Didn't use enough gun
Thurman Hensley of Grottoes, Va., an experienced hunter, shot an estimated 600 lb black bear with a muzzle loader and it kept going. He pursued it and was joined by two other hunters. In all about six good shots were fired.
The bear had enough, turned on the original hunter and began chewing him up from toes to head. Undeterred, the bear kept chewing while the other men beat the critter about the head with their rifles which smashed.
The chewee jammed his own rifle in the bear's mouth breaking his jaw and teeth.
Mr bear finally died of blood loss.
Mr Hensley, had a dozen operations which saved his limbs.
He thinks a large, open knife would have helped him.
I think 50-110 Winchester 1886 would have done a better job.
The bear had enough, turned on the original hunter and began chewing him up from toes to head. Undeterred, the bear kept chewing while the other men beat the critter about the head with their rifles which smashed.
The chewee jammed his own rifle in the bear's mouth breaking his jaw and teeth.
Mr bear finally died of blood loss.
Mr Hensley, had a dozen operations which saved his limbs.
He thinks a large, open knife would have helped him.
I think 50-110 Winchester 1886 would have done a better job.
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Now theres a bear hunt Story!![:D] 0 -
The Corps of Discovery tried taking on bears with their "smokepoles" and learned a lesson that many hunters today have yet to figgger out. 0 -
See that's why I only hunt bear with a Howitzer. 0 -
"Eventually died from blood loss"
Doesn't that translate into "didn't hit any major organs"?
So, they put some rounds into this 600 pound bear, not hitting any vitals. We're they surprised that it still had the strength to chew them up? I've read stories of several two or three large rifle rounds getting chest hits on 300lb jaguars, and the animal lived long enough to attack and kill its attackers.
I doubt the bear ever read any of Marshall and Sanow's work, so he didn't know he was supposed to fall down. [:D]0 -
Sounds like they needed a Barrett M82A1. 0 -
I knocked a 170+lb 3yr old buck down one time,go outta my stand walked the 100+ yars to him and he jumped up an ran 3/4 mile,I had left my scope on 10x and reslung the rifle and never got a clean second shot. We tracked him with a beagle and found him,when we dressed him his heart was split in two and a lung was jello, it was the year ballistic tips came out and I was impressed with the accuracy in my old 06,I had killed a couple prior that willted in their tracks but both were neck shots,this one was at angle. Im still shooting the 165gr BTs and its never happened again,adrealine is a super strong drug... 0 -
Omg! Thats why I carry a .375 Ruger and a .357 Sig with 2 clips lol I might add a machete to my belt now...:) 0 -
Cardinal rule of bear hunting:
Sometimes you eat the bear.
Sometimes the bear eats you!0 -
Skin thatun pilgrim and I'll fetch you a nuther.[:D] 0 -
Hensley had been looking for this huge bear during bow season but luckily didn't see him. He had to wait till black powder season.
The bear was initially shot behind the shoulder. Because the bear had five inches of fat, the bullets probably didn't penetrate very far into the critter.
One shot was a head shot.
The article was written up in the Charlottesville Hook. WWW.readthehook.com 3/14/07
Unfortunately the rather large article lacked details we wished were included. Maybe some member can get more info.
When Dan'l Boone kilt a bar, I believe he said he used six fingers of powder.
Those boys also carried a large Bowie knife.0 -
As cattle buyer said, you can't always depend on an animal to go down for the count, even with a good shot. You can even get a deer pissed off enough to fight. With a deer, if he's down I generally wait a minute or three before I go up to him, then I take a look at his eyes before I tag him. I haven't had much experience with bears, but enough to know they are smart. 0 -
His first mistake was taking a freaking muzzleloader on a bear hunt.
