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Marlin_Man
06-04-2018, 01:20 AM
I am new to Wilderness Survival Forums. I plan on making a more formal Introduction soon. On the Introductions forum. At the moment I have a really novice question hopeful not asked too much. The question involves a background and situation.

Background
Age 24
Gender: Male
Experienced in: hunting, fishing, and knows some edible mushrooms.
Lacks knowledge in: Navigation, shelter building, and protecting self from animals.

Situation:
- Location Canada Manitoba
- 1 hour drive to destination
- Unreliable car
- No cell phone
- Going alone
- waiting for Pal (No gun)
- Camp site 5 min walk from highway.
- Have food + cooler with ice
- pop up tent
- sleeping bag
- Emergency car kit with Emergency blanket
- Spare tire
- Pre-charged battery booster
- Rod
- tackle (with knife)
- Regular lighter
- shore fishing beside Highway

So my Main Concern is the common Black Bear. I saw bear and moose tracks near where I plan to camp. Any advice? Also as title states I would like to know any other risks I maybe taking. And ways I could make this trip Safer. Note: taking another person with me is not an option. I will tell my grandmother where I'm going and when ill be back. I would like to leave on this trip June 4 2018 at about 1:00 pm and return before 11:00 pm June 5.

Antonyraison
06-04-2018, 02:10 AM
I don't know bears... I live in southern Africa.
So I know hippos, elephants, lions and other such animals.
But from What I can understand you can bring some bear spray with..
also making a bunch of noise in bear Areas from what I understand helps drive them away from that area.

Marlin_Man
06-04-2018, 02:16 AM
I don't know bears... I live in southern Africa.
So I know hippos, elephants, lions and other such animals.
But from What I can understand you can bring some bear spray with..
also making a bunch of noise in bear Areas from what I understand helps drive them away from that area.



Pretty sure if you get close enough to use bear spray your ****ed anyways. you would have to get it in the eyes and even then will piss it off and kill you. The black bear is mostly more scared of you then you of them. still makes me unconformable not having protection. Noise is good advice except if you are sleeping . . .

pete lynch
06-04-2018, 04:42 AM
Hang your food and anything else that has a bear-pleasing odor up in a tree away from where you plan to sleep.
Bear spray can dissuade a black bear from approaching you. It works on grizzly bears too.

Marlin_Man
06-04-2018, 05:10 AM
Hang your food and anything else that has a bear-pleasing odor up in a tree away from where you plan to sleep.
Bear spray can dissuade a black bear from approaching you. It works on grizzly bears too.

Cant I just say, "nice teddy bear Don't eat me"

In all seriousness I posted this to another forum and i got the fallowing answer...

Use standard procedure for backwoods camping to avoid wildlife encounters. Limit attractants as much as possible, mainly food and cooking smells especially fish. Keep food and other attractants hung from a tree branch out of reach of bears. If there's nothing easy to eat they'll move on. Bring an air-horn and or bear spray. Shooting a bear illegally (no tag/hunting license/out of season) will probably be a bureaucratic PITA.
Read a bit on black bear behavior and what to do if you encounter one. Black bears are very rarely aggressive in most situations.
Have a fun fishing trip!


I found this to be rather helpful. Thank you all as well ^-^

Rick
06-04-2018, 07:41 AM
Do your cooking away from your sleeping site and store your food either in a bear proof container or from a rope in a tree where a bear cannot reach it. My son borrowed my bear container and found it about 50 meters away from camp one morning. A bear tried to get into it but finally gave up and left. Bear spray does work. It would not be recommended by so many agencies if it didn't. Make noise. Your greatest threat is surprising a bear or encountering a female with cubs. When in bear country I always carried a hand gun and bear spray. Your odds of encountering a bear are small but being prepared is smart. Good luck.

Antonyraison
06-04-2018, 08:00 AM
It is my understanding the black bear is not as aggressive or as potentially dangerous as the grizzly bear counter part, also by in large a lot smaller also.
That being said If you catch food or prep food, do it far away from your Camp, stay off Game trails (it basically where any apex predator will go and hunt anyway)
Store food High up in a container..
so yeah Other than these things I think many have said I am not sure how else to advise you. I have never had encounters with bears... just warthogs, girrafee, Hippos, elephants and snakes and baboons.. and the odd occasional leopard

Alan R McDaniel Jr
06-04-2018, 08:41 AM
So, you're going to spend the night in a tent one hour's drive from your house. Don't worry about cooking. Take your food already prepared in as little packaging as possible. Use packaging that can be burned up in the fire (if you're going to build a fire). Have fun. Don't worry about lions, tigers and bears. Oh my!

