Ep. 95: Dealing With Large Predators
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As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days in the field. This show is about translating my hard-won experiences into tips and tactics that'll get you closer to your ultimate goal, success in the field. I'm Remy Warren. This is Cutting the Distance.

Really, if you spend any amount of time out in the wild, out hunting, maybe even just out recreating, fishing, whatever, you'll inevitably find yourself in country with large predators. And while you might not see them, they're probably there. While I don't necessarily consider many of them extremely dangerous, there are certain precautions that should be taken. This week on the podcast, I'm going to be covering the different species of large predators you might encounter, as well as the potential threat they may provide.

We'll talk about ways to keep dangerous interactions to a minimum and the best options for defense. But before we do that, I want to tell you the story of a few different encounters with one of North America's stealthiest predators. Now, I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about Puma Concalor, the mountain lion.

I'll tell you what, if I just think of all the predators in North America, I'm absolutely the one that excels in stealth has to be the mountain lion. I've had quite a few encounters over the years with mountain lions. I have actually lost count of how many I've seen just out and about. I know there's people that say like, oh, if you've seen a

mountain lion, there's probably too many mountain lions because they are so stealthy. Many people might go their entire life hunting and never see one. I think I've, I wouldn't even know. I've probably seen over a hundred just out while glassing encountered them. Um, one day I actually saw eight in one day, but I've, uh, I've been in areas where there are lots of mountain lions. I've encountered quite a few of them and probably have 20 good stories, but none of them are those, um,

uh, attack type stories that everyone wants to hear. They're just encounters with mountain lions, but I think that there's definitely something to be learned with each one of these types of encounters. Uh, this one year I was actually hunting down in Arizona or late season archery hunting, coos deer, javelina was walking back toward camp. And the place I was hunting was like in these mountains and there's these big washes that kind of worked their way back into the flats where I was camped out in the flats. So I was walking through and I

walking down, I looked down, I'm like, oh, sweet. There's some tracks here. I was like, ooh, and then big drag mark, like investigating and I see lion tracks dragging something. So of course, it's,

curious nature that I am. I'm like, maybe it got a deer. Maybe there's going to be a rack there. Maybe it got a cow. There's a lot of free range cattle. Just figured I'd investigate. So I start following the drag and it ends and I'm like, oh, okay. So there's like this grass and I'm looking around and I see this kind of like, it took me a while to see it, but there's this dead calf, like a beef calf.

And it's covered up with brush, like the cat had covered it up. And mountain lions will do that a lot. They'll kind of like stash their cash, their kill. They'll cover it up to try to keep other predators and things from getting it. And so I'm like, oh, sweet, that's cool. So I figure I'll just take some pictures. So I'm bent down, getting into my pack. And I've got my camera just at the bottom of the pack. It's just covered up with a bunch of crap, you know, jacket, whatever, gear, just all kinds of stuff. So I'm digging down there and I look, I kind of like,

something didn't feel right. I don't even know what it was. I look up and at the same second, like I kind of lock eyes with this cat, maybe five feet away, crouched down. He luckily jumps off the other way. My heart was racing. I was like, oh, I mean, I'm bent over, like not paying attention. And this thing is two arms length away. I probably could have like literally just

jumped and got it with a knife. If I was like trying to, it was like, if it was a deer or is this like, it was right there that close, it could have easily just jumped up and grabbed me. Luckily though, I think I had, I mean, there's kind of some sticks and other stuff in the way. And it was just, I, it had probably heard me coming, moved off the kilt, crouched down and just went completely unnoticed, completely unseen, just a few feet away. And I didn't even notice it was there.

had I, that cat wanted to make me dinner, it easily could have because of the way that it used its stealth and the way that I approached that situation, just kind of like didn't see it and really couldn't see it. Um,

He was just laying down that close and luckily jumped to the other direction. That kind of story, it just, it kind of reminded me of how stealthy some of these large predators are. When you're talking about large predators, I'm kind of thinking of mountain lions, black bears, wolves, grizzly bears, you know, as the primary ones that we have in North America.