If you're going to use a muzzleloader, at least have some kind of magnum rifle/pistol nearby so you can at least try to defend yourself when you don't hit any vitals.0 -
Sounded like it was a fair fight if the guy didn't take him out the first time. 0 -
sounds to me like the "hunter" used the wrong bullet and made a bad shot. ol' Dan'l Boone kilt'em with a flintlockbut he knew how to shoot it was the only way he got to eat sometimes [;)] 0 -
I don't think I even need to comment[:D].Dave 0 -
should of had a 357 magnum with em. 0 -
what gun did hachett jack use "to kill the bear that kilt me ", i believe it was a muzzleloader .
lots of arm chair quarter backs around tonite .
is hensley the only guy here with enuf balls to hunt bear with a muzzleloader ?
some guys dont get it ......
some days ur the bug , others ur the windshield ,but
i dont see hensley pissin and moanin on this forum
wrench0 -
Elmer Keith was a proponent of deeply penetrating, heavy bullets for large animals.
It would be informative to find out just what caliber, bullet style and powder charges were used here. The head shot didn't seem to do much but anger the bear into attacking.
I suspect it might have been a hollow point sabot bullet about 45 cal.
Maybe there's more info to be had.0 -
Fifty cal expanding bullets about 350 grains, 90 grains powder.
One shot behind each shoulder and one through the skull behind the ear. Bullets penetrated the lungs but lost a lot of weight travelling through five inches of fat.
The man had many years of experience hunting bear & elk, in the east, west and Canada using bow, rifle and black powder.
Clearly experience couldn't predict what was needed to take the fight out of a 600lb, 7ft black bear who couldn't take a joke.0 -
A 500 mag with 5 rounds of Tyranosaur 700 grain lead heads would have done the trick. 0 -
A 725 grain bullet out of a S&W 500 Mag will do the trick everytime but you still gotta hit him some where that it will do damage. Missing don't help.
Smitty0 -
Did anybody ever get any details on the loads? 0 -
This is what I found.
Dean
Hensley lives to talk about attack by bear
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor
Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.
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Thurman Hensley isn't used to being stuck indoors this time of year.
A lifelong hunter, he usually spends this season in the woods pursuing bears and white-tailed deer around his property bordering Shenandoah National Park near Grottoes.
But being confined to a rented hospital bed beats what could have become of Hensley after he went head to head, literally, with an enormous black bear on Nov. 17.
"He had such horrendous wounds I'm surprised he's still here," Hensley's wife, Jennifer, said Thursday. "He looks like he's been in the water with a shark."
Hensley, a 60-year-old retiree, battled the bear after he shot it with a muzzleloader during a hunt on the family's property.
His scalp, left arm, right hand and left leg were all severely lacerated.
"His leg is the worst," said his daughter, Shea Willis. "It looks like someone just took out a scoop of flesh."
He has too many stitches to count.
"They aren't pretty stitches, either," she said. "They're, 'We've got to get this man back together' stitches."
Except on Hensley's head. A female plastic surgeon worked on a cut above his eye.
"She did way too neat a job," Jennifer Hensley said, chuckling. "I really wanted a scar there."
The women were remarkably upbeat during our phone conversations, impressive after what the family has been dealing with the past couple of weeks.
Thurman Hensley's devastating wounds are just part of it.
The family has also been frustrated by erroneous and sometimes cavalier accounts regarding the attack, and even by nasty whispers by some who have said that Thurman Hensley got what he had coming.
One of those comments came from a man who didn't know he was talking to a Hensley family friend.
"He said he wished the bear had finished the job," Jennifer Hensley said.
Thurman Hensley, you see, isn't a low-key guy.
He's a passionate and successful hunter with, among other things, 17 bear bow kills to his credit. He's also a hard-working land steward who is fiercely protective of the 200 or so acres the family has worked hard to develop into something of a wildlife haven.
Over the years the family has repeatedly called the law on trespassers, including some bear hunters they suspected were involved in illegal bear chases with dogs.
"You either love him or you hate him," Willis said of her dad.
The family wonders if a man who isn't a fan of Hensley helped spread incorrect information regarding the attack, which may have contributed to erroneous accounts.
