Bear.......

He's baaaack!



That pic was taken 1:00 am Saturday morning. It seemed like his cycle to make his rounds was getting shorter. Well, it's gotten a LOT shorter. I heard the driveway alarm about 1:30am this morning (Monday), so I had a hunch it was the bear. I scrounged up the night vision goggles I have laying around here and went out onto the front porch. Sure enough I saw him ambling across the yard headed for the bird feeders next to the house. I could hear him before I saw him, as he certainly wasn't trying to be very stealth like. And he IS pretty darn big. Made me a little nervous just standing out on the porch in my jammies. I'm not even sure having my .357Sig in my hand would have been any more comforting, neither.

I went into the bed room and woke Connie up, armed with an air horn to try to scare him away via the window looking out over the bird feeders, but I guess all the racket I made opening up the window was enough to chase him away. I put up a water based varmint deterrent earlier today that I've used in the past to keep deer away from the fruit trees to cover the bird feeder near the garage, so I guess I'll find out tomorrow morning whether that helped to protect that feeder from him. He might have just eaten it. And I coincidentally placed an order for an electric fence charger today, along with wire and other items, figuring I'll wire up the bird feeders and zap him to convince him that he needs to stop coming around here and wrecking the feeders. I'm guessing that when the fruit trees start bearing fruit he'll have a field day then, so I want to get him out of here before then.

Several non-lethal ammo choices will square the bear towards other endeavors
2-3 rounds will definitly time stamp its memory

Originally Posted by Metachrosis

Several non-lethal ammo choices will square the bear towards other endeavors
2-3 rounds will definitly time stamp its memory

Yeah, that sounds good in theory, but if it pisses off the bear and I then have 400 to 600 pounds of pissed off bear charging at me while I'm standing there holding a "bear-pisser-offer" instead of a gun packed with real ammo, well, that could just ruin my day.

I think I'll try the electric fence thing. The one I am getting is supposed to pack quite a wallop, so maybe it will re-educate the bear about where he needs to NOT be looking for a meal.

Not really a theory,Park Rangers use them(12ga rounds) all over the US
I have the Fiocchi 12ga 2-3/4 batons and they are pretty intense inside 20m.
I move 2K lb Bulls with them on the hunting lease

I have two of these units that are still running strong after 4+yrs
Anything over 1 joule packs a nasty sting and works well at cutting weeds
http://parmak.com/product_details.php?PId=6

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Yeah, that sounds good in theory, but if it pisses off the bear and I then have 400 to 600 pounds of pissed off bear charging at me while I'm standing there holding a "bear-pisser-offer" instead of a gun packed with real ammo, well, that could just ruin my day.

Sissy...

I pissed off a rather large feral pig once when I was a kid in Orlando. Hit him with high powered pellet gun. Damn things are fast!

LOL

Well, if a little ol' beaver can take you down, I'm not real inclined to be running around pissing off bears.....

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...icle-1.1314673

Never shoot the bean sacks,always use the baton cartridges they have plenty of FPE energy

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Well, if a little ol' beaver can take you down, I'm not real inclined to be running around pissing off bears.....

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...icle-1.1314673

I was attacked by what I believe was a rabid Beaver once. Close to being bit or clawed several times but I moved each time at the right second. Tell you what, My heart was racing when it was over.

Well, we got a real good look at the bear this evening. Connie and I were watching a movie and we heard the alarm go off that I had set out facing the bird feeders. This was around 9:50PM. I wasn't going to check, as the last couple of nights around the same time the alarm went off and nothing was out there. But Connie jumped up to look, so what the heck. So when I got to a window in the bedroom and turned the flashlight on towards the bird feeder, I saw something, but for a moment I wasn't sure what the heck I was looking at. There was SOMETHING at the feeder but for an instant I just couldn't make out what it was.

It was the bear. I mean, it was the BEAR! It was sitting on the other side of the bird feeder so apparently he didn't see me walk up to the window. The flashlight was shining right on his belly and all I could make out was just some dark shape there. A BIG, WIDE dark shape. When I realized it was the bear, I was a bit taken back by his size. He was SITTING on the ground eating out of the bird feeder with NO problem. I'll have to measure that tomorrow to see how far off the ground it is. Here I was thinking the bear had to bend down the pole the feeders were on because he couldn't reach it very well. Heck, NOT a problem for him...... He probably didn't even notice bending that iron pole at all.

Anyway, I had to put down the flashlight to open the window, since it takes two hands, as I wanted to grab the airhorn I had sitting there to scare away any varmints. So after I made the blast and looked again, he was gone. Connie was at the other window in the bedroom and said he ran off at the blast, so at least he is leery of human contact.

Man, I was thinking that black bears really didn't get all that big, so this was QUITE a surprise seeing one REAL close up. Now I'm thinking I'm REAL glad he just didn't get pissed at the airhorn blast, because all that was between him and me was a piece of screen in the window. Heck, I don't think even the side of the house would be much of a barrier if he really wanted to get IN. I saw what he (or one like him) did to the side of our shed a while back.