber.
Reminds me of a trip I guided in Trinidad, CO area; they were black bears, but we literally ran into bears every day. Even had one situation where we came out of the timber and accidentally ended up between a sow and her cubs….that got the adrenaline going!!
Should be limited hunting for them now
Hey Michael when you go out in the drift boat again could you do a nother one of those boat dismounts you nailed the last one, one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
I will happily go shoot horses. That would fill the freezer fast
"Alright boys" Ya know women watch this too you sexist bastard
Thanx
My biggest problem is the federal government control and the lack of goalposts for when that’ll stop. The states should have control again in my opinion at this point. The population is growing and growing and it needs to be curbed.
Great Fishing corner Michael that was Great your dad came out.
Marcus and Randy question?? With do they have to always kill females and the cubs after they hurt or kill someone. They doing what Bears do protecting themselves and their home. It's sad that someone loses their life They do that every day in Chicago and no even thinks twice about it
God's Blessings
Let the non hunting of bear people become a steady source of food for those bears..😳😉
To all hunters/adventuerers and those that just happen to live in or visit wilderness areas where large
four-footed predators roam, you should take the time to read the following books.
4 Seconds Until Impact: The Skyrocketing Attacks By Predators on Humans. by Bruce Hemming
Fighting for your Life: Man-eater Bears by Tom Hron
A Shape in the Dark: Living and Dying with Brown Bears by Bjorn Dihle
Wyoming Hunter and Guide here….I can say with 100% confidence that I have seen Grizzlies show up after gun shots. I've had 3 bears show up and want my carcass within 15 mins of shooting my bull. It is real and it is a serious problem that we learn to accept in Wyoming.
I know it’s not the main topic but in my opinion wild horse populations need to be reduced. This winter I saw many horses that were just skin and bone. Another reason is that my area is a key wintering area for mule deer which already have it tough due to highways and new construction. The horses push deer into even worse areas in the winter range. I must’ve found 10-15 dead mule deer in my shed hunting area
FWP has put out a notice that grizzlies have been spotted around Clancy, up in the elk horns and the north hills outside of Helena!!
You guys post black bear hunts several times a year, being careful not to spook the bears off. Marcus goes out and encounters a black bear who runs away. Enough said.