Well, we have used all kinds of knives in the past, and I wish I could say that I use a Scrapper but there just isn't one that's very well suited for the job.

We mostly use nives that have a nice clipped point and that are much narrower from top to bottom across the blade than most Scrappers. Some of the knives that we use that work very well are the original style KaBar Fighters, SOG Seal 2000 and Marble's Ideal 8". I also used the old Schrade 153UH knives for years, and while they are really too small for a serious hog knife they are still excellent knives if you can find one.

You basically need a knife that has a very secure grip(guards and finger grooves are a good thing on hog knives) and a sturdy blade that's made for stabbing and then slashing. The blade profiles on the above mentioned knives are excellent for this.

As for dogs, we have three Rhodesian Ridgeback/Pit Bull mixes and a Bull Mastiff. The RR/Pit mixes are the most amazing dogs I have ever seen. The nose of a pointer with the fight and tenacity of the RR/Pit like you would expect, but they are the most loving and gentle dogs I have ever owned as well. The Bull Mastiff is what we call a "back end" dog. He will grab the tail or hind leg of a big hog and drag them out when the others have one holed up in thick brush.

Come on down and visit and we'll saddle you up a horse. You haven't lived until you've been hog hunting with us!
The way we do it is to plunge the knife in

That sounds like a blast!

Tolly, those are very powerful dogs.
My wife's daughter has a Rottie/Shepard cross, and at Christmas time, I was
playing with him when he decided that he wanted to go somewhere else.
He gently just pushed me aside like I was nothing <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" /> and went on his merry way.

I'm short, squat, have a very low center of balance, studied Jiujitsu for 5 years,
and weigh 185 lbs. No one just pushes me aside if I don't want to be pushed,
yet this dog did exactly that. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

I was very impressed with his strength AND his gentleness.


Cheers

Sounds pretty exciting Tolly . I might take you up on that you never know-Thanks
DotD- Yah- those dogs can be VERY strong <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />

Since we're talking about defending against wild animals, I figured this article might make some interesting reading for you all.


I'm feeling his teeth.... I was helpless'
Bear-attack victim recounts vicious encounter on Port Renfrew wharf
Joanne Hatherly, Times Colonist
Published: Thursday, November 13, 2008

Blaine Pharis would rather talk about the fish that got away than the bear he got away from in Port Renfrew this summer.

"First fish, last fish, biggest fish," Pharis said of the seven-kilogram coho salmon he landed on Sept. 9, before he was attacked by a bear at the Port Renfrew Marina and RV Park wharf.

Pharis, 52, was at Victoria General Hospital yesterday, where he had travelled from his Saltspring Island home to say thank you to the emergency staff who came to his aid.

Pharis, a construction worker and former commercial fisherman, had just walked back to his 23-foot boat after gutting the coho when the black bear pulled itself up on the wharf. It was between him and the ramp back up to shore.

"I was in a dead end," remembered Pharis. "He was looking right at me. He ran past another man only two feet away from him and come right at me, loping."

Pharis tossed the fish away. "I don't even know what direction I threw it. I thought that would stop it."

It didn't.

Pharis leapt into his boat and the bear vaulted in after him, landing on Pharis and knocking him on his back between the boat's galley and a settee.

Pharis instinctively flung his left arm in front of his face. The bear set in biting his arm.

"The sound was the worst thing," Pharis said. "It sounds like flesh being pulled away from bone."

Pharis swung his free fist at the bear's head. The punch landed, but only caused the bear to drop his arm.

The bear then moved to Pharis's flank, digging in with every bite. "I'm feeling his teeth, his pull."

Pharis was beneath the bear, jammed tight between the galley and the settee, unable to move. "I was helpless."

That's when Pharis saw a man, who he learned later was Bruce Miller, 40, standing behind the bear with a metre-long gaff that had a 13-centimetre spike in it.

