There are lots of bears in the wild and scenic Rogue this season. Be bear aware, particularly if camping or leaving your boat unsupervised, particularly below the Rogue River Ranch. How are you dealing with the bear situation this year? Please share your 2019 experiences so that others can learn from each other. What’s the solution? As the saying goes, “Fed bears are dead bears”. Those habituated bears aren’t going to make it through the season. : (
Rogue River bears
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A couple of weeks ago we saw a male across from Brushy Bar. Some guy camped at Solitude said a bear was on his boat trying to get into his cooler. This guy said he hit the bear in the nose and it finally ran off. Quite a story. I did believe the guy. It was probably the same bear we saw.
Bear spray...
with caves, coyotes etc. They probably will never need it and skills they will never have to use, which is a good thing. Might be good for personal protection also, instead of firearms.
Bear spray, from what I have researched does a good job. I purchased four canisters of it last year, one each for my two daughters and one for myself. The other one we took to a field and practiced removing the safety a few times each. Than took turns spraying it, according to the instructions, which turned out to be about two good blast for each of us, than the canister was empty. With the bear encounters increasing in Colorado for some reason I don't understand, and they do alot of backpacking, camping and hiking, I thought it was a good idea for them to have, instead of going for their hand guns(they have taken defensive shooting classes). Could be used for aggressive moose
with caves, coyotes etc. They probably will never need it and skills they will never have to use, which is a good thing. Might be good for personal protection also, instead of firearms.
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This is what I did to my dry boxes. Also carry bear spray. A bear proof (?) cooler (canyon cooler) with nuts, washers and bolts to keep it closed. I close my groover when not in use and use rocket boxes for trash. Also have a bear fence. Just got off a June Smith trip in Montana and we set up the bear fence every night, put all the food inside, but never caught a bear ;-)
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It's not the cooler. It's the damage the bear can do while climbing around on the boat.
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I always thought keeping the bear out of your cooler was just as important as keeping him/her out of your boat. I must of not been very clear when I said we put all our food (coolers) inside the bear fence.
This is why the Smith requires all coolers/food boxes etc removed from boats at night and locked during the day. I presume it is so the bears don't associate the coolers with easy access to food. Apparently they removed 14 problem bears from the Smith in the last few seasons and are now hazing them and requiring groups to use more precautions. We pulled everything off into the bear fence at night, shocked one group member a couple of times but no bears to our knowledge ......
What did the group member do to earn that punishment?
It was accidental and self inflicted, TWICE. Though we were working on a drinking game to figure out who got to check that the thing was actually working. We did trap an obnoxious 10 year old in one once on the Rogue, or to be truthful the adults didn't rush to his rescue when his older brother trapped him. I run with a rough crowd
Oh god, that’s even funnier! I’ve had a kid or two that I have wanted to “accidentally” trap in a bear fence!
We did trap an obnoxious 10 year old in one once on the Rogue, or to be truthful the adults didn't rush to his rescue when his older brother trapped him. I run with a rough crowd
Brother and I used to grab them to check if they were on, when we lived on a ranch, was fun times...
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You don't need to touch them to see if they are on. Listen for the cycle on/off. It's kind of a click.
If you do "test" them, it takes some of the charge down. They don't use that much electricity unless they deliver a shock. The deep cycle batteries can last a long time, but they do run low sometimes before the rangers can bring replacements.
A few years ago at Half Moon I accidentally touched a wire when it was live. I thought to myself, and said to our group, "If I were a bear, that wouldn't slow me down." Next morning someone asked if I knew what happened to our garbage, and did we put it in the fence. I said, "Yes, you carried it up and I followed you with a drybox." We found the place where the bear leaned in on the fence, bent it over, and reached in to the middle and grabbed our trash bag. One of our group tracked where the bear went upstream, then up a hill. We collected the scattered trash, and the other person commented that all the trash was very clean. Licked clean. I was bummed to be part of a group that helped train a bear that there's good stuff in those fences. I think that bear already knew it, though.
A year prior, someone told a story about "His friend Dave" who likes to make LOTS of bacon. They put the grease in a milk carton, let it harden, then put it in the garbage. The person telling the story was hauling the garbage, and apparently one day it was warm enough the grease didn't harden all the way, and a bunch spilled on one of his tubes. He reported that when he woke up that morning, one quarter of his raft was cleaner than he had ever seen it before....
The ranges are really encouraging folks to STOP leaving so many pumpkins. It really doesn't support LNT ethics, and it's gotten out of hand. And it might be feeding the bears!
If you do "test" them, it takes some of the charge down. They don't use that much electricity unless they deliver a shock. The deep cycle batteries can last a long time, but they do run low sometimes before the rangers can bring replacements.
A few years ago at Half Moon I accidentally touched a wire when it was live. I thought to myself, and said to our group, "If I were a bear, that wouldn't slow me down." Next morning someone asked if I knew what happened to our garbage, and did we put it in the fence. I said, "Yes, you carried it up and I followed you with a drybox." We found the place where the bear leaned in on the fence, bent it over, and reached in to the middle and grabbed our trash bag. One of our group tracked where the bear went upstream, then up a hill. We collected the scattered trash, and the other person commented that all the trash was very clean. Licked clean. I was bummed to be part of a group that helped train a bear that there's good stuff in those fences. I think that bear already knew it, though.
A year prior, someone told a story about "His friend Dave" who likes to make LOTS of bacon. They put the grease in a milk carton, let it harden, then put it in the garbage. The person telling the story was hauling the garbage, and apparently one day it was warm enough the grease didn't harden all the way, and a bunch spilled on one of his tubes. He reported that when he woke up that morning, one quarter of his raft was cleaner than he had ever seen it before....
The ranges are really encouraging folks to STOP leaving so many pumpkins. It really doesn't support LNT ethics, and it's gotten out of hand. And it might be feeding the bears!
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