Aug 18 Russian river AK a fisherman on the Russian river fires two shots from his 9mm luger and drops 400 to 450lb sow grizzy at 5 feet. After his stupid friend throws shotgun and same bear.

I'll bet he hit some nervous system.

I'm glad that it saved his butt but all I got to say is that he was real lucky.

Yeah, and if I should ( God forbid) get in GRIZZLY trouble on my upcoming caribou hunt, I'm counting on my 9MM to do the same thing..

Well...Actually, it's a 9.3 x 62....

Is there a difference..??... .....

Here is another story where an ordinary handgun was effective in stopping a bear attack.

Where are all the people that said a handgun is useless against a grizzley?

I am certain that someone will say, "Too bad about the bear."

I applaud the valiant fellow who killed this bear. He did the right thing.

I was amazed as well...I'm familiar with the area that he shot the bear, as I fished it several times this summer. I never saw a bear down there (I'm assuming because it was early in the sockeye run, and there were shoulder to shoulder fishermen), I can't believe that 2 rounds from his 9mm put her down...he shot her in the torso, and then put three more rounds into her head. I really can't believe that his buddy threw his shotgun at her! He's lucky he didn't become a victim of social darwinism. I did see a young grizzly while fishing for chum salmon in another area. It sauntered off into the brush when we shouted at it, but hung around the area. 2 hrs later, when I was done fishing, I headed back towards camp. I said hi to the guys on bear patrol as I passed them, which was about 75-100 yds from camp, and right when I stepped foot into camp, the guys lit firecrackers off because that same grizzly had come out of the brush that I had just walked through 2 minutes before and started heading towards camp...the firecrackers scared it off, luckily, and they didn't have to use the shotgun. The scary thing was...I had NO CLUE it was even there when I walked through on my way back to camp. God had his angels camped around me that night!!!!!!

Gentlemen

All american wind about how much of a stopper that 45 acp is compared to a 9X19

A 9X19 is heck of better than your fingernails. I would have choosen a MP5 as 9mm pistol

A 340, 338 or 9,3X64 or 9,3X62 would been more of a gun for bears. A pair of extra jockey's is also a must

/JOHAN

Johann,

I love the .45 and I think I might even prefer the 9mm to the .45 ACP in the grizzly scenario! With 115 grain FMJ or FBI surplus solid copper bullets, that little extra bit of penetration on the shoulder or skull of a big bear might just come in handy. Further, I think I could fire 14 rounds from my FN P35 a whole lot faster than 8 rounds from my colt 1911. God knows that in that scenario I would want to empty the gun as fast as possible.

Regards,

JohnTheGreek

Hairy encounter cures trio of fishing bug!
Anchorage Daily News ^ | Published: August 21, 2002 | By Craig Medred

Posted on 08/21/2002 6:21 PM Pacific by FireTrack

Matt Pennington and Galen Brenner, along with Galen's brother Kalen, learned how to skin a bear the hard way afer Galen and Kalen killed a sow that charged Pennington and the brothers early Saturday morning.

Kenai River -- When a brown bear poked its head over the bluff behind the state's most popular fishing hole just after midnight Friday, 20-year-old Matt Pennington was surprised.

When it came full-bore for Pennington, the surprise turned to shock.

"The speed," he said this week, "that's the part that gets me."

Nervous about bears, Pennington had carried a shotgun on a sling across his back as he and fishing buddies Garen and Kalen Brenner hiked down along the Russian River to near the Kenai ferry crossing earlier that evening.

The shotgun was still there as Pennington stood knee-deep in the water about 100 feet upstream from the ferry landing on the river's south bank. When the salmon run peaks, hundreds of anglers line up shoulder-to-shoulder along this stretch of river.

On this night, though, there was only Pennington, his longtime friends the Brenners and three others.

"I was casting," Pennington said, "and I just happened to turn to the left. I saw (the bear) right there, coming up over the hill. It came right at me at a full run. I yelled, 'Bear, bear, and he's charging.' "

Pennington threw down his fishing rod and began wrestling the pistol-gripped Mossberg, pump-action 12-gauge off his back. He was unsure whether he'd been able to chamber a shell when he realized the bear was almost on him.