"He was lining up like he was going to hit a line drive." The gaff sunk in, but the bear "didn't even blink," Pharis says. Soon more men joined in, plunging gaffs and sharp objects into the bear. One man pounded at the bear's head with a hammer.

The bear responded by moving his attack from Pharis's trunk to his head. Pharis said he had just enough time to turn his face away.

"I figured if he bites my face, I'm going to be really ugly or I'm dead," Pharis said.

The bear's canines sunk into the back of his neck. Dr. Stephen Wheeler, head of emergency and trauma services for the Vancouver Island Health Authority, later said the teeth went between Pharis neck vertebrae, within millimetres of his spinal cord and large blood vessels.

All this time, the bear shook Pharis about as the men "yarded on the bear," moving Pharis back and forth with the bear.

His back now to the bear, Pharis could not see what was happening, but he felt the men pull the bear over to the port side of the boat with such force they lifted the bear and brought Pharis up to his hands and knees.

At that moment another man, Ed Stirling, stretched in through the window with a 30-centimetre filleting knife and slit the bear's throat. The bear rolled over Pharis and dropped to the floor, dead.

Wheeler was in an air ambulance helicopter which had been on its way to Sechelt when the call came in about the bear attack. Because of the helicopter's proximity to the incident, only one hour from the time of the attack Pharis was in the trauma unit at Victoria General. That made a difference in his recovery, Wheeler said.

"He had a serious attack, he had his neck ripped open. He could have been bleeding internally and dropped dead on us at any moment," Wheeler said, emphasizing the importance of a quick response time.

Pharis politely made it clear he's not comfortable being interviewed, but he wanted to ask the public to donate to the Victoria Hospital Foundation to buy new equipment for the new emergency and trauma centre that is being built here.


"This [attack] changed my attitude," Pharis said. "People might think they don't need to donate because 'it's not going to happen to me,' but it can. It happened to me. It shouldn't take that."

Learn more, or donate for equipment at the new trauma unit, at www.victoriahf.ca or by calling 250-414-6688.

NEW DISPATCH SYSTEM SPEEDS HELICOPTERS TO ACCIDENT SCENES

A new dispatch system being introduced this week will get air ambulance helicopters to trauma victims much quicker than before.

Until now, the decision to call in a helicopter to transport trauma patients was made by emergency, police or fire personnel at the scene where the injury occurred, whether at a car accident or a workplace.

The popularity of cellphones has made it possible to shorten emergency response times by cutting out the time it takes for emergency response teams to get to the site, said Dr. Stephen Wheeler, head of emergency services and trauma care for the Vancouver Island Health Authority. Wheeler developed the dispatch program with Randy L'Heureux, director for the Airevac/Critical Care Transport Programs.

"If you were going down the highway and saw a car crash, you'd have to drive to the next town to call 9-1-1. By the time you get there, you can't really remember what you saw," Wheeler said.

"The beauty of the cellphone is [witnesses] can now be standing at the side of the road. The dispatcher can ask specific questions about what they are seeing, and this allows us to automatically dispatch a helicopter before any medical, police or fire departments get to the scene."

This new protocol, called the B.C. Ambulance Service Air Ambulance Auto Launch System, is the first of its kind in Canada and one of only three in North America, Wheeler said.

-- Times Colonist

And here's another:

Cariboo man kills black bear with makeshift club
Jim West thankful to be alive but saddened by death of the bear and her two cubs
Katie Mercer, The Province
Published: Tuesday, October 07, 2008

A B.C. man bludgeoned a black bear to death with a stick after it attacked him near Green Lake in the Cariboo.

"She put me down twice. I knew if she put me down again, chances are I wouldn't get up," Jim West, 45, said Tuesday.

"It wasn't fight or flight. It was live or die."


West, a resident of 70 Mile House, and his two dogs were out scouting for moose when he crossed the path of an angry mama bear last Saturday afternoon.

He was walking into the wind watching his black labs, Shadow and Chopper, happily flushing out grouse when he heard a loud growl.

"All of a sudden I heard a loud huff and growl to my right and I turned and there was a bear six feet away," he said.

