read the whole story here.
http://www.outdoorlife.com/outdoor/adventure/article/0,19912,1117013-1,00.html
The Battle Begins
Raspberry has an open grassy top, but at lower elevations moss hangs from big timber in the world?s northernmost rain forest. That year, snows had driven the deer down to the forest. Gene did watch a beautiful buck for 20 minutes, but it spooked before his partner could get a shot. About 2 o?clock, he saw another buck and decided to take it while there was still enough daylight to get it back to Afognak. Steve didn?t show up, so he began skinning it out alone. All the meat was off the carcass and laid out on plastic, and the heart and liver were in his hands when he heard the bloodcurdling roar. His only chance of survival depended on what he could do quickly with the 3¾-inch blade on his Model 110 Buck folding knife. And that chance was rapidly diminishing. Foam does bubble forth profusely from the mouths of excited bears, and this hungry sow was so excited that Gene now saw more foam than head. He could only aim his blade at the center and hope.
The knife slid alongside her head, and the bear bit Gene?s right arm above the elbow, taking out a big chunk of flesh. He could feel her trying to tear off the arm completely. He quickly reached over her head with his left hand to jab a finger in her eye, but came to an ear first and rammed his finger in as hard and far as it would go, then twisted. This experience proved to be so new and so intolerable that she relaxed her grip on his arm and tried to pull away, but Gene?s left arm was over her neck. Thinking he might put her on the ground in a more helpless position, he attempted to bulldog her as he had young bulls during his youth on the farm in Minnesota. Big mistake. She flipped her neck and threw him 8 feet.
Having watched bears doing lots of berry picking and digging, Gene knew she?d swing at him with her right paw. Like humans, the majority of bears are right-handed. This one stood up on her hind legs, arms outstretched in scarecrow fashion, and began circling, picking her moment to end this confrontation. A grizzly can decapitate a cow with one swipe; a Kodiak brown is even bigger, and Gene knew his head would come off a lot easier than a cow?s. He was also certain that she was standing on her hind legs to place that right paw at the best level to accomplish this. He tried to move closer to his rifle while focusing his eyes on nothing but that right paw. He saw it coming the instant it started. And at that same instant, he jerked his head back the way a boxer dodges a right hook. She missed, but came close enough that one claw split his ear and almost tore off the earlobe.
Since that failed, she dropped to all fours, hit his legs and knocked him on his back. She?d be on top of him next, bouncing or biting to crush his ribs or skull, so he jerked both heavily booted feet together and kicked upward with all his strength as she came flying in. The collision knocked her off to the side, and Gene leaped to his feet.
She began circling him again, and like a prizefighter up against a taller man with a longer reach, Gene knew that he had to get inside that right paw to survive. She was beating him to death. She came at him fast on all fours, and this time Gene was stepping off with his left foot, right foot still on the ground, as the paw started to swing. The paw missed and swung around his back, so she bit a large chunk out of his right leg above the knee instead. The pain was severe, but now Gene was inside the right front paw and against the bear?s shoulder with his left arm over her neck. His right arm had no feeling, and flesh from above the elbow hung down to his fingers. He reached over the neck and stabbed four times as hard as he could. Then, changing tactics, he moved closer to the jaw to slice the neck so he could push his knife and fist into the cut to stab deeper.
Standing Tall
The sow tried to stop Gene by raising him off the ground with her right paw. He hung on and kept cutting the hole deeper, but he couldn?t hold her when she dropped him to push away with both front feet. Nevertheless, before her head pulled out from under his left arm, he managed one more hard stab into the deep slash near her jaw. Blood squirted all over them both. Immediately, this Kodiak brown wanted a breather between rounds and circled out beyond the little arena of beaten-down snow.
Noticing that some of the fight was going out of her, Gene yelled, ?Bear, the Lord?s on my side, so come on!?
She did. And as she ran, Gene could see blood still gushing from the cut nearest the jaw. He also noticed that her head was cocked oddly sideways, suggesting that the last stab had probably gone deep enough to injure a vertebra. Terribly battered with loose skin and flesh hanging from his arm, claw gashes in his shoulders, and painfully dragging his right leg, 6-foot 3-inch Gene tried to stand tall and move toward her looking as menacing as possible. He would not allow her the added confidence of thinking the fight had gone out of him.
Whatever she thought, it did not stop her from charging?though not with the speed demonstrated earlier. All Gene had left now was a little prayer and the advice of a dog-musher friend who said a blow to the nose from a light club he carried would stop nearly any animal. Gene drew back his left fist, and as the bear leaped at him, he threw the hardest punch of his life. He missed the nose, but struck her cocked head just under the eye. The impact of the punch combined with the momentum of the 750-pound brown was so powerful that his arm and hand went white and he had no feeling left in the knuckles. The sow?s head twitched, and she bared two front teeth that were still covered with Gene?s ?meat,? as he tells it, before suddenly dropping with her paws under her body. Her cocked head straightened with the blow, and her nose pulled downward during her fall, ramming it into the moss. She lay motionless.
