Brighten Your Day

Guy Tells Epic Story About How He Fought Off A 450-Pound Bear With A 50-Cent Knife

May 20, 2016

If a Grizzly bear attacks, you play dead. But if a black bear attacks, you're supposed to yell and fight back. For Gary Carroll, who was minding his business grilling on his porch, the odds were against him but how he prevailed is priceless...

"I fought off a 450 pound black bear with a 50-cent steak knife.

I'm cooking out on the porch. I hear a noise, and look around. A BIG black bear has been following his nose, sees me between him and his BBQ, made a sort of "humph!" and froze, staring at me. He's about 15 feet away, on the three steps up to the porch.

I raise my arms to look bigger and yell 'Go Away, bear!' … but he doesn't twitch. I can see the wheels turning in his head through his beady little eyes… he didn't expect me, but is now considering whether to eat me or just teach me a lesson about getting between him and his food.

The door is about ten feet away, but that's directly towards the bear - Not a good direction. No other retreat is open to me, being on the porch with the grill. Maybe if I throw something at him he will get momentarily distracted or intimidated enough for me to make it to the door. My options are a 99-cent Dollar General spatula, which does not recommend itself as a weapon, or a flimsy plastic-handled 4 for $2 steak knife… which at least has a sharp(ish) point.

I take the steak knife by the tip and threw it just like I would expect someone to throw it if they knew how to throw a knife and the knife was a 'throwable' knife – neither of which are true. Miraculously enough, it hit the bear in the face almost directly on his nose, point first, and stuck him quite deeply on the muzzle. I mean 'POING!!!' deep.

This is doubly miraculous since I was aiming rather vaguely at the other end of the bear. Throwing really hard is evidently terrible for one's aim.

He blatted exactly like I imagine a sheep would sound, jumped in the air, swatted the knife out, and fled at top speed. He cleared a four-foot chain link fence without slowing down and without touching it at all.

So, I introduce the story to the grandkids as 'Did I ever tell you about the time I fought off a 450 pound bear that wanted my BBQ by stabbing it in the FACE with a 50 cent steak knife?'

Oh, and they caught the bear a couple of weeks later about 1/4 mile down the road when it clawed up some guy at a trash can. Identified by the wound on the nose, almost healed."

credit: garycarroll