Imagine that you're standing only a few yards from a very angry grizzly bear. Would you take comfort in knowing you only had a 10 mm pistol? I've read and heard stories of bears shaking off pistol bullets like BB pellets.
But for one father and son hunting duo, they had a 10 mm pistol and a prayer when encountering a grizzly in Wyoming.
"There was just no time. If I didn't have one in the chamber, that bear would have been on us," Garrett Kalkowski told Cowboy State Daily. Fortunately for Kalkowski, he ended up dropping and killing the female grizzly with his Glock.
He said the animal burst through the brush just four yards away from him in early October. It then charged at him and his father Vince. The two had been out hunting elk in the Meeteetse area. The two had spotted a bull nearby, and they went after it, hoping to get the animal. Kalkowski had already fulfilled his elk tag so didn't have his rifle with him, just his pistol. They were trying to hunt the animal to fulfill his father's tag.
Hunter Takes Down Grizzly
The hunter had a round in the chamber when encountering the grizzly. It's a decision that saved his life. The two had been in a tight area with a lot of timber to one side and a rocky cliff to the other. Talk about rock and a hard place. Kalkowski had turned around to take a photo of the scenery when the grizzly appeared.
"It sounded like the forest was falling apart, there were branches breaking," he said. "I had a gut feeling that it wasn't good. I wasn't sure it was a bear, but I knew it was not good."
The bear burst forward, and the hunter began firing.
"She folded into a soccer-ball shape and rolled right to my feet," he said. "I thought she was done for, but my dad said, 'Put the rest of your clip (magazine) into her.'"
The bear was the first one they saw on the trip. But they had seen others previously in the area.
"That bear (that he shot) was the first one we encountered during this trip," he said. "It's getting ridiculous up there."