I guess it would have been last year. Yeah, probably 2020 beginning of it before the whole world kind of slowed down. A friend of mine and I were out chasing mountain lions and we met up with these guys that had a bunch of dogs and houndsmen. And so we were just looking to try to cut some tracks and maybe chase some cats. So toward the end of the day, one of the guys had cut some tracks and

So custom tracks, turn out the dogs, pretty good size pack of dogs and they're running the track and,

cat went, somehow went down and, and then kind of the dog started to get all confused and lost the scent, lost the track. It was probably there earlier in the day, really heavy winds that day, super cold temperatures. And I think that it kind of lost a little bit of the scent. So we went back to kind of figure out, okay, what was this cat doing? Where did he go? So we start following the track and then that kind of track split off into another cat track. So they

there's a really big tom track and then another track that went away maybe it was probably a smaller female so we're just following these tracks out while the other guys are trying to get the dogs and i followed the one tracks the cat tracks up and a lot of times when you're following tracks in the fresh snow sometimes you might jump the cat sometimes you'll find you know a kill i found quite a few kills this way sometimes you'll find lines sometimes you'll never catch up to them and that's why it's always a lot easier to find them with dogs so

following the tracks and they split off and some of the other guys went down. I went up and then my tracks kind of went back down to where they were. So they rounded up a few of the dogs and I see them all down there and the dogs are kind of working and doing their thing. So I walked down and I lost kind of the track in the, where the snow had burnt off and was wind blown. So I just dropped down to go talk to those guys. I'm like, you know, we're all sitting around talking and the dogs are running around all over the place. And

And then all of a sudden, one of the dogs, after they'd been working this area, maybe 50 yards away from us, boom, jumps a cat pretty much like between six of us. That cat had just been there that whole time, laid down, sitting there watching us. The dog chased it into the cliff. We got to watch the whole jump and everything. It was pretty cool. It's cool to watch the dogs work. And it's just really to see how these animals react. And one thing that it just reminded me is how stealthy

So many of these animals are, I don't know how many times I've checker hunted in this particular Canyon or canyons nearby. And it makes you think how many times am I walking past these animals and never knowing that they're there. They're just laying down, watching, hanging back. And of course they aren't super aggressive, which is, you know, pretty good for us as hunters, because if they had the temperament of a, I would say of like an African leopard, we'd all be in trouble, but for sure, they're definitely more of a shy predator.

They use their stealth to be successful, but it goes to show that even when you're looking for them, even when you know that they're right in there, they can just hunker down and essentially be invisible. And because of that, I've really come to the realization that throughout our day-to-day in hunting scenarios, more often than not, we're probably encountering these things and never know it. We don't see them, but they might see us, or we just don't cross paths in a way that we have an encounter, but they're definitely in a lot of the areas that we hunt.

One of the main reasons that I wanted to talk about large predators and encounters and what to do and what to expect is because it's a question that I get so much. It's a question that I get a lot. It's a question, I think primarily it comes from people that maybe didn't grow up or aren't familiar with hunting in areas where there are large predators. The thought of being somewhere where there's something that could eat you, attack you, harm you in some way can be scary. It can be like,

You might think back and be like, okay, I don't really know what to think, what to do. How real is this situation? How should I...

I think a lot of people that maybe have hunted, you know, central United States or hunted the farm behind their house their whole life or something like that, where you haven't had these type of encounters regularly. It makes a lot of sense to want to ask these kinds of questions. So I think that it's really good to take the time to talk about it. And I know that I have in the past, I think it was even pretty early on in the podcast. You could always go back, listen to episode two is just pretty much focused on hunting

brown bears, grizzly bears, and how to be safe. But a lot of people have asked, okay, I've heard about brown bears. I've heard about grizzly bears. What about everything else that's out there? There's wolves, there's lions, there's black bears, there's brown bears. So it seems like there's a lot of predators, a lot of things with teeth that are always out to get you. And while it might seem like that,

From my experience, you know, I think about it in two ways. I think that you should not necessarily worry about it, but I also think that you should be informed and have a plan and be safe because there, it definitely can be a real threat, but it's not necessarily something me personally, I think about every second of every day. You know, if I, I mean, I was trying to do a little bit of research and just see like, when it comes to mine, let's talk about maybe even just ranking some of the predators and the type of threat that they are.

For wolves is one that, you know, they're in most Western states. They're very vocal. You hear them in the area. It can be a pretty eerie sound. I've actually been in a pack of, I think it was 13 wolves. I never really...

was afraid for my safety. But, you know, when I think about it, I've never actually really heard of wolves killing anybody recently or really having any, I mean, there's been encounters, but nothing that seems even very aggressive. So on the list of like threats and predators, wolves is really at the bottom of my list. I did have an encounter with two wolves one time, but I think it was just more happenstance than anything. I was going down this trail in Idaho, it was like this logging trail and

I was hunting, I think it was the spring, yeah, spring bear season. It was this really overgrown logging trail. I think it was over in the Lock Saw area or something. Pretty high wolf populations. This is before they had a wolf season. And I was walking down this trail and all of a sudden I see kind of like the grass and brush moving in front of me. And it was just happened so fast. And it was within a second, a wolf within kicking distance, not quite kicking distance because I tried to kick. It was like this,

All of a sudden, something running at me really fast. I just didn't really... At first, I didn't really know what it was because it was so thick. I go, hey! And kind of like tried...

make a big motion toward it and I was going to kick it if I could, but it all happened so fast. I wasn't thinking this, it was just like a gut reaction. Hey, you know, and it ran off the trail and I had my gun on my shoulder and I pulled my gun off and another one was coming down the trail just as fast right at me. So I just shot into the ground right in front of me.

