Gary Reeder
Having danced with 3 bears in my short but horny
Tuesday, November 05, 2024, 16:27

lifetime I am fairly sure I know the secret of killing a bear. That is run over him with a semi trailer truck. I have found everything else is really iffy.

Bear #1 My first bear hunt in Alaska..Hunting with my 510 GNR a bear decided he didn't like me for some silly reason and trotted up to me. The first shot on the bear was about 2 feet from my quivering toes, at which he rolled over and gave me that "your ass is grass" look, so I shot him again at about 2 feet at which he gave up and ran off. But even then I had to walk into those willows to finish him off. Thank goodness he had the decency to go ahead and die before I got to him. George Faerber, who was our guide and was with another hunter down the stream said it sounded like I had a full auto handgun.

Bear #2...in Washington state, Colleen shot this big bear way the hell up a tall tree with her 338 GNR Contender. He did a swan dive right into the ground right in front of us. I walked over, bent over him and told her he needed to be a full mount bear as he was a cinnamon color. Colleen's eyes got really big while I was talking to her. Realizing there was probably something behind me that I needed to see, I turned and her bear was standing at kissing distance. I had my 41 GNR Redhawk in hand and emptied it into him burning some holes in his fur. Her comments was "thanks, you just put 6 more holes in my bear's hide".

Bear #3...
Again in Washington state (I should learn to stay the hell out of that state). Our bear dogs had bayed this big black bear up against a rock wall. We had to crawl on hands and knees to get to him thru some extremely thick brush and the guide yelled for me to shoot him, he's killing my dogs. I shot the bear at about 50 feet at which time he decided we were probably a better lunch than those dogs. I shot him 3 more times while he was on his way to have a talk with us. As we were still on our knees the bear knocked both of us over while he was trying to get at the strike dog (The important dog as he smells the bear a long way off and you don't want him to get hurt so he stays clipped to the guide's belt) who was barking at him. The bear was concentrating on cutting the dog in half while I reached up and put my last 2 rounds into his arm pit. This was in the 44 Magnum days,way before all the 454s, 475s and 500s so my puny little 44 Magnum was even punier as it was in a S&W model 29. My guide had my Contender in hand and as the bear was more on top of him he put the barrel into the bear's throat and shot him. He was actually the one that killed the bear as my 44s didn't seem to do more than really piss him off.Although I had the good end of the bear as he was sitting on my chest. I still hear from that guide from time to time. He still has times when somebody says "bear" he wets his pants.

So there are my 3 reasons to not go into bear country with a 10mm.