Seeing this article about the woman that beat the bear with the unloaded gun. I decided to tell a story.
Many years ago, shortly after the wife and I got married. An Air Force Captain took his wife on a two week trip to a cabin on Lake Luciel. They had been having marital problems, so this was a reconnection trip. Spend some time in the solitude of the cabin, and reconnect. No phone, no electricity, no people, just the two of them. To get to the cabin took a one hour boat ride, across the lake. After three days the Captain showed up at a business along the highway to call the State Troopers. He claimed his wife was on the roof of the cabin to stay out of reach of a Grizzly that had broken into the cabin. He had made a run for the boat and came for help.
Troopers responded with a helicopter and picked the Captain up. Then off to the cabin. Upon arrival they found human remains and clothing scattered all over the yard in front of the cabin. The Troopers felt the Captain may have had something to do with her demise, but they had no proof. The Captain was immediately reassigned.
It became a joke on base, if you wanted to get rid of your spouse you just took them on a one way hike in Grizzly Country. A lot of women on base suddenly decided to take Shooting classes. Many women we knew started packing any time they went into the woods.
My wife became a shooting instructor, and taught many of them to shoot. That was in 1980. In 1986 she saved my bacon one day when a Grizzly charged while I was skinning a Moose. She fired 13 shots from her Remington 7400 in 30-06. There was 13 holes in the Bears hide when I skinned it. When asked why she kept shooting it after it went down, she replyed, "It was still wiggling".
I've heard the scariest sound in the world only once. I came home early from a trip and failed to inform her. Half way up the stairs intending to surprise her, I heard her jacking a round into her Mossberg 12ga. I'll never do that again.
