Share your hunting tips, page 2

One more quick post from Stephen Wenger's newsletter that came today. There has been an ongoing debate about bear hunting which I thought was interesting:

Let’s Wrap Up the Bear Thing: More responses from list members:

1. You are spot on, their skulls are almost impenetrable, especially from the front. I have heard of large cal. rifle bullets "running" across the skull with the only effect being a slightly dazed, really, REALLY pissed off bear! Best CNS shots are either directly into the roof of the mouth as they frequently roar in a charge, or, what I was referring to the upper shoulder/ hump shot from the side after the bear was turned, along the backbone, which pretty much shuts down their movements, even if you just take out their rear legs, it slows them down enough to give you a chance to get far enough away to carefully take them out. Another technique that reportedly works, (I knew an agent who survived a big brown bear attack doing this), is to climb a treeand then shoot down into the bear as it climbs up behind you. They do climb fast, too, but it exposes their spine when they "hunch" up to move up. Don, the gentleman I know, took out the brown bear with a .38 revolver by shooting it in the spine. I recommend a much larger caliber, but he did walk away from the attack and in my opinion, any bear attack you walk away from is a good one, sorta like landing a plane.

2. If you look up a picture of a bear skull on the web, you will see that there is very little above the eye sockets, as is the case with most 4-legged predators. With the fur and ears, there is a misleading appearance of more above the eyes than is truly there. I think the best head shot would be to aim right for the nose, if head on… As far as getting off the X (assuming that means lateral movement), I'm not sure that it would not be a waste of time. Often, in the mountains, one is on a steep hillside or might have movement hampered by brush or logs. Unlike someone shooting at you, the bear has to get right up to you to do any damage. My strategy is to get low, so the shots are more straight on, and just hold and fire until the last second. Then, if it's not working at that point, a dodge to the side can't hurt.

3. When I was in Kodiak (back in the dark ages - 1965-1968) a friend showed me a photograph that had been taken on a bear hunt. The photo showed the head of the dead bear with someone parting the fur to better see the 220 grain 30-06 bullet with approx 1 inch of the rear end of the bullet showing stuck in the skull. The bullet hit and mushroomed and didn't penetrate the skull. It was factory ammo, with the shot taken at approx 50 yards. I later became friends with the native who had shot the bear, and learned that what they normally did was to shoot the bear in the pelvic area and break down his hind legs so he couldn't charge. (Sound familiar?) And then take their time and kill the bear.

4. There's a considerable difference between North American bears and mountain lions. Usually (always not always) lions give up readily when shot with anything. Cat hunters who tree lions with dogs usually carry and shoot treed cats with a .22. The cats usually (not always) just fall out of the tree and die (or die and fall out of the tree). Note: There are plenty of stories about a .22-shot mountain lion falling out of its tree into and ravaging the pack of dogs that treed it, but they're not the usual stories. Bears, on the other hand, are exceptionally vital and tough. They don't give up easily. If distance and armament are adequate, the safest rule is to first break both front shoulders. It is said that a bear with its heart blown out can still travel 100 yards and kill the shooter. Yes, bears' skulls are thick, and a frontal shot on a bear's skull will often bounce off. However, an old Alaskan guide once told me that most any centerfire round to a bear's head will knock the bear down for seconds, giving the shooter moments-only to adjust position and put another into the ear - a thinly-protected route to the brain.