Alan

JohnLeePettimore
06-04-2018, 09:04 AM
Shooting a bear illegally (no tag/hunting license/out of season) will probably be a bureaucratic PITA.


There's a saying: "I rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6."

That being said, if you follow the advice in the other responses, it shouldn't come down to use of a firearm. But if it does, the above saying definitely applies.

Antonyraison
06-04-2018, 09:12 AM
I have never carried a fire-arm, not to say Some one in our crew didnt. but so far in about 4 years of going into wild places in southern Africa, we havent had much issue.

kyratshooter
06-04-2018, 11:27 AM
Myself and many others have hiked the Appellation Trail and had bear encounters on a nightly basis. Several of us had a firearm but they were never drawn and I never had to kill a bear. Most of us lived but bears did kill two or three that year up in the eastern mountains.

Follow the advice already posted.

Hang your food in a bear proof container.

Do not cook/eat where you sleep.

I prefer to not sleep in a zipped up sleeping bag like a bear toco.

Bear spray does work. Get some if you are going to camp in bear country on a regular basis.

I carry a firearm. I carry it to the grocery store, to Walmart, to the post office, to meet my buds at lunch, to mow the grass in the yard, why would I leave it home when I go camping? In fact, when I go camping I carry a bigger gun!

If you are more afraid of Canadian bureaucracy than of dying then your government has accomplished its purpose. Good luck with that.

Rick
06-04-2018, 07:37 PM
A black bear can smell a candy bar wrapper inside a cooler inside a locked car. Even having prepared food in your camp is an invitation to have them join you. It's best to handle the food away from your camp even if its pre-prepared. Look for youtube vids of black bears ripping open cars in Yellowstone or other parks because someone left a candy bar in the car. They have a keen sense of smell and will smell your food from a long way away. If you don't have a bear container then use a bag and rope and hang it from a tree a safe distance away. All food!

Alan R McDaniel Jr
06-04-2018, 08:49 PM
https://www.youtube.com/embed/6O33JRDumOM


Alan

hayshaker
06-04-2018, 09:43 PM
somethingI once read while camping on the natl' elk reffuge in jacksonhole ,wyo
a phamplet i got from the chamber of commerce, it said
how to tell the difference between a grizzly and a black bear,?
the grizzly will shake the tree till you fall out, and the black bear {yoggi)
will run up the tree to get you. hope that helps.

Phaedrus
06-05-2018, 01:51 AM
Welcome, Marlin_Man! As others have said, don't keep food in camp or do your cooking where you sleep. Hang your food or use a bear canister. Mors Kochansky beliefs that baseball bat or axe handle to the face will deter bears; I have not tried it but he's serious when saying it. Bear spray is a great idea, take a couple cans if you're able. It does indeed work, but occasionally a bear will return requiring another shot, hence the extra can. If you can carry a firearm more's the better. You're probably right about the red tape but I'd rather deal with that than being eaten. Still, many folks get by with just spray.

Good luck on the trip, I hope you have a good time.

edr730
06-05-2018, 07:54 AM
Bear season will be open until june 17th. We never kept our food or our bear bait away from camp. But I have heard many problems for back packers.

kyratshooter
06-05-2018, 10:22 AM
I was hiking on the AT once, up in the Pisquah National Forest section, and stopped for a break. A speed freak passed while I sat there and spoke as he blazed past, hiking sticks going like airplane propellers and his boots kicking up a rooster tail of dirt.

A mile or so down the trail I saw bear tracks enter the trail going the same direction I was headed and I soon noticed that the bear's tracks were on top of the other hiker's tracks.

I do not know if the bear was following him or if the bear was just going the same direction and using the well blazed and foot pounded trail. Anyway, this bear was an avid hiker and remained on the trail until I reached the next established trail shelter to spend the night. The bear tracks turned off the trail just a few yards from the trail clearing, where the fast hiker had already set up his camp and cooked whatever it was he was having for supper.

I asked him if he saw the bear that was following him for the last 4 miles and his eyes got as big as truck tires. I took him back to the edge of the clearing and showed him where the bear has stopped and watched him as he set up camp, the bear's tracks all over the footprints of the hiker.

He had been so intent on "covering miles" that he forgot to open his eyes and look around now and then. He was in one of the most beautiful places on earth and was only concerned with how fast he could travel.

