A hunter has described how he gunned down a charging brown bear with a handgun just seconds before it mauled his party.
Tyce Erickson was stalking bears on Kodiak Island in Alaska in May, hoping to bag one with his bow from close range.
On the second-to-last day of the two-week hunt in remote wilderness, he finally spotted a bear he could sneak up on and kill.
The father-of-four crept up on the 1,000-pound bear, hoping to get a shot from 30 feet away, but spooked it as he approach and it retreated.
Tyce Erickson gunned down this charging brown bear with a handgun just seconds before it mauled his party during a hunt on Kodiak Island, Alaska
Erickson, a father-of-four, was hoping to bag a bear with his bow from close range
Not wanting to leave the expensive hunt empty-handed, he borrowed his hunting partner’s rifle and shot at the bear from 50 feet – but missed.
His second shot hit, but the bear disappeared from view and he wasn’t sure whether he took it down, so the hunting party moved around to see it.
The bear was not where they expected it to be lying, so it was still alive and walking away leaving a blood trail that they followed.
After tracking the bear for about two miles, the bear decided it had enough and it charged down the side of a hill at its pursuers.
‘Suddenly you hear this [noise like a bear’s howl] and this bear just erupts out of the alder [trees] right at Ryan, our guide,’ he told the Back Country Hunting podcast.
Erickson was about 10 feet behind Ryan and watched as he fired at and hit the charging bear in the chest, but failed to stop its advance.
‘He pulls his rifle out just in time as the bear’s about 20 feet from him, coming right at him. Boom and he shoots… and when he steps back, his leg gets stuck and he falls onto his back and he yells, “Help, help,”‘ he said.
Erickson, pictured with his wife Rachel, is an experienced hunter
Erickson runs a bird dog training company and hunts with friends in his spare time
Erickson didn’t have a clear shot past Ryan with his 10mm Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0, so he crawled through bushes until he could get to Ryan’s side – just as the bear resumed its charge.
‘I got to his side… at this point he’s only about 12 feet off my barrel and pulled out my handgun and just unloaded on him,’ he said.
‘I didn’t really have time to get nervous… it was getting real right now, just in that second [I was thinking] I’m saving Ryan’s life. I shot three times… and by the third shot, it ended up taking him down.
‘It’s rolling down the hill and hits the alders, and it was like we killed the dragon that was destroying the village, we were cheering, it was an adrenaline rush.’Â
Ryan poked the bear to make sure it was dead and it growled and raised its head, so he shot it again through the shoulder to finish it off.
After tracking the bear for about two miles, the bear decided it had enough and it would charge down the side of a hill at its pursuers
Erickson hit the bear with at least two of his three shots, in the back and neck, bringing it down
Erickson said the assistant guide was so far away that the cheering sounded like screaming and together with so many shots he thought ‘someone just died.’
‘I didn’t want to have that experience, but it made [the hunt] exciting,’ he said.
‘You never like to see an animal suffer but I’m glad we were able to get him and recover the animal and have those experiences that we get to tell kids and our families and friends.’
Erickson said at least two of his handgun shots hit the bear in the back and neck, and his rifle shot that first wounded it hit the back of its knee.
Hunting bear is legal on Kodiak Island, as controlling the male bear population prevents them from killing too many cubs so they can mate with the females.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game issues only four bear licenses a year in the area they were hunting, each of which is very expensive.