And that muzzle brake noise, that anything that was going to come running after that was gone. I don't think that that wolf was trying to attack me. I mean, it was running in, it kind of had like a little smile on its face. It seemed like from what I remember in that quick glance of like seeing it running in. But it was more, I think that there was just two wolves kind of like chasing each other for the most part playing. But, you know, I won't know. I mean, I kind of stepped in and yelled and made some movements and

Who knows? Maybe it thought I was a different kind of animal and was running in to check it out. But for me, it seemed like they were chasing each other. And I just thought, you know, it's just something that happened and scared him off and great. No problems. I wouldn't even say that it was even scared. It was just more of like, I was startled by something running at you. Now the next one on the list would probably be a lion. I looked it up. There's probably been like maybe the past hundred years, 125 attacks, 27 of them fatal. Um,

Seems like most of the recent ones are in places that don't allow mountain lion hunting, mostly California. California actually has a lot of mountain lions. If you think about it, you're like, okay, that's not a lot. But also, anytime, in my opinion, when we're talking about large predators and attacks, well, it's not a lot in comparison to numbers of people going outside and recreating, but it's also...

Those are the people that are getting attacked. If you aren't outside doing these things, you will have zero encounters with mountain lions, black bears, brown bears, whatever. So because we're hunters, we're acting as prey or what those animals would see as prey oftentimes, we're probably ones that put ourselves at the most risk. It seems like a lot of the attacks are people on bikes, people that, you know, maybe on hikes or other things in areas where

The animals might not have as much food source or kind of mistake people for prey. But I don't think that very many mountain lion attacks are like brown bear attacks where it's more like provoked and a non-predatory response, which actually is kind of scarier. When they think you're prey, they're treating you like prey as opposed to startling one and then defending its turf. It's more going to be something where it's stalking you, sneaking in and making its attack because they are so sneaky.

But still, you know, mountain lions, I think that there's a lot of them around. I think that you probably don't encounter them. They're very reclusive. They're very shy. They're very timid.

That's just the nature of their species. And I'm very thankful for that. There's a lot of other large cats that don't have that temperament. Jaguars in particular, African lions, tigers, just like other random leopards that have kind of a completely different temperament. Whereas mountain lions are very timid, very shy, whether that's, um, just how they are, or maybe that's the fact that maybe they were, uh,

chased enough to fear people or larger predators. I don't really know, but I do know that they're just general temperament. Even when backed into a corner is not to attack, it's to try to scare, but mostly backing up, backing up, backing up. They aren't really the type that likes to be aggressive. Now, the next one on the list would be black bears. And if you're like a threat, you see black bears higher of a threat than mountain lions. And

I'd say, yeah, probably. I mean, I was looking and it's hard to find some of these statistics and I don't necessarily know if any of them really matter, but you know, on average, maybe the past 20 years, there's probably been like, from what I've seen a couple of places, maybe up to 25 deaths from black bears. So that's greater than one per year. So it's a real, it's a real thing. And

I think black bear is probably because there's so many of them. There's higher populations of them. They're in a wider range of places and they're encountered in day-to-day life. And they're also kind of the things that provoke bear attacks might be

more common. There are more people in bear country that contains black bears, black bears. You know, I would say if you're ever going to be attacked by any kind of bear, it's probably over a couple of things. It's going to be a sow protecting cubs or,

or getting between a food source and them. And many times that's a human provided food source. Maybe somebody didn't take care of their trash properly, that bears a fed bear, and then he becomes territorial over that trash can. So it's something that's like interacting around people's homes, interacting in places where there's a lot of people and a lot of people that might not even be prepared. There's also...

I've seen black bears in just random places that seem very comfortable. People get comfortable with them and then they do stupid things. They get too close. Maybe they see it. They're like, oh, look at this cute little cub. And then there's the mama bear there. Now, many of those kind of encounters might not necessarily be fatal, but they are encounters. They can be negative encounters. And then you can find those negative encounters in the wild. I've heard stories. I know two people that have been attacked by black bears recently.

One was hunting in California. I just kind of heard the story secondhand from someone else, archery hunting and got charged and scrapped up a bit. And then another person, a friend of mine's cousin was guiding and river guiding in Idaho and she got pulled out of her tent while sleeping.