The poor guy had bear nerves for the whole night and I do not think he slept at all. The fact that a bear, I figured the same one, stalked the camp and made lots of noise all night did not help his condition.

In the Great Smokey Mountain section of the AT they had cages for the hikers to sleep inside at that time. I am not sure if they still do that. The bears from north Georgia to Virginia seem to be the most vivacious and prone to eating the occasional tourist that slathers BBQ sauce all over themselves and then lays down for a nap or decides to have a midnight snack of peanut butter and honey sandwiches while in their sleeping bag.

I do not ever remember seeing a report of a bear eating a Canadian. It might be that Canadian bears are more picky than U.S. bears.

Rick
06-05-2018, 05:08 PM
I think American bears are a bit more like junk yard dogs. Canadian bears must have more manners. Everything Canadian seems to have more manners than us. I wonder if Canadian bears speak French? "Pardonnez-moi mais grognez."

JohnLeePettimore
06-05-2018, 05:14 PM
The poor guy had bear nerves for the whole night and I do not think he slept at all. The fact that a bear, I figured the same one, stalked the camp and made lots of noise all night did not help his condition.

Admit it. That was YOU making all that noise just to scare him.

edr730
06-05-2018, 05:55 PM
We've had deer that you could hit with an apple and they would jump back and look for the apple. The deer wasn't afraid because he had become accustomed to us and knew we were a source of food. Many deer do that. Many bear do that too, but when they do, they can become a problem. Its best if they retain their natural suspicion and fear.
We had a fellow from downstate who had a hunting camp and he fed the bear. We'd play card and sometimes look out the bedroom window at the bear. Sometimes there would be a dozen. An old friend of mine didn't like it much and told him those bear would be a problem because they were becoming accustomed to food by the houses. His fishing camp and landing business wasn't far away. They did become somewhat of a problem after that.
I think that backpacking areas where there are many people and bears together and the people are a constant source of food, then the bear, as the deer in the above example, will learn quick enough not to be afraid and to look for food where the people are. It would be prudent to consider such bear as completely different animals than you would find in the wild.

Alan R McDaniel Jr
06-05-2018, 10:13 PM
Just make sure you are the last one to go to sleep, then pour honey all over the one of your fellow campers you like the least and then settle in for the night. Even a big bear can only eat one person per night.

Alan

Antonyraison
06-06-2018, 02:43 AM
Just make sure you are the last one to go to sleep, then pour honey all over the one of your fellow campers you like the least and then settle in for the night. Even a big bear can only eat one person per night.

Alan

or take with a friend that you can run faster than :p

1stimestar
06-06-2018, 05:06 PM
Sorry I know it is too late and you are already gone. You got a lot of great advice. I used to be an avid backpacker and live in the north country also so here is my advice. For stopping for the night, set up camp in a triangular set up where you sleep at one point, cook at the second point, and store your food and cooking utensils at the third point. For Pete's sake, get a bear resistant food container. Each point should be 100' away from each other. Yes, get bear spray. Since you are in Canada and are not used to having guns, a gun would do you no good at all. It is PROVEN that bear spray works better then guns for surviving bear encounters. Now here is a thing you may not know. I don't know about down in the lower 48 but black bears up here are little *****es. They will mess with you just to mess with you, unlike grizzlies. Grizzlies and big and bad enough to not have a chip on their shoulders but black bears seem to have the biggest Napoleon Complex. If approached by one, throw rocks or what ever you have to let him know you are not to be messed with. Keep a nice camp fire going. It doesn't have to be big. Keep aware of your surroundings and have fun.

Antonyraison
06-07-2018, 07:26 AM
Sorry I know it is too late and you are already gone. You got a lot of great advice. I used to be an avid backpacker and live in the north country also so here is my advice. For stopping for the night, set up camp in a triangular set up where you sleep at one point, cook at the second point, and store your food and cooking utensils at the third point. For Pete's sake, get a bear resistant food container. Each point should be 100' away from each other. Yes, get bear spray. Since you are in Canada and are not used to having guns, a gun would do you no good at all. It is PROVEN that bear spray works better then guns for surviving bear encounters. Now here is a thing you may not know. I don't know about down in the lower 48 but black bears up here are little *****es. They will mess with you just to mess with you, unlike grizzlies. Grizzlies and big and bad enough to not have a chip on their shoulders but black bears seem to have the biggest Napoleon Complex. If approached by one, throw rocks or what ever you have to let him know you are not to be messed with. Keep a nice camp fire going. It doesn't have to be big. Keep aware of your surroundings and have fun.

