Food under the Frozen Ice

[Robson Valley]

Those mussels must have been good. Straight out of icy seawater? No wonder they stopped for a snack.
Next time I'm in the city, must buy a sack for a feed.

You just try not to put yourself in the bear's way. Cubs or a kill site, you're dead. Not a threat. A prediction.
I live in a temperate zone jungle. I see great forest pictures here, you can see 100 yards in every direction.

Visibility here in some places by midsummer is 10' in the understory. You could get rushed and never see them coming. Dogs are good.
I've given up hunting most of those tight spots, productive or not. Make LOTS of noise works best.

I don't even carry Bear Spray any more. Must be a couple of cans and a chest holster downstairs some place.
The bears got so habituated to the smell that it means no more that Tabasco hot sauce, people and FOOD.
Bears never discuss or share what's mine and what's also mine.

I sure would like to camp in summer where there's no blasted bears.

 

[Janne]

My fear was specially strong in spring. No fun walking between mama bear and her cub hiding in the bushes.
I carried a .357 for years!


As all mental fear it is was not logical. No bear attack in Sweden for several life times.
But fear is fear!

I would not mind stepoing between mama mussel and her family though! I love mussels.
A bottle of dry Veneto wine, garlic, a chopped tomato or two, some herbs and ket them boil for a couple of minutes!
A bucket for me, a bucket for you!

 

[mrostov]

Many North American aboriginals thought brown bears were demons. When your most advanced weapon was a flint tipped arrow, considering them to be demons had some merit.

I remember seeing some photos a few years ago where someone left the door open on their Chevy Suburban SUV. A large grizzly climbed in to look for food. Somehow the door shut behind the grizzly and it just went absolutely nuts inside that Suburban. It eventually smashed out the back window and escaped. It did so much damage to the vehicle it was totalled. It looked like someone had tossed a grenade into it and shut the door.

Here we also have a vast amount of shellfish. The Gulf Coast of Texas (no brown bears this far south) is one of the largest oyster beds in the world. The bay where I live, Aransas Bay, is relatively shallow and people can collect them without too much effort.

The problem is that since we are a relatively warm, semi-tropical climate, as the water warms up in March you start having the danger from the flesh eating bacteria, vibrio vulnificus. This is why the commercial oyster harvest ends in early March and we have a festival called the 'Oysterfest' to mark the end of the harvest.

When encountering oysters in warmer weather you need to avoid getting cut, and if you have to eat them, like, say, you are starving, cook them very well. If you get cut, an old time treatment that works well is to pour a bit of raw bleach on the wound immediately. The bacteria works fast

 

[mrostov]

The only thing in this World I am afraid of are bears.

https://www.outdoorlife.com/articles/larry-mueller-and-marguerite-reiss/2007/09/last-stand