08-22-2019, 02:30 PM
1Shot Wrote:The new lease that I will be hunting on in the mountains of TN this year has lots of black bear. Two years ago while up in a tree stand bow hunting one fellow had a male bear come to his tree huffing and acting aggressive. He tried yelling at the bear to maybe scare him off. This made him run off a ways but he came back. The bear circled the tree growling and huffing and would pop his jaws for about 10 minutes and the fellow decided not to move or yell at the bear since it seemed to make him more angry. After the 10 minute circling of the tree the bear walks off. After listening and not hearing the bear for 30 minutes or so the fellow decides that the bear is gone and it is safe to climb down and leave. The moment that he starts moving to climb down here comes the bear in full rage. He comes to the tree and starts to climb the fellow pulls his Glock 40 cal. pistol, (in TN if you have a pistol carry permit you can legally carry while bow hunting) and aims at the bears head and fires. The 180 gr Hornday XTP enters the bears left eye (luck I guess) and exited the back of it's head. Bear drops dead as a hammer. Bear weighed a little over 400 lbs.
When on the property I carry a Ruger black hawk 5 1/2" barrel 45 Colt loaded with 300 gr Speer jacketed SP running 1100 fps in a home made shoulder holster that I can adjust to wear on the outside of any clothing I will have on so I can get to it RIGHT NOW. While I have been doing work on the property planting food plots, clearing trails of downed trees from winter and spring storms and putting up stands or repairing others I have a 12 ga. H&R pump riot shotgun on the gun rack of my 4 wheeler loaded with a mix of Mag 4 buck, slug, slug, Mag 4 buck, slug, slug. If the pistol I have on me at all times is not enough it will most likely allow me to get to the shotgun. I would rather go heavily armed and not need them than need them and not have them.
Bears are funny animals, I have had encounters with hundreds of black bears and a few Grizzlies in my life. It can be easy to let ones guard down around them, they can be more comical, rather than threatening. When a bear gets aggressive" it is an experience a person will never forget or make the mistake of complacency ever again. I can always tell who the newbies in Montana are when out hiking in the woods. The older locals always carry some form of firearm, the newbies usually carry nothing and stroll through the woods with kids stretched out a hundred yards like their at a Disney park.