Early reports said that Thurman Hensley thought the 600-pound bear was dead when he approached it.
That assertion, coupled with the public appearance that Hensley's wounds weren't too serious -- he was listed in good condition during most of his hospital stay -- probably contributed to the lighthearted approach some took regarding the attack.
As in, did you hear about the dumb hunter who, armed only with a single-shot gun, got attacked when he approached a huge bear he thought was dead?
It's not funny, of course. And not true, either.
Hensley knew the bear was alive.
But, his wife says, his vast experience with bears -- including two previous close calls from which he emerged unscathed -- may have contributed to him not being as cautious as he should have been when he tried to dispatch the wounded animal.
"He just thought he would handle the situation," she said. "We've gotten into hairy situations before and always gotten out of it."
When the bear didn't go down after Hensley shot it in its vitals, Hensley made the choice to track it quickly because he was afraid he wouldn't recover the bear if it made it to the park, on which hunting is not allowed.
While tracking the bear he encountered two neighbors who joined the effort.
When they found the bear and shot it again, it still didn't go down. Eventually it ended up in a laurel thicket with just its head showing.
Hensley decided to try to dispatch the bear with a shot to the head from a range of about 30 feet, Willis said. The bullet hit the bear high in the neck. Instead of going down, the bear shot out of the brush and was on Hensley in an instant.
As the bear charged, Hensley raised his left arm to protect his face. He put his right hand in the bear's mouth to try to gag it, having read somewhere that's one way to fend off an attack.
Hensley's friends shot at the bear but one apparently missed, and the other had his muzzleloader misfire.
With no time to reload, they ran up and started hitting the bear with their guns.
"They broke their gun stocks over its head," Willis said.
When the bear turned its attention to the men, they ran. When it gave chase, Hensley was able to roll down the hill and over a small drop. He lay still as the slowing bear returned. When the bear was a safe distance away, Hensley got up and made his way down the mountain.
He was soon being airlifted to the UVa Medical Center in Charlottesville.
During his hospital stay Hensley underwent numerous surgical procedures, and he has already had one skin graft. A ruptured femoral artery after one procedure provided an especially scary moment, the women said.
For the most part, his recovery has been astounding.
"He's a tough old bird," his daughter said.
Hensley even chuckled along with his friends at first when they made bear hunting jokes in an effort to make him feel better.
"After about a day of that," his wife said, "he looked at me and said, 'I can't do any more bear jokes.' "
You can't blame him.
It's hard to find anything funny about what he's been through.0 -
There's some critter's ya just really shouldn't mess with.[;)] 0 -
If I were to hunt black bear, I would't use anything less than a 30 cal. 308, 30-06, 7.62X54R, or any similar (8mm Mauser, 8mm-06, 7.65X53, etc)..... and I would surely have either a 45 or 357 with me as well. I'd consider using a blackpowder CARTRIDGE such as the aforementioned 50-110 or any of the powerful larger BP cartridges, but no muzzleloader. A 45-70 for a modern action rifle loaded to decent specs would be a nice choice as well. And a good sheath knife. Better safe than sorry. Grizzly? I would go for one of them BIG cartridges. Starting around 416 Rigby and going up. No messing around. 0 -
[8D]--This is a really simple story, with all our modern combat/life support/defense systems--
--This MAN was just being an--
AMERICAN
--I congradulate and Admire him--
JIMBO0 -
quote:Fifty cal expanding bullets about 350 grains, 90 grains powder.
If true this may have been part of the problem. Bullets probably expanded and didn't allow adequate penetration. Hunters of large dangerous game use SOLIDS for a reason. A muzzleloader may not be a modern magnum but it has accounted for its share of large game over the years.0 -
Man i would like to get a shot at one of those 300LB JAGUARS with a spear or Bowie knife 0 -
Yeah... Me too !!!!!
Right.
Doug0 -
shoulda used the Savage 10ML. A 250gr pill at almost 2700fps is bad medicine. 0
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