GUN - Free Shop Manual

By BYRON DALRYMPLE
THE BLACK BEAR ranks next to deer as the big game
animal taken in greatest numbers over the broadest
range by North American hunters. But from the next
hundred hunters you meet who either have killed a black
bear or wish they might, you will get at least ninety-nine
different answers to the question, how tough is the black
bear? Though this animal ranges over most of the continent
and in places is common enough to be a nuisance, the
average big game hunter knows less about the black bear,
its habits and its physical characteristics, than any other of
his targets. The black bear, which some hunters rate as a
"push over" is, pound for pound, one of the toughest
critters on earth to put down for keeps.
Why all the confusion? You have to go to the bear for
the answer. He is by all odds the most shy, secretive, alert,
and evasive big-game animal in our woods. The majority
of kills have been made purely and simply by accident, by
hunters who stumble onto a bear while hunting other game.
Few hunters ever get to learn very thoroughly what this
animal as a species is really like. The black is a wacky
enigma. While one individual is moving like a silk-furred
wraith to keep from being seen, another is standing with
his head in a garbage can in someone's backyard, growling
at the protesting property owner who stands a few yards
away. The key word is, the black bear is an individual.
How much of an individual he is, may be shown by the
fact that black bear have been killed by every caliber from
.22 rimfire on up to .50-110 Winchester Express and larger.
One lady, accompanying her dude husband on a fishing
trip, was visited in camp by a black bear. The lady
screamed: the bear just stared. Whereupon she quiveringly
raised her .22 pistol, left with her by hubby as "protection,"
and fired. When she opened her eyes, there lay the bear,
dead.
This instance might prove the black bear is the easiest
critter on earth to kill. But does it actually prove anything?
Consider the woodsman who had seen many black bears,
GUNS
NOVEMBER 1959
On wounded blackie, Dalrymple uses .308 M70
Winchester with 200 grain slugs in brush.
always the rear end as they ran away from him. One day a
black bear stood its ground, so the man shot the impertinent
animal in the head with his .22 rifle. The next thing he
knew, he woke up in the hospital and, some weeks after,
he was still on the critical list when I visited him. The
bear, after mauling the man, ran off.
Bigger calibers may still be in- (Continued on page 44)
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