Real life Bear attack

knzn

knzn

Joined
Jul 20, 1999
Messages
683
No, this is not one of those "favorite knife for a critter attack" post's.

I just read in the new "American Rifleman" magazine, where a 69 year old guy named Gene Moe,fought off a 750lb Brown Bear with his knife! (Maybe Kodiak PA knows him.)

Anyway, he had killed a deer and was in the process of dressing it out, and the bear thought he would take it from him. He couldn't get to his rifle in time, but already had knife in hand.

What knife was it? A Buck 110 folding hunter!

The story says he thrust it into the bears neck, cutting up and down. After some cutting, and punching the bear on the nose, he was finally able to get to his rifle and finish the critter off with three bullets.

Mr. Moe was chewed up some, but wow, what a story!



 
Mr. Moe is my employer's neighbor....Reese said he lays carpet for a living..and is a formidible guy even at his age...
 
I want Mr Moe on my side in a knife/bar/street fight.Bad dude.

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have a"knife"day
 
Mr. Moe was in our hospital last year.

We had an awful berry crop last year on Kodiak. We didn't realize how much the bears rely on salmon berries and many were literally starving. Kodiak bears usually avoid humans and we avoid them. Since the food stocks are so great here, Kodiak bears usually just eat vegetation, berries and lots and lots of salmon. Last year with the depleted berry crop and poor salmon run the bears were forced to look for deer. Deer can avoid bears quite well so the Kodiaks would track down deers killed by hunters what is what happen in Moe's case.

Mr. Moe was carrying a Buck 110 and was field dressing his deer when the bear made his move. The story goes that the 69 year old stabbed the bear 5 times until the bear backed off and then Moe was able to grab his rifle and shoot him. Some question if a 69 year old guy could have really fought a Kodiak brown and during the investigation and subsequent taxidermy it was shown that the bear had 5 stab wounds. Realize this; a Kodiak bear in fall is huge and fat (usually) and ornery. Stabing through all that hair and hid is a formidable task. Moe's bear was a big sow.

We haven't had a documented fatality of a human by a bear in Kodiak for over 65 years until last year. Guess when the first kill occurred? Just a day or two later by another bear.

Moe was recently honored by Buck Knife Company. It would be nice if Mr. Buck would comment here.

Regards from the most beautiful place on earth.

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~Greg Mete~
Kodiak Alaska
 
If only he'd used the Deadly Leatherman Micra he woulda dispatched the bear sooner.

Unable to refrain from self promotion,
I remain,
VG

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Vampire Gerbil: Nosferatus Rodentus Moderatus; similar to a domestic gerbil, except for the odd accent and little black cape.
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Odd Pictures at Photopoint
An assortment of pictures I decided to share with anyone that was so bored they wanted to check out my antics. I did this to prove that I am indeed sane. Be advised that there's hardly any nudity. Feel free to sign the Guestbook!!
Manifesto of Madness
I wrote most of that at work after drinking massive amounts of coffee. I needed to look busy and that dribbled out of my head. There's also a whole bunch of Optical Illusions.
The Deadly and Scary Leatherman Micra Website.
Be warned that the tactics used at that last site are not for the faint of heart!
A Ballistic Knife in Action
Even though the guy in those pictures has the same exact tattoos as me, I have no idea who he is!
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vampiregerbil@aol.com
 
Interesting story. While I'm not a tree-hugger, it is too bad that the bears there in Kodiak had a bad year last year. But, i guess it has happened often enough in the past, and they didn't have any humans to feed them.

From what I hear, from all the habitat encroachment and the drought here on the east coast (USA) last year, the bears (black) were coming into towns in NJ and NY to raid trash cans and be general nuisances. Fortunately (for the bears), NJ pretty much prohibits, or makes it dang near impossible, for people to protect themselves from anything, including bears. Apparently the bears made out OK, and I heard of no fatalities (on either side, IIRC).

I can't imagine fighting off a bear with anything less than, say, a .375 H&H. Mr. Moe must indeed be an ornery old bugger.

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iktomi
 
What else can we say but:

WOW, WAWOOO

etc.

Wadaya call an old geezer like that? Toughs as an old nail...

Try tough as an old buck...
 
Old Geezer
smile.gif
Na sometimes it is only a state of mind.

In the words of George Forman "sometimes old age and treachery win out over youth and enthusiasm"
biggrin.gif


(I have found that statement to sometimes be true especially in white-water)

Gus

(semi-old geezer and still out-surfing the young turks in big holes)

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" I am continually reminded of the rewards of dealing with custom knife makers and the custom knife community." Jeff J.
 
Chuck Buck loaned us his personal videotape of Mr. Moe describing his experience, and we've given it a lot of space in the December Knives Illustrated.
Here's some opening paragraphs as a teaser:
" There are times when all that stands between a man and eternity is the grace of God and a piece of sharpened steel. For Gene Moe that time came on November 1, 1999.
It’s been said that a survival knife is the one you have with you at the time you need to survive. For Moe his survival knife on this day was a Buck 110 folding hunter with scalloped finger grooves.
Like many horror stories, it began as a routine annual hunting trip."
The issue has lots of other good stuff in it too, should be on your newsstands around the first of October. This is the first issue that I had any control over the editorial.
My personal thanks to Chuck for making the article possible.
Bruce Voyles

As for Curt Moe, who shows has the scars to prove his encounter for any doubters...my opinion is a saying I saw on a Forrest tee shirt, "ONCE WAS A MAN". Curt Moe is a man who can define the term. I could only hope to be half as tough at his age--come to think of it I have 20 years on him and I'm not half that tough now.
 
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