Scrambling hard and fast, I'd managed to get ahead of the bear, and now he was slowly making his way in my direction. Cover and terrain hid him from me for long seconds, and my palms sweated as I gripped the rifle, waiting. Then he was there. Not just close enough, but too close. I raised the rifle, saw little more than fur in the scope, and squeezed the trigger . . .

Wait. We're missing some details. What kind of bear? What was the terrain like? Was it a big bear? The scenario above has happened to me three or four times. Once it was with a large brown bear in snow-covered alders; several other times this has happened with black bears in areas as diverse as North Carolina and Alaska.

Let's try again. The bear was feeding in a little clearing on a brushy hillside. We'd glassed him from afar and had the drop on him, but the brush and terrain were such that a 200-yard shot was the best we could do. I set up my daypack over a handy boulder, laid the rifle across it and took some deep breaths while I waited for the bear to turn. When the shot looked right, I squeezed the trigger.

This second scenario has repeated itself with Alaskan brown bears, mountain grizzlies and quite a number of black bears. For various reasons, a steady, deliberate shot at 200 yards seemed the right thing to do.

There are two important points here. The main one is that, regardless of which bear you are hunting or where you are hunting him, it is difficult to predict exactly what kind of shot you will draw. You need to be ready for anything from a fast shot at bayonet range to a precise, deliberate shot at something beyond 200 yards--or anything in between. The other important thing is that, with minor variations, the two opposite scenarios described above accurately describe circumstances under which I've taken two coastal brown bears, two grizzlies and at least eight black bears. In other words, the prospective bear hunter should be prepared for either extreme.

These two scenarios combine genuine incidents with about a dozen different bears, and in all cases I was successful. Not all resulted in one-shot kills, but in no case did we have to chase a wounded bear. I have also taken a lot of bears in the "middle ground" between, say, 50 and 175 yards--and in that middle ground I have screwed up, sometimes badly. But at the two extremes, very close and much farther out, I have been quite successful. This suggests I have used rifles and cartridges that would handle any shot I might encounter, and that's really what selecting guns and loads for game is all about.

Bears, all bears, are powerful animals that demand your respect, and since big bullets just plain hit harder than smaller bullets, that's the way to go.

BIG BEAR, BIG BULLET
We tend to dwell on foot-pounds when considering a cartridge's suitability for game. But bears, like Cape buffalo, don't understand foot-pounds of energy and aren't particularly impressed by them. Any bear, is an extremely powerful animal whose vitals are well-shielded by tough hide, corded muscles and heavy bones. The problem multiplies exponentially as bears get bigger, so you must use bullets that are tough and will penetrate without fail. The only way to kill a bear is to place the shot so that it will do extensive and irreparable damage to the heart, lungs, spine or brain.

Because of this, I believe in fairly large bore diameters and heavy-for-caliber bullets. If I were to quantify "bear medicine" in terms of foot-pounds, I would rate black bears about the same as elk: I want a good 2,000 ft.-lbs. of energy. On the largest bears, 3,000 ft.-lbs. is a good number--provided you place your shot and use a proper bullet.

I'm still haunted by the handful of lost-game incidents I've experienced in my career, even though a couple of instances go back 30 years or more. I can relate two instances of wounded and lost bears. One was not mine; the rifle was a .270, the bullet a 150-grain conventional softpoint. The presentation was straight broadside, and through the binoculars I saw the impact on the shoulder. From the bear's reaction, and the trail we followed until it ran out, the only possible conclusion is that the bullet failed to penetrate the heavy shoulder bones.

The second instance was mine. I shot a huge brown bear--supposedly on the shoulder--with a 180-grain X-Bullet from a .300 Win. Mag. The bear instantly lurched into the brush, and we followed an ever-diminishing spoor for eight hours, failing utterly when we tried to pick it up again the next day.

There are lessons here, but don't take home the wrong ones. In the first case, the .270 will surely kill black bears, and the 150-grain bullet is the right weight--but on bears you'd better make it a premium bullet that will surely penetrate: Fail Safe, Barnes X, Trophy Bonded Bearclaw, Swift A-Frame, Nosler Partition and the like.

In my own debacle, the .300 Win. Mag. was enough gun, and the Barnes X was surely enough bullet. The simple answer is that I flubbed a simple shot. It is almost certain I didn't hit the bear where I thought I did because he was seen the next season hale and hearty. I will always wonder if a bigger rifle like a .375 might have dealt a heavy enough blow to give me time for a second shot, but the fact remains that a bigger gun won't help if you miss the mark.