Bear protection for fly fishers.
It’s second nature for our friends wandering the rivers of Alaska and Canada.
Those banging around the backcountry of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho – particularly in the Greater Yellowstone neighborhood – will eventually at least see and will much more likely have an intimate encounter with Ursus arctos horribilis.
Pray you don’t get between mama grizzly and her cubs. And never be the slowest person in your fishing party.
There’s still a lot of myth and fancy floating around about bear encounters on the river and stream and what might be your optimal response. Despite living in this age of enlightment there’s still a fair amount of misinformation being passed around out there, and it’s very easy to find widely disparate opinions about the issue.
As a matter of fair disclosure most of our team carries bear spray and either a .45, .44 mag or a .40 with appropriate loads when in higher risk bear country.
This past fall in a matter of three days we had two bear encounters in areas we consider lower risk (well travelled sections of the Gallatin and the
Madison). One was a very close encounter with a yearling who ended up being as surprised and frightened as we were; he snuck up behind us eating berries along the river bank while we were filming and was just about in arm’s reach when both parties discovered the other’s presence.
How did we get caught with our pants down so to speak on that one? We had a team on the river’s edge filming and looking for rock mermaids like this one. The river section we happened to be on was a faster, long riffle and was of course fairly noisy. The encounter fit the typical mold we’ve experienced – bear encounters on the river (at least in the lower 48) often happen when you least expect them and you’re maximally distracted.
Both encounters found us reaching for bear spray / gun which in both cases were in the truck well out of immediate reach. Stupid is as stupid does.
We’re particularly interested in sharing stories about any encounters you might have had with bears and how you responded – fire us an email and let’s get your experience into a format we can share with our readers.
Wildlife topics – particularly if involving the wolf, bison or grizzly – tend to bring the frothing wildlife activists out of the woodwork, and they’re often looking for a fight over optimal management of these populations. Believe me, we have some very strong opinions on those matters, though that’s a niche topic for another day and other blogs.
It has been suggested that a few of these wildlife advocacy groups have provided some misleading information regarding the efficacy of bear spray – we’ll look into that as well.
Bottom line – we’d like to help you remember what to do when you round a corner on the river trail and come face to face with Mr. Grizz.
More to come.