Awesome advice Simple easy. :)
Man I wana come camp out that side one day... *looks at funds, looks at the economy, looks at the value of the Rand... Proceeds to cry*

1stimestar
06-07-2018, 01:23 PM
Awesome advice Simple easy. :)
Man I wana come camp out that side one day... *looks at funds, looks at the economy, looks at the value of the Rand... Proceeds to cry*

Not sure what you do for a living but you could come up for a seasonal job, either summer or winter. Since we have such a huge tourism industry, we hire a lot of people from out of country. Easy to get a work visa, a job with room and board with pay and days off to go explore.

Marlin_Man
06-07-2018, 09:48 PM
Do your cooking away from your sleeping site and store your food either in a bear proof container or from a rope in a tree where a bear cannot reach it. My son borrowed my bear container and found it about 50 meters away from camp one morning. A bear tried to get into it but finally gave up and left. Bear spray does work. It would not be recommended by so many agencies if it didn't. Make noise. Your greatest threat is surprising a bear or encountering a female with cubs. When in bear country I always carried a hand gun and bear spray. Your odds of encountering a bear are small but being prepared is smart. Good luck.

Hand guns are restricted in Canada. I'm waiting for my Pal.

Marlin_Man
06-07-2018, 09:52 PM
So, you're going to spend the night in a tent one hour's drive from your house. Don't worry about cooking. Take your food already prepared in as little packaging as possible. Use packaging that can be burned up in the fire (if you're going to build a fire). Have fun. Don't worry about lions, tigers and bears. Oh my!

Alan

Nothing like cooking hotdogs over a fire...Think thats a bit over kill...might as welll not leave home if you are not going enjoy the outdoors...

Marlin_Man
06-07-2018, 09:58 PM
Thanks guys had a great night camping. No bears ^-^

crashdive123
06-08-2018, 05:39 AM
Glad you had fun.

Antonyraison
06-09-2018, 06:14 AM
Thanks guys had a great night camping. No bears ^-^

awesome Glad it turned out good!

Alan R McDaniel Jr
06-10-2018, 07:46 PM
I've never worried abut bears when camping. Rattlesnakes, Cottonmouths, Copperheads, scorpions, Fire ants, ticks, chiggers, fleas, bees, skunks, ... Yes, I worried about those, but not bears. Supposedly, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept. will tell you that there have been recent sightings of Black Bears in parts of Texas. I'd think they are few and far between and still pretty skittish around humans.

Right now in most of Texas primitive camping is VERY primitive. The 80 degree nights do little to compensate for the 100 degree days. A campfire would be more of a novelty right now and possibly a very real liability depending on how hard the wind was blowing and the state of the surrounding vegetation. IF I were going camping now, it would be in the RV with fridge and AC.



Alan

Rick
06-11-2018, 07:07 AM
If the bears were smart, they would be in the next RV with the fridge and AC as well. 100 degrees days and 80 degree nights are not my idea of a good time. And after that list you rattled off I may have to start a list for Texas. You don't happen have dinosaurs do you? 'Cause that would get the list started.

By the way, I just read that some lady in Florida got eaten by a dinosaur. Her yappy dogs didn't do anything to save her, which just go to show you that even dogs are too dang smart to mess with dinosaurs and would prefer to live up north.

madmax
06-11-2018, 07:34 AM
I think that lady went in to grab her dog (which was bitten) and the gator saw a better meal.

It's funny though to hear people say, "There should've been signs that there were gators in the pond." It's FL. There's gators in every pond. That said, I'm sorry bout her demise. Nobody deserves to go out that way.

Alan R McDaniel Jr
06-11-2018, 07:59 AM
Rick, we have dinos too. It's hard to camp around them during most of the year though as the mosquitos would suck all the juice out of you, their intended victim, long before they could snack on you. Most of them stay along the coast, but they will infest any body of water deep enough to hide them. I remember a case of a rancher 100 miles inland finding one walking down a cow path in an area where the only water was stock ponds. It was a sizable gator (10' or so) and he roped it. His horse wasn't too happy about that and he had a time of it before he convinced the horse to drag the gator back to his ranch house. At that time they were still very much protected so I don't remember much after that.

