Posted on 09/21/2011 4:58:40 AM PDT by thackney
A moose hunter attacked by a grizzly bear north of the Denali Highway survived the severe mauling Monday after hiking to his camp, traveling by boat downriver to a wilderness lodge then getting an airlift via Alaska Air National Guard helicopter to an Anchorage hospital.
Donald "Skip" Sanford, 65, was hunting about five miles upriver from the Maclaren River Lodge when the bear attacked, according to Alaska State Troopers.
Sanford had been hunting with his son John, 12, his friend Monty Dyson, 47, and Dyson's son Chad, 22, Dyson said.
Dyson relayed Sanford's story Tuesday by radio phone from the lodge, which sits on the highway 42 miles east of Cantwell.
Sanford walked away from camp Monday about 2 or 3 p.m. to find a hand-held radio he lost earlier, Dyson said.
Sanford was on a game trail when he saw the bear stand up, Dyson said. Sanford backed up, but the bear seemed to circle around him, Dyson said.
Sanford told rescuers he first saw the grizzly about 75 yards away from him, said Joe Snyder, one of the many people at the lodge who helped treat Sanford and get him out of the wilderness. The bear quickly closed the gap between them, Snyder said.
"He turned around and the bear was about 20 yards away, and it was coming at him pretty fast with its head down," Snyder said.
...
Sanford -- a "tougher-than-nails" ex-Marine and a Vietnam veteran, Snyder said -- had just enough time to fire one shot from his .30-06 rifle before the bear grabbed him. The bear's claws dug into Sanford's back, near his kidneys, Snyder said. It bit his head, tearing an ear and leaving deep wounds with its canine teeth at the base of Sanford's skull, Snyder said.
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(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...
Alaskan Moose hunter and a bear ping
stay safe
He shoulda been hunting Grizz. But seriously, isnt this getting to be an epidemic?
Too bad he couldn’t have taken his shot when it was 75 yards away from him.
This guys sounds like a Rambo, the brownies in Alaska are quite formidable in size, if I knew I was in their area I would call in artillery. My heaviest rifle is a .375 H&H with hot Barnes bullets and I still wish for more.
He shoulda been hunting Grizz.Yup.
Wow, lucky (and one heck of a tough) guy. I wonder if getting shot with a .30-06 caused the bear just enough discomfort to make him break off the attack “early”? I’d want something more powerful, but better a .30-06 than nothing!
Backpack found 30 yards from moose carcass. Griz protecting dinner.
Most guides will carry at the least the .338 if they are around brownies in Alaska, the black bear though can be dropped with something much smaller. My mini 14 was sold to me by a guide that used it only for the black bears.
And for those Kodiak grizzlies give me air support! Either that or an autoload 20 or 25mm.
I hear ‘ya! All these bear attacks lately, I don’t think I’d be comfortable hunting rabbits in Alaska with anything less than a grizz gun. Just in case. Kind of ruins any other kind of hunting, though.
This is more evidence that arguing caliber isn’t helpful. How well can you aim at a charging Griz? Hit high center until weapon is empty or griz stops.
As an avid hunter, I do not understand people who hunt in Grizzly country using inferior weapons.
I cannot find the calibers used in the Idaho fatality, but not being able to put a 400 pound grizzly down with multiple shots is an indicator (not proof) that they were using light caliber rifles.
In this story, the hunter had a .30-06, totally inadequate for grizzly.
My old man was seriously injured in the wilderness when I was a kid. He said afterwards, and I took it to heart, maybe to extremes, never go into the wilderness alone. It almost cost him his life and did cost him a leg.
I'd love to go see Alaska. Have wanted to since I was a kid. But I'd definitely want to have a hunting buddy with me!
I live in the Mat Su valley just a bit up the road from Wasilla, a lot of hunters are building aggressive go anywhere hunting buggies up here cobbled from anything and everything.
I have seen them on novice welded frames of old rebar with an old cab of some kind, seen old military trucks with DC-3 tires under them and even myself I am building one possibly this winter. It will be armored for the “just in case” situation of an attacking bear. It will have a carcass winch and a sizable meat chest possibly with refrigeration or just dry ice packs.
The article was excerpted. I was trying to understand why the map was not allowed.
Thank you.
That should work.
That's it, in a nutshell.
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