With the grizzly at three feet away, Pennington knew he had to do something. But what? He was deadly afraid of pulling the trigger on the shotgun only to hear the thunk of a firing pin falling on an empty chamber.

So he threw the gun in the bear's face and dove for the deep water of the fast-flowing river.

"I tried to stay underwater as long as I could," Pennington said. "It got real deep."

As Pennington submerged, the Brenners were drawing their guns.

Kalen had heard, "Bear, bear," before seeing a blur as Pennington disappeared into the river with the dark shape of the bear close behind.

"It was fast," 21-year-old Garen said. "We didn't hear any footsteps or anything."

"By the time I saw (Pennington) hit the water," Garen said, "I just started shooting.

"Usually I keep the gun in my chest waders, not loaded."

On this night, though, he had decided to fasten the holster to a strap holding up his waders, and the gun was where he needed it.

"We've fished there for years," Garen said. "We've seen bears. They've just never been a problem. They don't usually come over the hill and charge you."

Still, the men knew there was danger. When people in the Grayling Parking Lot at the Russian River Campground asked why they carried firearms, Kalen told them it seemed better to play it safe.

"Me and my brother, we're always looking out for something that's not normal," he said.

This was far from normal.

"(The bear) was five feet away when (Garen) got that first shot off," Kalen said. "That's how fast it was coming."

That Garen hit the fast-moving bear with his handgun was fortunate, he admits. That one of the 9 mm, full-metal-jacket bullets -- woefully inadequate for stopping a charging brown bear -- happened to slam into the socket of the bear's front shoulder might almost be considered a miracle.

That bullet blew up the shoulder. The bear went down, rolled over and spun.

Garen kept shooting, now joined by Kalen. They estimated they fired at least seven shots.

"I pointed my gun at its head and shot three or more times," Garen said. "And we're yelling, 'Matt! Matt! Where are you,' because we didn't know where he was."

"I thought he was drowning," Kalen said.

Pennington wasn't drowning. He was just coming up from his Kenai dive in chest-high neoprene waders, hoping the bear was gone.

It wasn't, or so Pennington thought.

"I saw the second bear, and I thought it was the first one," he said. "I thought it was coming down the river after me."

"I heard him yell, 'Shoot, shoot,' " Kalen said.

Only then did the Brenners realize there even was a second bear.

"It was so dark you could barely see," Garen said. "We saw the bear because it was blacker than the dark, and because it moved."

The second bear ran as Pennington screamed.

"We honestly thought it was a baby we had killed," Garen said.

Larry Lewis, an Alaska Department of Fish and Game wildlife technician, later estimated the weight of the dead bear at 400 to 450 pounds. The Brenners admitted they don't know much about the size of bears, having only seen them at a distance.

"Neither of us have ever hunted or anything," Garen said.

Now, they found themselves with one dead bear they thought was a cub and another growling bear they thought was the sow roaming the area.

Kalen fired several warning shots. The grizzly went back up the bluff, but wouldn't go away.

"It sat there and looked at us," Kalen said. "It was a very angry bear."

Wildlife biologist Bill Shuster with the Chugach National Forest said the other bear was a yearling cub about ready to go off on its own. He estimated its weight at 150 to 200 pounds. Biologists tranquilized that animal and relocated it on Saturday. They now believe there may be a sibling in the area, although the Brenners and Pennington saw only two bears.

Biologists also wonder whether the sow could be the bear that attacked tourist Justin Dunagan of Arizona and his mother, Kathy, along the Resurrection Pass Trail only 11 hours earlier.

The straight-line distance between the two attack sites is only about four miles. Lewis noted it's a coincidence to have two grizzly bear attacks so close together in such a short time.

The Resurrection Pass Trail bear grabbed Justin Dunagan by the arm. He managed to drive it off by kicking at it. The animal then went after his mother. It didn't leave until Justin Dunagan attacked it again with his camera tripod.

