Do you carry bear spray when hunting?

[MOWITCH SLAYER]

I always have bear spay with me. There is several instances were a rifle or shot gun well not work . suppose a bear has a companion down. to shot into the bear is crazy, who knows were that bullet well exit. Then most people would not shoot straight when charged by a bear. Once he is on you your rifle is about as good as a fly rod. Bear spray is designed for up close. it well fog a fairly large area. no hand gun is going to help at the last second , BEAR SPRAY WORKS.

[Numenor604]

if the seriousness of the situation was still debatable, I would sooner spray a bear simply as a deterrent, to hopefully encourage it to turn away, before resorting to a firearm which I would then later have to explain to a CO. I would prefer not to kill a bear if I had the option, so this is why I carry spray as well as a rifle.

[MOWITCH SLAYER]

Had a can of bear spray go off in my truck one day last year. Couldn't breath, couldn't see . Good thing i was parked at the time. i thought i was a goner. took over a hour before i could even stand,

[wideopenthrottle]

I have seen 2 drunk guys get sprayed that were still able to inflict a fair bit of damage so I don't hold out a lot of hope for incapacitating a bear...I have also seen a failed deployment on a young cougar that resulted in me getting a good wiff of the cloud while trying to chase it away...story is on here somewhere

[MOWITCH SLAYER]

pepper spray or bear spray . Huge difference

[wideopenthrottle]

pepper spray or bear spray . Huge difference

not sure what the cops carry but it was bear spray used for the cougar..the guy spraying it was no more than 20 feet from a crouching cougar and the spray did not reach the animal due to the wind...this was at Skoocumchuk hotsprings ....the cougar had grabbed a guys puppy and the guy tackled the cougar pulling the puppy out of its mouth before realizing it was not another dog but a cougar that had his pup

http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/showth...t=skoocumchuck story here post #3

[gmachine19]

Nope. 45-70 with 6+1 HSM bear load when I'm solo or retrieving game. A big hunting knife strapped to my belt all the time worse comes to worst.

[caddisguy]

I carry bear spray when flyfishing because it's not really practical to pack the dominion grizzly compact (or even legal in provincial parks) That said, I always pack bear spray even when I am packing a firearm. It's not like you even really notice the bear spray on your belt. I'd rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

Reality is that sometimes plan A fails. Maybe a firearm malfunctions, maybe the first shot wasn't a good hit and now its mauling you and you cant manoeuvre a rifle around, maybe it was leaning up against a tree while you were dropping a #2 when things went south. I might also try bear spray first if my hunting partner was getting attacked by a bear or cougar depending on angle, amount of movement going on and type or type of gun I was carrying. If you look at cases where a hunter has tried to shoot a bear off their hunting partner, it seems pretty common for the hunting partner to get hit, sometimes fatally as the bullet itself can change direction, send bullet or bone fragments everywhere, etc. Pretty sure I wouldn't be able to live with myself if a gun was all I had handy and my hunting partner died because all I had was a gun and it sent some fragments through their lungs.

I'm not a fan of bear spray and figure it probably only helps half of the time at best, but I can't really think of a logical reason not to have it as an option. Call me crazy, but I carry more than 1 way of starting a fire too

[J_T]

I spent 20 years working in the bush and never carried bear spray. I had one or two occasion that it may have come in handy, but for the most part making noise keeps the bears away. While bow hunting and scouting on the other hand, I carry spray. One is way quieter while hunting and the chances of bumping into a bear is way more likely. My hunting partner and I ,while scouting both carry spray, one of us packs a shotgun and the other guy packs the spotting scope and tripod.

Agree. Pretty much my approach as well.

[rocksteady]

Only when bow hunting.. never when i have a rifle slung