Author Topic: Here's a picture of a bear I killed (Read 1363 times)

victorcharlie · « **on:** August 12, 2005, 01:00:14 PM »

Well, not really, but this is one huge bear......not sure how true the story is, anyone heard about this one?

http://www.maisonbisson.com/blog/?p=10447

Thebear_78 · « **Reply #1 on:** August 12, 2005, 02:14:10 PM »

It is a dandy bear but the story in your link is totall BS. It was shot by a guy deer hunting, airforce guy from anchorage. They just happened across it and shot it unsuspecting from fairly close range.

NYH1 · « **Reply #2 on:** August 12, 2005, 06:40:39 PM »

I believe he shot it with a 7mm Remington Magnum!

Thebear_78 · « **Reply #3 on:** August 12, 2005, 08:40:18 PM »

You'd be wrong. Pretty sure it was with a 338 win mag.

victorcharlie · « **Reply #4 on:** August 13, 2005, 02:38:41 AM »

What are yall talking about? Everyone knows it was one shot at 200 yards, with a .17 HMR, 20 grain XTP behind the ear......

NYH1 · « **Reply #5 on:** August 13, 2005, 08:24:26 AM »

Quote from: Thebear_78

You'd be wrong. Pretty sure it was with a 338 win mag.

I remember when this guy shot this bear a few years ago. Everything I read said "this guy" shot "this bear" with his 7mm Rem. Mag. Check this out

Thebear_78 · « **Reply #6 on:** August 13, 2005, 10:13:59 AM »

I'll see if I can still dig up the alaska daily news article about it and post it to here. I actually met the guy once, pretty ordinary guy. Someplace is a website by his friend who was with him that explains things pretty well too.

Here is one! it has an exerp from ADN
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/bearhunt.asp

Quote

Actual killing of bear morphs into Internet urban myth
By PETER PORCO
Anchorage Daily News
May 30, 2003

- Tina in Louisiana wanted to know if the photographs were real. So did Martin, a pastor from Michigan, who wrote, "Are you able to verify for us that they are indeed genuine and true?"

Both Tina and Martin, sending separate e-mail messages to the U.S. Forest Service in Juneau, Alaska, with attached photos of a grizzly killed in Prince William Sound in the fall of 2001, had written their heartfelt wonderment atop a message string that included this text, from a previous e-mail writer:

"Think about it. This thing on its hind legs could walk up to the average single-story house and could look on the roof at eye level."

There was never a question that the brown bear that 22-year-old airman Ted Winnen shot to death in October 2001 on Hinchinbrook Island was huge.

The grizzly measured 10 feet, 6 inches from nose to tail. Its front claws were 3 to 4 inches long. An Alaska master guide estimated the bear's weight at up to 1,200 pounds. (Average brown bear weight for Hinchinbrook is less than half that.)

One photo shows Winnen holding the bear's paw as it obscures almost all of his chest. A second photo shows Winnen crouched, looking like a child behind the bear's massive, bloody head.

But the "legend" e-mail, as Forest Service spokesman Ray Massey calls the tale that's been making the Internet rounds all this time, has converted the bear into a monster of impossible proportions.

It's now "over one thousand six hundred pounds ... 12'6" high at the shoulder," reads one message Massey has received.

E-mail exaggerations about the animal began to circulate little more than a month after Winnen, stationed at the time at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska, shot it while deer hunting with several partners.

Some of the early e-mails reached the Anchorage Daily News, and the paper published a story about the kill in December 2001 accompanied by the two photos taken by one of Winnen's partners, Eielson Staff Sgt. Jim Urban.

Despite the newspaper story, the e-mails did not stop. Nor did calls to the agency from print and TV reporters wanting to know if the e-mail version was true.

"I've gotten calls from media all over the world," Massey said one day last week. "I got a call from London today."

The Forest Service, which manages the Chugach National Forest encompassing Prince William Sound, gets three or four e-mails about the bear every week that have to be answered, Massey said.

Many of the messages are from people who are skeptical and want confirmation of their doubts from the agency. About 30 percent of the messages come from hunters who are all but certain the tale is a tall one.

What's got Massey somewhat concerned, however, is that the circumstances of the bear's death morphed some time ago into what he terms an urban myth - about a killer beast taken down by a Forest Service employee.

"He was out deer hunting when a large world class Griz charged him from about 50 yards away," according to one e-mail tale that has been circulating. "The guy unloaded a 7mm Mag Semi-auto into the bear and it dropped a few feet from him. This thing was still alive, so he reloaded and capped it in the head. ... It's a world record. This bear had killed a couple of other people."

The bear was not a record, and it didn't kill anyone, as far as is known. It was coming toward Winnen and Urban from about 10 yards away, but it may not have seen them. And Winnen used a .338-caliber Winchester Magnum.

Hoping to debunk the myths, Massey answers the e-mails with plenty of details about the actual size of the bear and the hunt. The Forest Service's Web site provides a news release about the hunt and the rumors.

But now a third photo is making the rounds, a picture that supposedly shows a person's body, the bear's victim.

Massey never opened that attachment, he said.

"I didn't want to see a photo of the body. I know it's bogus."

Massey says there's no way to know how many people are reading the false stuff as the message travels the globe. He just scratches his head and says that, 19 months after the hunt, the story is still going.

"It's like the Energizer bunny," he said. "I have no doubt the Internet is keeping it moving. Otherwise it would have died a long time ago."

Article by: ABC15.com

Thebear_78 · « **Reply #7 on:** August 13, 2005, 10:33:47 AM »

Here is the story from Jim Urban. Hard to argue with these facts, he took the pictures.
http://www.blackbearheaven.com/world-record-grizzly-bear.htm

NYH1 · « **Reply #8 on:** August 13, 2005, 11:10:55 AM »

Thebear_78, like I said this is the first time I have heard anything about him using a 338 Win. Mag. everything I read and heard before you mentioned the 338 Win. Mag. was that he used a 7mm Rem. Mag. I never really looked into it before, but after doing a little searching myself, I tend to think you are in fact correct. There seems to have been a few exaggerations about what really happened and how big this bear really was!

Thebear_78 · « **Reply #9 on:** August 13, 2005, 12:32:19 PM »

There was a pretty crazy storm of exagerated and fabricated stories about this bear. They are some pretty spectacular pictures and I guess the story wasn't exciting enough for some people in cyberland.

Arick the Red · « **Reply #10 on:** September 01, 2005, 08:43:02 AM »

It sucks that people stretch the truth in order to make it more "fantastic" but in reality, its still an awesome bear and an awesome story!! WOW!

Qaz · « **Reply #11 on:** September 02, 2005, 03:25:50 AM »

I may be wrong, but the story starts to fall apart when he is charged from 50yrds and has time to shoulder the rifle and get off so many shots! I would think a person would be lucky to get the rifle to his hip to start the firing of rounds. I know a black bear would be on you before you could move at that distance.