Crawling for Help
Gene had seen so many animals go down that he knew it?s a brain or spine shot when one drops with its feet under it. Hit other organs, it will go down with its feet or legs out from under its body. He believed this one was dead from damage he had inflicted to the spine with his knife and fist. But he wasn?t taking any chances; he stepped back to get his rifle. Before he could shoot, however, he had to first free his hand of the knife?but found he couldn?t relax his grip. Eventually, he was able to pull his fingers from the knife with his teeth, but then the loose skin and flesh from his arm fell over the scope of his rifle. Finally, he managed to raise the rifle high enough to get the flesh off to the side, and then lower it to shoot the bear twice in the chest.
http://www.outdoorlife.com/outdoor/adventure/article/0,19912,1117013-1,00.html
The Battle Begins
Raspberry has an open grassy top, but at lower elevations moss hangs from big timber in the world?s northernmost rain forest. That year, snows had driven the deer down to the forest. Gene did watch a beautiful buck for 20 minutes, but it spooked before his partner could get a shot. About 2 o?clock, he saw another buck and decided to take it while there was still enough daylight to get it back to Afognak. Steve didn?t show up, so he began skinning it out alone. All the meat was off the carcass and laid out on plastic, and the heart and liver were in his hands when he heard the bloodcurdling roar. His only chance of survival depended on what he could do quickly with the 3¾-inch blade on his Model 110 Buck folding knife. And that chance was rapidly diminishing. Foam does bubble forth profusely from the mouths of excited bears, and this hungry sow was so excited that Gene now saw more foam than head. He could only aim his blade at the center and hope.
The knife slid alongside her head, and the bear bit Gene?s right arm above the elbow, taking out a big chunk of flesh. He could feel her trying to tear off the arm completely. He quickly reached over her head with his left hand to jab a finger in her eye, but came to an ear first and rammed his finger in as hard and far as it would go, then twisted. This experience proved to be so new and so intolerable that she relaxed her grip on his arm and tried to pull away, but Gene?s left arm was over her neck. Thinking he might put her on the ground in a more helpless position, he attempted to bulldog her as he had young bulls during his youth on the farm in Minnesota. Big mistake. She flipped her neck and threw him 8 feet.
Having watched bears doing lots of berry picking and digging, Gene knew she?d swing at him with her right paw. Like humans, the majority of bears are right-handed. This one stood up on her hind legs, arms outstretched in scarecrow fashion, and began circling, picking her moment to end this confrontation. A grizzly can decapitate a cow with one swipe; a Kodiak brown is even bigger, and Gene knew his head would come off a lot easier than a cow?s. He was also certain that she was standing on her hind legs to place that right paw at the best level to accomplish this. He tried to move closer to his rifle while focusing his eyes on nothing but that right paw. He saw it coming the instant it started. And at that same instant, he jerked his head back the way a boxer dodges a right hook. She missed, but came close enough that one claw split his ear and almost tore off the earlobe.
Since that failed, she dropped to all fours, hit his legs and knocked him on his back. She?d be on top of him next, bouncing or biting to crush his ribs or skull, so he jerked both heavily booted feet together and kicked upward with all his strength as she came flying in. The collision knocked her off to the side, and Gene leaped to his feet.
She began circling him again, and like a prizefighter up against a taller man with a longer reach, Gene knew that he had to get inside that right paw to survive. She was beating him to death. She came at him fast on all fours, and this time Gene was stepping off with his left foot, right foot still on the ground, as the paw started to swing. The paw missed and swung around his back, so she bit a large chunk out of his right leg above the knee instead. The pain was severe, but now Gene was inside the right front paw and against the bear?s shoulder with his left arm over her neck. His right arm had no feeling, and flesh from above the elbow hung down to his fingers. He reached over the neck and stabbed four times as hard as he could. Then, changing tactics, he moved closer to the jaw to slice the neck so he could push his knife and fist into the cut to stab deeper.
Standing Tall
The sow tried to stop Gene by raising him off the ground with her right paw. He hung on and kept cutting the hole deeper, but he couldn?t hold her when she dropped him to push away with both front feet. Nevertheless, before her head pulled out from under his left arm, he managed one more hard stab into the deep slash near her jaw. Blood squirted all over them both. Immediately, this Kodiak brown wanted a breather between rounds and circled out beyond the little arena of beaten-down snow.
Noticing that some of the fight was going out of her, Gene yelled, ?Bear, the Lord?s on my side, so come on!?
She did. And as she ran, Gene could see blood still gushing from the cut nearest the jaw. He also noticed that her head was cocked oddly sideways, suggesting that the last stab had probably gone deep enough to injure a vertebra. Terribly battered with loose skin and flesh hanging from his arm, claw gashes in his shoulders, and painfully dragging his right leg, 6-foot 3-inch Gene tried to stand tall and move toward her looking as menacing as possible. He would not allow her the added confidence of thinking the fight had gone out of him.
Whatever she thought, it did not stop her from charging?though not with the speed demonstrated earlier. All Gene had left now was a little prayer and the advice of a dog-musher friend who said a blow to the nose from a light club he carried would stop nearly any animal. Gene drew back his left fist, and as the bear leaped at him, he threw the hardest punch of his life. He missed the nose, but struck her cocked head just under the eye. The impact of the punch combined with the momentum of the 750-pound brown was so powerful that his arm and hand went white and he had no feeling left in the knuckles. The sow?s head twitched, and she bared two front teeth that were still covered with Gene?s ?meat,? as he tells it, before suddenly dropping with her paws under her body. Her cocked head straightened with the blow, and her nose pulled downward during her fall, ramming it into the moss. She lay motionless.
Crawling for Help
Gene had seen so many animals go down that he knew it?s a brain or spine shot when one drops with its feet under it. Hit other organs, it will go down with its feet or legs out from under its body. He believed this one was dead from damage he had inflicted to the spine with his knife and fist. But he wasn?t taking any chances; he stepped back to get his rifle. Before he could shoot, however, he had to first free his hand of the knife?but found he couldn?t relax his grip. Eventually, he was able to pull his fingers from the knife with his teeth, but then the loose skin and flesh from his arm fell over the scope of his rifle. Finally, he managed to raise the rifle high enough to get the flesh off to the side, and then lower it to shoot the bear twice in the chest.