So those are the kind of encounters that really freak people out. And I think that those are kind of encounters that, you know, when you're thinking about being out there alone, being out in a new environment, those are the things that are running through your mind like they constantly happen. But I do think that black bears actually are a real threat, whether it's life, you know, maybe there's more encounters that aren't life-threatening, but a lot of encounters are.

The plus side is black bears are fairly timid when it comes to bear species compared to the next one that we talk about, brown bears. Black bears, they like to do the bluff charge. They like to swat at trees. They like to huff and let you know that they're there because they don't really want to have that negative encounter. They're just trying to say like, I'm here. I don't want to mess with you, but I'm trying to scare you away. And then the next one would be brown bears. And these are a legit thing.

I would say threat. They're the highest in lethal encounters and they aren't really to be messed with. I don't really think any of the large predators are to be messed with, but if you're in brown bear country, you definitely need to use certain precautions. Then hunters are really going to be the ones that are going to encounter them the most. You're dealing with meat, you're dealing, you're

walking off trails in their territory, you're being quiet, you're letting them know you're there. And so because of that, I would say that that would be your largest threat.

But even if you aren't in brown bear country, there are other large predators that you should consider and just kind of take things into consideration on how to be safe, how to do things safe. And if you're uncomfortable, how to be prepared in case you need to defend yourself. You know, I was thinking about it and I was like, man, I could dive into statistics and be like,

tell you all the bear attacks, this, that, and the other thing and get the exact numbers of... And honestly, it doesn't mean jack shit because when it comes down to it, you just have to ask yourself, are you uncomfortable? And if you are, then you need to take certain precautions to make yourself comfortable. And then the other question you got to ask yourself is, are you being stupid? Are you in a place where...

There is a real potential danger and you just are ignoring it. So I think that you need to find that balance between thinking you're going to get attacked behind every tree and being completely stupid, going to sleep in grizzly country on top of a carcass. You know, there's just like a good balance between that.

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From what I gather, and I think that like you could probably ask 500 people their opinions on these things and you'll probably get 500 different answers. And I think that like in my opinion, I just like to let people know these are my opinions. I don't think that if anybody claims that they're an expert on like what to do and how it happens and all that stuff, I think that they're just like

It's not actually 100% truthful. You know, everybody's got their own opinions on things. And these are just kind of some of my opinions. But I think that the best way to kind of like, it's like, well, what's the best course of action? And that's just preparation to avoidance.

You know, you have to use certain amount of caution when you're out hunting. It doesn't matter what you're doing. You're going to be out there. And so you kind of need to always in the back of your mind, be thinking about being cautious. And one thing that I kind of consider is like,

you know, I'll go through kind of my list of places where you're especially cautious. And it's like set up with caution when you're calling or acting like prey. So you're a hunter, you're, you're, you're trying to mimic things that large predators eat, mountain lions, eat them, wolves, eat them.

Um, bears eat elk deer. If you're crawling around calling and mimicking those animals, you will probably have encounters with the things that eat those animals. If you do it enough times while hunting elk, I have called in wolves. I have called in mountain lions and I have called in bears.

it's something that's going to happen. But as I'm moving, I'm always, well, I'm always paying attention to try to find and make sure I'm not seeing elk. But if I'm going to set up calling for a long time, I generally like to set up like I would, which is good for a hunting scenario with something at my back and somewhere where I can see a little bit, because it's actually the best way for if that, whatever I'm calling comes in. But it's also something you think about that

Hey, it's a real thing that I could call in an animal. There's been times where I've called in mountain lions that are literally stalking up to the call. And it's those kind of things where you're like, okay, I'm glad I'm paying attention. I'm glad I'm aware that this is a thing because, hey, I'm acting like something that they're eating. It's not like they're in there to try to kill me as a human. They're just in there to get a meal and they think that I am that meal. In that scenario, I generally...

Unless I'm trying to kill a really big bull. Generally let them know that I'm there and try to get them to go away. The next one would just be like, it goes to say you should do this all the time. Be aware of your surroundings. When you're hiking, look around. When you are in an area that's thicker timber or more likely a large predator's den,

bedroom. When I'm in grizzly country, you know, when I'm walking through really thick stuff where I smell something dead or I'm, you know, I'm using my nose, I'm using my eyes, I'm using my ears. When things don't add up, when things don't seem right, when something seems like, hey, this is a, an area where there will be a large predator or a high likelihood of that. I use extra caution. I pay attention. I'm not walking with my head down. I'm not going and trying to do stupid things. I'm just kind of being aware of my surroundings.

