re: Dangerous wild animal encounters

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Black and brown bears.

Those little pull string flares work well on black bear. Sounds like a firearm, shoots a ball of fire. Can carry them in your pocket

Sea lions and Orcas when kayaking. Sea lions are meaner than hell.

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I sometime carry these. Some of the GIS folks around here have been carrying plastic garbage bags for the last 10 or so years. They crinkle them in their hands and evidently it is a sound bears aren't use to and don't like so they run away. You can also unfold them to make you appear quiet larger. All that said, I usually still have my Glock 20 with me.

Willie's alright. He could crush you if he wanted but they're fairly well behaved. Humpbacks too.

Sea lions are assholes. That's what I worry about.

some of these are hilarious just because i can picture your reaction

When I was in 5th or 6th grade, we would throw huge end of the season parties on our property. Myself with two other kids decided to go cow tipping. we are walking through the fields and approaching the cow. I cant remember if we actually put our hands on the cow or not but that thing started bucking like its about to come out the gate. I remember the cow spinning a couple times as all three started taking off in different directions. He chose my direction and i was able to make it back over the fence before trampling me. Good stuff!

My dad and I were going to my practice when I was in 8th grade or so. It was dark and we were going up Pecue from Highland when we saw a car stopped with its door open. the person hit a deer which was laying in the road. All of sudden that thing springs to life and starts charging in our direction to escape. Scared the shite out of me!!

Man kills coyote with bare hands

Speaking of dangerous wild animal encounters...

When I lived in California just outside of Pasadena we had bears in our yard and trash all the time.

Walked out of the house more than once and almost ran into one.

They were more scared than us I think.

Hunting in the marshes, I've come real close to some pretty big alligators. Luckily back then, hunting season was reasonably cold so they were very slow moving if at all.

Only other dangerous animals I've gotten near in the wild have been cottonmouths and copperheads. I simply kept my distance or in some cases, MADE some distance.

I was backpacking through GSMNP once and had a bear follow me. I woke up that morning and broke down camp, noticed the bear and made enough noise to get him to run off. Or so I thought. I was maybe a mile on the trail from camp when I noticed him again behind me. I yelled and made noise until I reached Clingmans Dome. I didn’t see him again after that.

We blasted a deer once on the way to the hunting camp once but that’s about it

When I was a kid at the beach I was snorkeling and when I looked up there was like a 6 foot barracuda staring me down about a foot from my face. I’ve gotten followed and circled by sharks, usually bulls, kayak fishing in the gulf. I’ve seen a black bear once and kept my distance but I don’t have any bear or big cat experience. Also in my experience kayaking, gators are docile, they won’t mess with you unless you mess with them. Sharks are more scary, they’ll follow you all the way to shore.