The dead bear, Lewis said, has teeth that are 71/4 inches apart, while the tooth marks on Dunagan's arm span 81/2 inches. But biologists aren't sure how much skin distorts when someone is bitten by a bear.

Teeth 71/4 inches apart could compress muscle before puncturing skin, leading to bite marks that appear wider, Lewis said.

Both he and Shuster also note that the size of bears -- adults and cubs -- is hard to judge, which might account for the Dunagans reporting a sow with a small cub while the Brenners and Pennington thought they had a big dead cub and a huge, angry sow threatening them in the darkness early Saturday.

The group started screaming for help. The three other anglers on the bank came to their aid with a flashlight.

"Hats off to them," Kalen said. "They came over to help right away."

"They heard us yelling for help," Garen said. "They didn't even second guess running over there."

He is uncertain of the names of the men, but believes they were G.I.s from Fort Richardson.

"We asked them if they were ready to go (back) up with us," Garen said, "and they didn't hesitate. I know we never walked back to camp as fast as we did that night."

They left a catch of three sockeye salmon on the bank of the Kenai near the bear carcass. They hiked the boardwalk trail along the Russian back to the Grayling Parking Lot, nervously stopping every five or 10 feet to shine the flashlight around.

"I didn't have any adrenaline rush. I didn't have any scared feelings until about five minutes after I shot the bear," Garen said. From then on, he was in a near panic.

"I just wanted to get out of there," he said.

His brother and fishing buddy weren't doing much better.

Pennington, who said he never noticed the cold of the glacial Kenai, started shaking when the group got back to their car and couldn't stop despite getting into clean, dry clothes.

Then they went to report the shooting, which didn't turn out to be easy. The gatekeeper at the Russian River Campground told them he couldn't do anything, and sent them up the road to a Copper Landing business. They had trouble getting a phone to call Alaska State Troopers. Troopers took a report and told them they'd have to be back at the river in the morning to meet a state wildlife official.

"None of us had slept since Thursday," Garen said. "We all worked Friday, and then we did our suicide run down there. We were just exhausted."

Still, they drove back to Anchorage, told the Brenners' mother, Eileen, what had happened, changed clothes, and turned around to drive back to the Russian. Near the Hope Cutoff, a wheel came off their Bronco and the drive came to a skidding halt, but they managed to get that vehicle towed back to Girdwood and find another in order to make it to the river to meet Lewis.

Then they got the big surprise.

"They asked us, 'Do you have your knives?' " Kalen said.

State law requires that anyone who shoots a bear in defense of life and property must skin the animal and deliver the hide, head and paws to the nearest Fish and Game office. The hides are usually tanned and sold at auction.

The Brenners and Pennington had dull knives and no idea of how to skin a bear. It took them hours to get the hide off.

"We had no idea of what we were doing," Garen said. "Knowing what we know now, I don't ever want to go bear hunting."

Then they spent hours searching the river for Pennington's shotgun, but never found it.

The gun didn't show up until Saturday night when a 14-year-old girl fishing with her father snagged it. She pulled it to shore. The father, who knew nothing about guns, picked it up, pointed the barrel in the air and pulled the trigger.

The shotgun went off with a boom. The sound was heard at the ferry landing across the river, leading to fears of another bear shooting. Once it was discovered that was not the case, the ferry staff explained how the gun came to be in the river.

It was returned to Pennington, along with the information that he had, indeed, chambered a shell before the bear got to him and might have been able to shoot instead of throwing and diving.

But then, all added, there's a lot of things they might have done differently.

"We all agreed we're not going to be doing any suicide runs or night fishing anymore," Garen said.

"We escaped with our lives. If we do any more fishing, it's going to be in-town fishing."

Their mother is suggesting angling in downtown Anchorage.

"Ship Creek is fine," Eileen Brenner said.

"Pennington threw down his fishing rod and began wrestling the pistol-gripped Mossberg, pump-action 12-gauge off his back. He was unsure whether he'd been able to chamber a shell when he realized the bear was almost on him.

With the grizzly at three feet away, Pennington knew he had to do something. But what? He was deadly afraid of pulling the trigger on the shotgun only to hear the thunk of a firing pin falling on an empty chamber.

