Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Aldeer General Forum The Hunt

I know some of you don't like Mountain Men and other such shows, but I do. So tonight was the premiere of The Hunt. Its about hunting Kodiak Bears in Alaska. The preview for next week's episode shows a guy using a bow. Personally, I wouldn't want to get that close to a bear that big. I think I would go for the long distance rifle shot.

This may sound a little goofy, but I wonder if you could kill a bear with a bow like we use for deer? It seems like it would take a lot of poundage and a huge arrow and broadhead to kill one.

I'm not an expert, but generally speaking, you can use the same setups we use to kill a bear. You'd have to be shooting a relatively low draw weight/light arrows for it not to work. Obviously you still have to make a good shot, or you've got one angry bear on your hands.

Yeah. I guess I'm just thinking it would almost need to be the weight of a crossbow and arrows like bolts.

Fred Bear and many others have killed Grizzly with a bow. Recurves and lesser bows than the modern compound bow.

two words..shot placement..you take the ol carberator out. its gonna go down

You put a rage in the boiler room and it ain't going far, if it does, the guy behind you with the rifle will take him out. Our deer hunting bows are dang strong. I have shot a bunch of deer and got passthroughs and had the arrow penetrate through a root or tree far enough to where I just had to unscrew the arrow from the broadhead because the broadhead wouldn't come out.

black bear same rig as deer

brown/grizzly usually a slightly heavier bow but heavy deer weights will work fine. Use a heavier arrow and cut on contact head to get needed penetration

I think Fred Bear used a 65 or 70 pound recurve which generates far less speed than any modern compound of comparable weight.

Only change I'd make was to shoot an Ashby style Broadhead and possibly heavier arrows.

The key to hunting brown bears with a bow, is having somebody with a large caliber rifle standing over your shoulder.

Regardless if you make a kill shot or not with a bow., a bear could easily kill you before dying, and they are subject to charge when shot.