"Biography of a Grizzly" by Ernest Thompson Seton. A great story for youngsters- I read it several times while growing up.
Dan Quillian's grizzly story gives me the willies every time I think about it. He was in Alaska, hunting with an old friend who was a guide. After several days of hunting, his friend made a quick trip to town for supplies, and Dan decided to go out solo to a nearby salmon stream that the bears had been frequenting. Dan had an open wound on the bottom of his foot from a hospital staph infection that didn't want to heal because of his diabetes, so he was hobbling around, only able to hunt for short distances. On this afternoon, he climbed a high bank over the stream to stand watch. When darkness was approaching, he saw salmon coming back downstream, spooked by something. A short while later he heard footsteps in the water, sounding much like a human wading downstream, but it was a huge barren sow, big enough to make P & Y. He waited, standing very still, while she walked past at 15 yards. He put his big Snuffer through her lungs, slightly quartering away, getting penetration to the skin on the off side. When the arrow hit, she "whoofed" and jerked her head around, looking for whatever had just happened. Dan froze in place, hoping that she didn't see him. With no backup he wouldn't have had a chance. She crossed the stream and headed for bush, and Dan put a second, but nonlethal, arrow into her. It was rapidly getting dark, so Dan backed off and waited 'till morning, when he and his guide found her less than 100 yards from where he had shot her. She squared at about 8 1/2 feet.
He said she was so big and so close it was like shooting a bus!
Topic: grizzly stories? (Read 778 times)