Another thing that I do for avoidance is just to kind of keep a clean camp and don't invite trouble. So I generally, even if I'm in like black bear country and there's no grizzlies around, or I'm in an area where I know that there's like a high density of some kind of, you know, mostly black bears, um,

I still keep a clean camp. I hoist my food up into a tree. I don't generally keep like things in my tent. You know, you might think like, well, they smell this sack of meat sleeping in the tent. But for the most part, you know, when a bear catches your wind, think about when you're hunting black bears, as soon as they catch your wind, they're gone. Even when you're hunting brown bears or whatever, when they catch your wind, they're out of there because they still know that humans are predators to them.

or in some way they know that. And so they generally don't like that kind of trouble. But if they smell something that's kind of like an easy food source for them, something sweet, like I generally keep my toothpaste and my other stuff out of my tent, like in my bag. I love to bring Snickers bars. If they smell my 500 Snickers bars inside my tent, I'm using it as a pillow. Like that's generally not a smart thing to do. There are times where I do keep stuff close to my vestibule or whatever. So it's like if...

I did hear something or whatever, I would think that my human scent would spook him away and I could scare him away if I've got something to defend myself with. Great. But I generally don't try to invite trouble as far as like having meat and cooked stuff poured out, like bacon grease poured out inside my camp. Like I'll go to a safe place and get rid of things that might really attract bears because you don't want to feed something and then cause trouble by

It going for food that thinks it's it's food. And you're like, this is my food. And then there's a problem. Then there's an encounter. One thing I like to think about is like instances are rare. You could look at all the statistics, but really as hunters were in those high likelihood places. So if something were to happen, it'd be to somebody out there in their environment.

You know, you read about statistics of bear attacks and you can look at it from any group side, but the groups that are like bears don't attack, they love people. And it's really, you're more likely to get struck by lightning 20 times than attacked by a bear. It's like, yeah, that's true. If you live in a city and you never encounter bears, but if you live in rural

Wyoming and you spend the majority of your fall in the wilderness, you're probably highly likely to encounter a bear. And based on what you're doing, carrying meat, shooting an elk in their home, in their turf, the odds are a lot higher that you're going to have an encounter and potentially a negative encounter. So for the people, everybody else in the world, yeah, it's great. But for us who are out there all the time,

Yeah, you probably have a higher likelihood of those instances. And because you have that high likelihood, you kind of have to just throw those statistics out the window and say, am I in an area that's highly likely that I'll encounter a predator? And if so, I need to be prepared for the worst case scenario.

I think the last thing that you want to do as well is just listen to your instincts. I've told this story before, I don't know if on this podcast, but humans, we definitely have this instinct to know when something's not right. We, I don't know if it's something we hear, something we smell, something we see, something just makes the hair on the back of our neck stand up. Sometimes maybe it's in our head, but oftentimes it's worth listening to that instinct of

A few years ago, my wife was with me and we, for our outfitting business, we stay in this little tiny cabin. We've got like our lodge, our bigger cabin down the way across, across the field. And she was going out to cook and it was like really early in the morning, you know, probably like 3.30, 4 a.m., something like that, pitch black out, no moon.

And she started to go out and she came back in and she was like, I don't feel right. I feel like something's watching me. I'm like, okay, well, maybe you're scared, whatever, but it doesn't like, I don't know. Sometimes you just get that weird feeling like you're being watched. And I'm like, yeah, I'll walk you over. So I grabbed a flashlight and, you know, walk her over to the cabin and walk back.

I didn't really think anything of it. And I got my flashlight and I look and right there, maybe, I don't know, five feet off the cabin is mountain lion tracks crouched down. And she wouldn't have been able to see it where the railing was, but it was like crouched down right there in the fresh snow feet away from where she had gone out the door.

And it probably didn't slink away until she'd come back in would be my guess. It was like definitely in that you could see the tail, you could see the paws, you could see everything. And I'm like, wow, you know, that was whether she heard something she didn't know, but she just felt like something was off. Something made her feel scared. And she was like, I'm not going to walk down that path.

And it was a good thing. Who knows what would have happened, but, you know, listen to those instincts because there was, unbeknownst to her, a mountain lion in a very close proximity to where she was going to be.

One question that gets asked a lot is like, well, or it's like one of those fun things to read in a book is like, what do you do if you get attacked by a mountain lion? What do you do if you get attacked by a black bear? What do you do if you get attacked by a grizzly? I think the first thing you do is just try to scare it and fight it and defend yourself or protect yourself. It's like, well, how do you, what's the exact order that you do? It's like,

Anytime something charges in on me, your initial reaction is to yell at it for the most part. And I think it works. I mean, I've told this story as well, but I've had a coyote like run in. I think I was like all camoed up, had my hands out. And I think he just saw my hands and thought it was like a wounded rabbit and came running in and just like mock 300 just running for me.