One of my buddies has some land (at least that's what the tax assessor says it is) over on the coast. He gets 8 permits a year to hunt gators. He gets them all on the same day if he tries (that's how many there are). Anahuac, TX is the only place to sell dead gators in TX. He loads them in as many pickup beds as it takes, fills the bed with ice and drives like Hell the 150 or so miles from here to Anahuac to sell them. I don't think he pays for the trouble for what he gets for them.

All the hunting is not putting a dent in the population though and I expect that soon we will be in the same shape Florida is with gators killing and eating people as a primary food source soon. I have lots of gator stories from fishing and gator hunting over the past 20 years. The gators nearly always win, and when they don't, it's a tie.

Alan

Alan R McDaniel Jr
06-11-2018, 12:34 PM
I think that lady went in to grab her dog (which was bitten) and the gator saw a better meal.

It's funny though to hear people say, "There should've been signs that there were gators in the pond." It's FL. There's gators in every pond. That said, I'm sorry bout her demise. Nobody deserves to go out that way.

This is what I think happened too. The gator got hold of something and dragged it into the water. A 12' alligator weighs over 600#. They don't maintain that kind of bulk by eating Fufu dogs.

Alan

Rick
06-15-2018, 07:44 AM
And that...is why I live in Indiana. Rabbits won't eat ya. They might scare the bajeesus out of you if you nearly step on one but they definitely won't eat ya.

crashdive123
06-15-2018, 05:28 PM
And that...is why I live in Indiana. Rabbits won't eat ya. They might scare the bajeesus out of you if you nearly step on one but they definitely won't eat ya.

Oh yeah?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmu5sRIizdw

Rick
06-16-2018, 07:51 AM
http://www.housetweaking.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/bigstockphoto_For_Sale_By_Owner_Sign_1357906-e1314820809185.jpg

kyratshooter
06-16-2018, 11:06 AM
Wait Rick, those are British rabbits and they have been conditioned through the generations to not fear humans due to a combination of the firearms laws and animal rights activists.

Do notice that none of the victims are equipped with shotguns.

Having no fear of consequences, or fear of humans, and feeling totally protected by the media, they have developed an aggressive nature not known by American bunnies, who know we will fill them with buckshot and then complain about the presence of the buckshot as we EAT THEM!

Only in areas of the world under excessive British influence are bunnies allowed to be so aggressive and proliferate without control to the point that they reach the status of "pest" and offer a threat to humans.

You are safe.

Take down the sign and the next time you feel that twinge of fear call someone form Kentucky over for consultation.

Rick
06-17-2018, 05:50 AM
Point made. About the only I truly fear around here are ground squirrels. They seem to be on some clandestine mission to undermine all concrete and collapse it. It's a never ending battle to trap them. Muhahahahahahaha. So far I'm ahead but not by much.

crashdive123
06-17-2018, 06:34 AM
Just leave a few of these laying around.........may help them seek warmer sidewalks elsewhere.


https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/attachments/12-post-your-photos/159304d1360545996-nature-one-angry-squirrel-ultimate.jpg

kyratshooter
06-17-2018, 12:07 PM
Point made. About the only I truly fear around here are ground squirrels. They seem to be on some clandestine mission to undermine all concrete and collapse it. It's a never ending battle to trap them. Muhahahahahahaha. So far I'm ahead but not by much.

Those little suckers are FAST too! No way you can get a bead on them as they move from one hidy hole to anther like something out of a Flash comic.

Something depressing about shooting Chip and Dale too.

Best just to leave out poison and detach from the deed.

JohnLeePettimore
06-17-2018, 05:26 PM
Oh yeah?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmu5sRIizdw

I thought of this, too, but didn't act on it.

theJman
06-20-2018, 10:10 PM
I don't know about down in the lower 48 but black bears up here are little *****es. They will mess with you just to mess with you, unlike grizzlies. Grizzlies and big and bad enough to not have a chip on their shoulders but black bears seem to have the biggest Napoleon Complex. If approached by one, throw rocks or what ever you have to let him know you are not to be messed with. Keep a nice camp fire going. It doesn't have to be big. Keep aware of your surroundings and have fun.

The black bears down yonder way are pretty similar.

I live in the NW corner of NJ so all of my outdoor activities are in this area or the NE section of PA. In these parts black bears are almost as numerous as squirrels, which means lots of them. They have a great sense of smell, and can hear darn near anything, but their eyesight isn't the best. When cutting through the brush I make it a habit of being noisy. I smack my walking stick against trees, whistle, clap my hands, basically anything to make my presence known. No matter what, they still f%^& with me. Kinda like my ex-wife... :nono: