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Advice on Detecting in Bear Country


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Id probably just crap myself..hopefully that would work! Never seen a grizzly untill we went to Yellowstone last year...and I know I dont want to face one in the wild! Good luck man,I use the rattler headphones all the time,they help,bit I concentrate on signals so much,that I often dont pay attention to the sounds around me

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Cabin Fever - You're right. I've carried Counter Assault for years for just that reason. However, the .454 is there too just in case... Thanks for your advice!

I concur. I bought 45 this year after having black bear walk right by me(12-15 yds) last year hunting-my first in-woods encounter. He was only a med size fella, but the old heart sure was a beatin.
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I use the Rattler headphone.  Its always good to know if something is more interested in you than in what your doing.

I don't know about bears but I've had plenty of other critters sneak up on me~ dogs, deer, wallaby's, humans~ that put a scare in me.  I would think shoulder speakers in bear country would attract to much attention.

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DDDancerpost brought back a memory. I was using my gb pro with out headphones down at the creek by my house. Towards dusk,I just dug another piece of lead . For whatever reason,I was playing with the lead against the coil,making detector noise. Saw something move out of the corner of my eye...all that beeping and squeeling called in a Bobcat! Must of sounded like a wounded rabbit!

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Best thing you can do to AVOID having critters attracted or stumbling into you is to stink like a human. Wear unwashed soiled cloths, attach dirty smelly socks to your day pack and piss and crap near your camp site. Wild animals can't stand the smell of human odor and for those trouble makers that don't get it...........Lead

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I am adding a bit to my answer just for general readership.

90% of my decades of metal detecting in Alaska I wore headphones. These days I tend towards external speakers. The sound would help alert a bear to your presence, which usually is a good thing. Or would they come to see what's making the funny noise? Don't know, but it is nice to be able to hear what is going on around me.

How to handle bears in Alaska is Alaskans favorite subject of debate. Many old timers don't carry a gun. Some go nowhere without one. Pistols are great for convenience but all government and business interests looking to protect people use 12ga shotguns. That was my favored choice for many years as a camp weapon. It is more about comfort level than reality in most instances. In a lifetime of traveling from one end of Alaska to the other I never had to kill a bear to save my life.

I rarely packed a weapon and if I went back up to Alaska tomorrow I would go without. I have sold my bear guns. Be aware if driving no guns allowed through Canada. If I was all that concerned about it I would get a can of bear spray mainly due to logistics. Just easier to get while up there and leave behind if need be. That's just me though - some people feel they need a gun. Again, you have to do whatever makes you comfortable.

I do know it would be very difficult to have a gun of any size of your body using a GPZ 7000. Even a can of bear spray would be problematic.

Safety in Bear Country http://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=livingwithbears.main

The issue is just as important in California and elsewhere as in Alaska. Plenty of bears in the western states. They keep eating Chris Ralph's apples!

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Thanks Steve and Everyone -- I'm going to try out the external speaker idea in addition to a single in-ear phone and figure out which one works best. I normally wear a small backpack so I can clip the speaker on the shoulder straps. I've never, ever used just the internal speaker with my detector but having a speaker near your ears might work OK. I'm just wondering if I'd miss that slight waver in threshold...sometimes hard to hear even with phones on! I'll let you know what I find out. Cariboo

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I was a die-hard headphone guy. JP tried to convert me to external speakers in Austrlia but I did not want to do something new on such an important trip. Now that I have converted I wish I had done so sooner. It really is nice being headphone free.

The only issue is external noise, and you still need headphones around running water or wind in the trees. I am going to check into fitted in the ear phones for those really windy days as headphone earphone cups seem to do as good a job picking up and amplifying wind noise as anything also.

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Most of my prospecting is in the Sierra Nevada or Mojave desert and the big cats are the biggest concern ( 2nd; rattle snakes followed by ticks) I've seen them and had one trail me several years ago. California is just infested with lions these days and many outdoor enthusiasts that disappear in the California wilds every year  I just know are cat related.  Sacramento, being very sensitive not to upset extreme environmental groups in this state continue to turn a blind eye and deaf ear to a building public safety issue. OK, no more politics. 

I've been wearing Rattlers a long time now but would like to go external speaker as well. Many of my machines are Whites and as we all know they come somewhat "speaker challenged" to say the least. There was a thread on this site about the Radio Shack "mini amplifier speaker" working well for this application so I bought one and liked it so much that I'm in the process of fitting out all my Whites with  them.

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