And I went to go like punch it in the face. And that thing, when I popped up, it was like, hey, you know, it hit the brakes and just started rolling down the mountain. I was like, oh, okay. You know, but there's that like instinct that just kicks in that just tells you to let them know that you are not prey. And for the most part, that instinct to just be like, hey, get out of here or whatever.

that yelling, that, that being big, that spooking them off. I think for the most part, they think that they're attacking something that maybe they didn't really realize what they were going after. I think in the most cases with like a predatory response, it's kind of just an accidental identification. You know, you see that with sharks and other things where it's a surfer that they thought was a seal, but it's random that, you know, not a lot of people are attacked by certain sharks when they kind of know it's, it's a person for the most part.

Which is strange to me. I don't really understand that. The one thing that I've seen that doesn't necessarily tend to not attack people would be crocodiles. And I've heard that is also true with polar bears. But for the most part, you know, there's an innate fear of humans. I think this, I don't know, this is just my own philosophy here, but like...

when they haven't been hunted for a very long time, maybe, maybe they start to lose that innate fear. But for some reason, you know, your initial fight or flight instinct is generally true, generally right, and can probably save your life. So for me to tell you exactly step one, act big step two, I mean, it's it kind of seems to be something that you naturally do, but maybe not everybody does. So I think that that's just something to think about. Let that thing know that you are a person and you aren't going to be taken lightly.

And that kind of brings us to the defense portion. There's so many options. People love to know like, well, what should I carry? For the longest time in non-Grizzly Bear country, I really didn't carry anything. And even in Grizzly Bear country, I didn't. And I look back now and I'm like, that was just stupid. It was lackadaisical. It's just, it probably wasn't the best way to do things. And part of the reason was I didn't have a lot of encounters with stuff. But I would say over the last 10 years, I've seen...

an explosion in large predator populations in a lot of the places I hunt, whether it's black bears, whether it's wolves, whether it's especially grizzly bears. I mean, there's places where I've gone where we used to go look for black bears and now see more grizzly bears than you would see black bears. It's just like things have changed over the time and there's going to be more encounters and there's going to be probably more attacks and there's probably more need to be prepared.

There's very rare times that I don't go out with some form of predator protection when in the past I probably would rarely use it. And I just think that that incidence and just being smarter and having a little bit more to lose now probably lends itself to that.

So I think when it comes to any kind of protection, whether it's for black bears, whatever you're worried about, it doesn't matter what you're worried about, what's in the area. I think there's going to be two methods. One's going to be the spray, bear spray, and one's going to be some form of lethal weapon. Not the movie, but a pistol, a rifle, a shotgun, something...

to kill whatever's trying to attack you. So there's pros and cons to both. I think there's a lot of sides that particularly root for one or the other. I personally feel safer with a pistol. If I look at like stories that I've heard and statistics that I've seen, you're like, well, yeah, maybe you got to make a lethal shot. Maybe you need to be, you could wound it and make them more mad. But I feel like the bear spray works in certain scenarios and not in others. I trust myself more with the pistol. Um,

And I feel like, well, you know, there's also things about the pistol that maybe you get attacked and mauled up a little bit, but you don't die or it might scare them away before the attack even happens. The loud noise of taking a warning shot, if it's out there, a black bear or something out there slapping a tree and getting aggressive and you just shoot one off and say, hey, I'm over here. And that loud noise pretty much every time I've needed to has scared him away.

But I also see the benefit of the bear spray. So the bear spray, they say you don't have to be as accurate with it. You can spray kind of like the grass that they're going to run through.

It maybe has like a, it's like a steady stream. So you can adjust as the things going, coming at you and you're not thinking as much. And that's a hundred percent true. There are also though, those kind of scenarios where you might encounter something in the winds blowing really fast in your face. There might be those encounters where, um, you know, it seems like a lot of stories I've heard where people have sprayed the bear and it didn't stop them. And then they're

they died or there's, you know, an empty can of bear spray, or they've used the can of bear spray and had to use a pistol. But there's also probably just as many stories of the spray helping stop something. But I don't think in my opinion, this is just my opinion. I haven't heard as many stories of guys like, you know, having a pistol and using it and then being fatally killed. I'm sure there are, but.

you know, it's just in my mind, it doesn't seem like there's as many. So take that with what you will is conjecture at this point. I'm just giving you my opinions on things, but I feel like if I'm in big bear country, I feel safer with a pistol. I like, and sometimes like if I'm bow hunting in grizz country, I generally will honestly have both. I'll have bear spray and a pistol because I don't think that every scenario, like maybe you'll get to one faster. Maybe it's like, that's the instinct. You grab this one and that's what works. I don't know.

