Tuesday with…

“You, my son,” Newfoundland guide Percy Payne told me one morning, “will some day meet your bear, enough and often enough. And when it comes, what will you do?”

“When it comes, my son, never turn your back. Face the bear squarely. He must not know you feel fear. And when you walk away, walk away backwards.”

But suppose it doesn’t happen that way. The other afternoon In Yellowstone, Mont., another sitter was telling me about the day a black bear came through the window of a car and two people were hurt. I then told him about a fisherman on the West Branch of the Penobscot chasing a bear with his fishing rod and nothing happened.

He then recalled the time when he himself saw an angry man chase a black bear with a butcher knife.

I couldn’t let this stranger take the lead in this unplanned tall tale afternoon game, so I told how an Alaska photographer shouted at a grizzly: “Get out of here you old bum!” And then he hurled his hat. The bear left. And this was a grizzly, mind you.

However, fellow bare backs, it doesn’t always come out that way. Two men were hunting in Montana. When one shot a grizzly, the wounded bear attacked like lightning. The other man ran for help. When he returned his partner lay dead.

In Glazier Park, that wonderland of dizzy heights, and clouds and timber, a party of young people fished in Trout Lake. A grizzly stole their fish. What came next has gone down in history as a classic among outdoor tragedies. The grizzly returned at night and killed a young girl, while nine miles away, another grizzly was kidnapping and killing another young girl. This has happened to others.

In the northern Rockies, where there are 1,000 grizzlies and twice as many black bears, the rangers say: “When a bear stands on his hind legs to look at you, talk to him, friend. And talk real nice. If I ever get in this kind of a predicament, I’ll use bad language on a stand up bear.”

One day at the Veazie Salmon Club, magazine writer Jim Bashline was telling of his verious meetings with Pennsylvania black bears.

“When I meet a bear running downhill,” I recall Jim laughingly tell the late Bob Ent and me, “I just stand aside, as you would a fast train, and let him go by. Chances are he has something important on his mind. I find if I just step behind a tree, the bear’ll keep going hellbent.”

In Maine, I’ve heard it claimed a thousand times, usually by souls who’ve never come face-to-face with a 300-pound sow and her new born cunever come face-to-face with a 300-pound sow and her new born cubs, that “it sometimes pays to shout and wave your arms and the bear will go away.” Don’t count on it. When it comes to bears, grizzlies or blacks, there’s nothing you can count on.

One needs no evidence than the experiences of Jeff Wright, the veteran outdoorsman and Alexander big game hunter. You may have read or heard his story. Jeff got into a scape last fall, and I mean he was scraped with bear marks from head to foot. Had he not been a large, strong and powerful individual, Jeff Wright very possible might have been killed by a very ugly bruin, an animal he guessed to be of medium size, 200 pounds.

Maine’s black bear season began Monday, Sept. 2. All one needed to realize that was to have been at Bangor International Airport in the last 48 hours and observe the huge invasion of hunters bound for outfitters tending out to visitors from virtually every corner of the U.S. map.

They’re here to shoot teddy bears. So what are the realities? There are no firm realities. All you have are the experiences of men who have met bears, and these are always different.

My long-time friend, the capable and talented Baxter Park boss, Buz Caverly, says five things should be remembered:

1. If you meet a male black bear, the chance of trouble is slim if he’s a wild, unspoiled bear; 2. if you meet a “bum bear,” that is, one who has been fed or has learned to raid dumps, look out. Possible trouble. 3. If you meet a female with cubs, she may attack. 4. If you surprise a bear and it smells food, you may be in for trouble. A “bum bear” is something of a peril. 5. A female black bear will shoo her cubs to safety and will probably get out of your way if she hears you coming.

But, if you surprise her, look out. She might attack.

My pal on the deacon seat at West Yellowstone said he talks to bears as ranch hands to horses and dogs. “I say, `Easy does it, there,’ or `All right now,’ or `Take it easy, fella,’ something about like that. The trick is convey with your voice that you’re calm and unafraid.”

“That’s quite a trick,” I said, admiringly, remembering I felt like cone of homemade ice cream being sold at a stand less than than 54 bear tracks from where we’d been chatting.