So he threw the gun in the bear's face and dove for the deep water of the fast-flowing river."

I realize that sometimes we do not think clearly in a panic situation, but I do not understand why Pennington was "deathly afraid" to pull the trigger on an empty chamber. For all the longer it would have taken, why not yank the trigger, then jump into the water? It sure would be better than throwing the gun into the bear's face. Pennington is VERY LUCKY that he escaped the bear.

Also, what about the guy who fired the recovered shotgun into the air. He is also lucky. I am sure that if he did not know how to unload the shotgun, he never checked the barrel for obstructions or water. Why are there so many people in these areas which know so little about guns?

cwilson

We just had two hunters out of Ft.St.John that ran into two grizzlies sparring while they were moose hunting. Both bears took after one of the hunters. He shot the one attacking him twice with his hunting rifle, whereupon it began to maul him. The second bear ran off. The hunter's brother then shot the attacking bear another two times to stop it chewing on his brother and to finish it, after which he got his brother to a logging camp, where a chopper took him to the hospital. Obviously, if he had only known of the 9mm's superior killing power on grizzly bears he could have saved himself a lot of pain. Those boys with their little pistol may as well quit buying lottery tickets, they've used up a lifetime of luck already. - Dan

I liked the idea of using an H&K MP-5 as bear protection. Must be about as handy as a sawed off shotgun.

Did I read that the 9mm broke the bears front shoulder? Also, do you think similar results would've been realized on dry land?
I bet the guy that threw the gun is going to kick himself every day for not shooting. Really he should be happy he came out intact. It is amazing what people will do under pressure, especially if working the action of his gun was not practiced enough to be automated. Also, who do you know that carrys an empty chamber then racks the slide as a pheasant flushes? I believe I would've been cocked and locked if I fished there.

So what this proves is that a 9mm worked as a stopper where the shotgun failed what conclusions can we draw??? Maybe get some threads like the Lever Action Threads from the African forum started gabe

Gentlemen

If you want maximum penetration from a 9X19 get Swedish army ammo 39-B (used by navy seals) or israeli IMI submachinegun ammo.

There is also a armour piercing 9X19 made by Namo corp. A MP5 is heck alot faster to change clip than fumbeling shells into a shotgun

/ JOHAN

Johann,

True AP handgun ammo is a bit of a legal problemhere in the states.
I have seen some of the IMI ammo around for sale but it is highly
recommended that it not be used in handguns (a bit hot I imagine).
The best I have ever seen that was 100% legal was the Federal Cartridge
Company's training ammo that was made for the FBI. this stuff used
non-toxic (mercury free) primers and solid copper bullets so agents
wouldn't need to worry about mercury fumes or lead while on the range.
Probably made clean up for the range guys a bit easier too. They loaded
these truncated cone solid bullets to 1350 FPS. Nice and fast but not
so hot that you might do some damage to your SIG, P35, or whatever.
www.ammoman.com used to carry the stuff as I recall and it was pretty
damn inexpensive.

Best Regards,

JohnTheGreek

[ 08-23-2002, 04:59: Message edited by: JohnTheGreek ]

To answer one question someone had, about the guy who's daughter found the shotgun later, and who fired it: Most (95%+?) of the people fishing on this river are NOT locals. They are either tourists from out of state or people from Anchorage. The 3 guys involved in this were from Anchorage, and were not hunters, according to the article.
Also, this all happened at night. Standing in a river, not being able to hear all the sound because of the river's noise. Not being able see clearly, just seeing black hulks. Amazing how so many people on here think they would have handled the situation more calmly.

The long and short of it is, Dont fish in the dark on a river loaded with salmon in bear country!!

(the 9mm slugs fired after the bear went down did not penetrate the skull)

To bad the moron carrying the 9mm got lucky. It is people like this that give hunters a bad name. If they had not been there in the middle of the night they would not had to deal with a mad bear.
Bears rule the night.

I think a Marlin 44mag carbine with 340gr cast bullets would be my companion in bear country.