But sometimes it's light enough that it may not matter. So that's my thought on that. As far as pistol models, I mean, there's so many, you could ask, like I said, this is one of those things, everybody's got their favorite gun. Everybody's got their own theories, right?

Like just have something that you're comfortable with. I like the Smith and Wesson 329 PD 44 mag for a lot of reasons. It's super lightweight. I like the revolver because I just feel like it, it's going to go off when I need it to, um, not as my new moving parts and whatever. And on mine, I actually, it came with a wood grip. I swapped it out for a synthetic grip. And then I, I've mentioned this maybe in some Q and A's before, but,

the cylinder actually has a lock on it. I didn't realize that, but mine malfunctioned and the cylinder locked on me. So I took it to a gunsmith and had that lock removed. I'd probably just suggest that straight out of the box. If you go with a revolver and it happens to have a cylinder lock on it, it's like this,

weird thing, a safety feature to lock it with a key. I didn't even know that was possible, but if you have it, I would just spend the money right out of the box and get rid of it. If it's for like saving your life, you know, you don't want that like mine malfunctioned and I couldn't fire the gun. I couldn't open the cylinder. I couldn't do anything. Um, so that that's something to think about another really popular one. And I, I like this one as well. Uh, Glock 20, uh,

in 10 millimeter. There's a lot of good reasons to carry this instead of a revolver. One, you've got 16 rounds. You've got 15 in the magazine and one in the chamber. That's a lot of firepower. When things go down, you can go through a few rounds pretty quick. You can probably stay on target faster. You might be more accurate with it.

So that's another good choice as well. And people now, I would say that's probably one of the more popular calibers for even large bear defense, like brown bear, grizzly bear defense in Alaska. I see a lot of guys carrying it. It's lighter. It's lightweight. It's pretty durable. It seems to be a pretty good standard. I actually had a SIG 10 millimeter, but the one I got was like the SIG Hunter. It's more of like made for hunting. It's a little bit heavier. And so I don't really carry it that much because it's pretty heavy.

with anything, I actually say, you know, make sure you just get good ammo. I like having like a solid, you know, a hard cast bullet or,

Full metal jacket, something that's just pretty solid, a lot of weight and, you know, maybe souped up with a little bit more powder. Something that's got just a little bit of snap, a little bit of pop, a little bit of kinetic energy. What's probably going to kill the bear is shooting it in the head if it's a large bear or anything. But I think that that sound of the gun going off and that kind of defensive sound.

especially with things like mountain lions, black bears, whatever, it'll probably, it could be enough to scare them off, even if it's not going to be fatal right away.

when I'm in non big bear country, I generally, if I'm considered like thinking, okay, defense from black bears, defense from mountain lions, I want to carry something. I generally just take nine millimeter. I've got, I pick some solid heavy rounds if available, and it's more just peace of mind. The nine millimeter is a little bit lighter. It's kind of my EDC anyways. So I just kind of take that on a lot of hunts where there's not, where I'm not expecting to encounter big bears. And,

And I have read a lot of stories of guys that have like killed brown bears or stopped a lethal brown bear charge with a nine millimeter. So it is possible. I don't think it's recommended by anyone, but I don't know. I mean, I know guys that carry them in Alaska when they're fishing and other things because they're accurate with it and they, they feel safe with it. And that's, I think is like just feeling confident, like you feel safe and you're going to do your best you can to survive if something does happen.

I think the last bit of advice is just whatever you choose, you really want to make sure that you know how to use it. There's a couple drills that you could do or quite a few drills that you could do that I think you should do. Whatever you're going to use, know how to use it. Know how the safety catch works. Know where you keep it. Keep it something that's like you don't even have to think about it. You've practiced drawing. You've practiced shooting. You've practiced all these things. What I like to do with my pistols is just put targets in

you know, a barehead size target out at varying ranges and then make it that I've got to shoot in one, two, three. So, you know what I mean? Really fast, just draw, shoot, draw, shoot, just like you would in a, any kind of self-defense shooting scenario. It's a fast draw, fast, accurate shot.

understanding how that gun works in the best way for you to make that quick, fast shot. Same thing goes with the bear spray practice, pulling it out, flipping off the safety. They actually have practice canisters. I've lit off a few old ones that I feel like now they're expired. And I just want to see, we put it out a decent fog, a decent stream, the amount of time they last and,

seems like a long, like 30, I don't know how long they last, but I feel like some last for like 10, 20 seconds. That's a long time. It seems like a long time, but you also think about it. You're like, okay, don't do it with the wind blowing towards you. Um, I've actually been toying with this idea of building like a, I've kind of got this like plans for this,

not robotic. I'm going to hook it up to a rope, like a towable target that kind of rolls towards you. I've seen guys use tires with targets in it. Just practice shooting at a moving target.

