Spring 1972, Jack York and I decided to go fishing. We had been told about the Middle Fork of the Chena river that is in the area behind Eielson AFB. We had been given directions on how to get there. Jack did not want to take a gun, but I decided I was going to take something, just in case. I had an old single shot 12ga that the barrel and stock had been cut off of. The barrel was cut off at the end of the forearm. The stock had been cut off at the pistol grip. In short a 12ga pistol, did not know it was too short at the time. This cutdown gun hung well from my belt, so it went along. To get there we had to take a three hour drive, on some pretty rough trails. Then we had to hike the last two miles down off the hill and across the flats to the river.
We were walking on a game trail through the willows, with the willows bowing over the trail, completely blocking out the sun. The trail through the willows was about 1/4 mile long. I was following Jack, carrying two fishing rods, a tackle box, and a bag with lunch in it. Mosquitos were getting bad, and the still air was pretty hot in there. I was rushing to get to the water where I knew it was going to be a lot cooler. Suddenly a squall came from up ahead, Jack screamed, Jack turned around and literally ran over me, knocking me down and he ran back up the trail in panic mode. I looked up and here came a Black Bear!
Lying there on the ground, totally surrounded by tight growing willows, and no way out except back the way I had came. That bear looked big! The closer it got, the bigger it looked, and the more it squalled, the more frightened I got. I rolled over onto my left side, grabbed the gun, pointed it in the right direction, and squeezed of a shot. The load of #4 Buckshot hit it right in the face, causing it to turn around and slide to a stop.
I jumped up and walked backwards up the trail. After going a few steps I realised I no longer had the gun. My hand was hurting, I looked down and saw my right hand was bloody, the web area between the thumb and index finger was torn, and bloody. My index finger was hurting bad and dripping blood. The skin on my finger had been peeled back between the first and second joint. The gun was no where in sight. My main concern was that the bear might get up and come back my way.
Jack came down the trail asking if I got it? I told him I thought I had. Then three guys came from the river. They walked up to the bear and announced the bear was dead. I went back down to where they were standing over the dead bear. I looked around and found the gun lying in the willows.
The three guys had caught the little Black Bear stealing their fish stringer and had thrown a hand ax at it, hitting it in the head. The bear had only been trying to get out of the area. I just happened to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time. With no where to go. We skinned it and I took it back and had it tanned. I gave it to a girl friend when I got it back from the tanners.
As for the gun, that was the first time I had ever shot anything but light skeet loads in it. In a gun like that there is a big difference between Skeet loads and three inch Buck shot loads. It was also the first, and last time I ever tried to shoot it with one hand. A few months later I realised it had been cut down too much so we took it to the shop and cut it up and threw it in the scrap barrel.