There's lots of good ways to practice, but you shouldn't feel super confident with yourself going out and not practicing because it's just like anything. I would never go out on a deer hunt or an elk hunt with my bow and not know how the bow shoots and not shoot it really well. So I wouldn't trust my life with a pistol and not know how the pistol shoots or operates or use it really well.

So I think that those are all things to kind of consider. And then the last thing, anytime that I'm in backcountry scenario and I am carrying something for predator protection, you definitely got to maintain it while you're out there. It's a pain, but it's something you need to think about. If the components are rusted, then it's not going to work. So throughout the day, I generally like clean it the best I can. Every night when I get back to the tent, I always carry like...

I just carry like an extra lens cloth. I don't know, my Vortex binoculars came with like a lens cloth. I use that mostly like a chamois type towel thing, dry them off. And then I often will take one of those just like oiled rags and kind of coat them up. And then I take all the ammunition out, take all the bullets out.

line everything out, dry everything out, laid out in my tent for a little bit, and then put it back together. Once it's all dry, make sure everything works. And, you know, I generally don't, uh, when I, at night, I don't stick it back in like a wet hole. So you need to just make sure you've got it somewhere safe where it's not going to, you know, you're not going to accidentally discharge it or anything like that, but, um, just somewhere where it's dry, make sure the holster is dry, make sure everything's dry. Could even like, if you got flown in, you could even just have like a backup holster that you put it in.

whatever. Just make sure that everything's dry so you don't get a rusted gun when you need to use it, it doesn't fire. So you just maintain it. And with all those things, you know, you should have a little bit more confidence when you go out there. I will say like kind of as my closing thoughts, I think that it's something that you need to consider, but I don't think it should be something that

detracts you from going out there. I also think though, that if you're like, Hey, I've never hunted in big bear country, maybe just, or any country where there's large predators, maybe go somewhere where there's black bears and mountain lions and no grizzly bears for your first trip and kind of say like, okay, I'm comfortable. I understand like these encounters are very rare. I'm ready in case something does happen, but it's not detracting from my entire experience.

And then as you kind of build up that experience and that confidence, yeah, go into areas where there's larger bears and just understand it's a recognizable threat. It's something that can be dangerous, but just like anything, you're prepared for it. You're taking proper precautions and not doing stupid things.

And for the most part, you should be okay. That's my disclaimer. You should be okay. But yeah, I think that it's something that I think a lot of people get sketched out on or it gets in your mind and you start thinking about it. I think that you should think about it. You should be prepared about it, but you shouldn't let the fear of it kind of ruin your outdoor enjoyment. And that's just my two cents.

I hope that answered a few questions. Speaking of questions, next week we're going to be doing a Q&A. I really enjoy those Q&As. And actually, I've been getting a lot of great questions already. So keep those coming. I will compile all those here probably tomorrow.

the day after this, this episode airs. So if you're on the front end of listening, if you listen to it, every, the podcast every Thursday, your questions are probably going to get answered first because I like to just compile those questions as soon as I get them. The best way to send them to me is at Remy Warren on Instagram and

And the way I do it, I generally kind of like scroll through, see good questions or questions that are similar, screenshot them. And then I sit down and just kind of randomly start reading through those or find ones that had a lot of people kind of asking similar questions. I also try to tailor a lot of these episodes to those questions. So if you're like, man, I really want to see this podcast go this direction or this direction, you got to reach out. You got to let me know because if I don't know that I can't talk about it.

So next week is going to be the, your chance to interact with me and me to answer, you know, your specific questions. I do generally try to keep a lot of like identifying stuff out of it. As far as so many people say, Hey, I'm hunting in Montana and this mountain range, right. Or whatever. I, I will leave that out just because not for that person particularly, but anybody else that might hunt there. I don't want to blow spots out or anything like that. But I would ask that if you want, um,

Put your name. You could either do first and last or just first name and where you're from, city, state, whatever, anything, you know, something to kind of let people know where you're from and where you're at. And I'll give you a little shout out. And I appreciate it. I appreciate you guys listening into the podcast, especially the guys that

listen kind of every week and, and definitely everybody that leaves a comment. I've been reading through some of these. I really appreciate those. If you guys can feel free to, you know, subscribe, leave a comment, leave a rating. I appreciate all that kind of stuff. So until next week, just be bear aware and don't get eaten by a mountain lion.

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