"I realized I had no time to do the smart thing - to hit the ground, put my arms behind my head and play dead.

"I had only one option and that was to stop that bear from putting me down on the ground."

He kicked at the bear as its claws came crashing down on his upper lip, splitting it.

Seconds later the bear's heavy paws were on his shoulders and West was on the ground.

Quickly flipping over, he covered his head with his hands just as the bear took a couple of "good chews" out of the rear of his skull and left arm.

The dogs came back, distracting the bear long enough for West to take cover behind a small tree.

But the mama bear, whose cubs were on the other side of West, came back for a second round, knocking West back to the ground, biting him and slashing his right arm.

The dogs came back again to help, distracting the bear who pawed one of the dogs.

"I heard a yelp and my first thought was, 'you're not killing my dog,' " West said.

Grabbing a nearby stick that was about eight centimeters in diameter and a metre-and-a-half long, West turned to see the bear running at him.

He lifted the stick just as she came up on him, hitting her smack-dab between the ears.

"She stopped in her tracks. I had stunned her and she shook her head.

"My mind immediately turned to driving in 10-inch spikes with a sledgehammer and I hit her until I crushed her skull," he said.

West whacked the bear five times before she hit the ground.

He whacked her another three times until he saw blood coming out of her nose.

He wrapped his head with his shirt, gathered himself and the dogs and headed to a nearby restaurant to call paramedics.

"He came in and his hands were covered in blood and he had a bloody shirt wrapped around his head," said Ellie Scott of Little Horse Lodge, who patched him up while waiting for the ambulance.

"He was so calm. And I honestly thought he would be bleeding more."

West received a total of 60 stitches to his skull, upper lip and left arm and is already back at home and back in the woods.

Conservation officers who found the dead bear told him it was unnaturally, overly aggressive.

The mama bear's two cubs had to be put down in case the aggression had been passed down in their genes, he said.

"I feel great regret for having to kill that bear and even more that her cubs were put down. But it was her or me," said West.

As for West's dogs? They got their reward Tuesday - a steak dinner.

Tyger,

Those are accounts of two of the attacks that I was talking about.

There was also one by 100 Mile House just a short time after the
one at 70 Mile, but the fellow in that one had a shotgun and shot the
bear.
Around that same time, there was the grizzly attack on the geologist
up near Whitehorse. Unfortunately, he died in that attack.

Also, in October of this year, a friend of mine and another guy were
in Banff doing a light jog while preparing for a long distance race,
and were chased by a black bear, right in the city limits.

That was some great reading-Thanks Tyger !! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />
You come down here Dave- I ain't comin up there !!(lol) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

As bears seems to be the topic of the moment, I have an amusing story to
tell. First off, a picture so that you can sort of see the area I'm going
to talk about.

If you look down our road, you'll see the Ford truck on the right hand side of the picture.
On the left side of the picture, you'll see the front end of my old Chev S-10.
At the time of this story, I had an old Chrysler New Yorker, and it was parked
where the S-10 is in this picture.
We had just gotten our dog, so this happened about 5 years ago now.

At that time, my step-son was working for a security company, and he had pulled
a week of evening shifts, so would leave about 8 pm and come home early in the
morning. Well, this particular evening my step-son leaves for work, gets out
in his car, then comes back in the house.

He mentions that there is a black bear at the end of the road in the garbage
can of the guy who owns the Ford truck, and that we shouldn't let our dog out
that night.

Well, here am I....I just have to see this stoopid bear. I'm still not sure who was
more stoopid, him or me. Anyway, I figure that I'd be safe in the car, so out
I go to hop in the car. Automatically, I locked our house door when I went out.

You have to picture this story happening in the spring, so at 8 pm it is pitch
black out. Here am I fumbling with my keys trying to fit the key in the door
lock of the car, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch a movement.

Yep....it was the bear. Well, I let out a huge "whoop", drop my keys and run
for the house...only to find the locked door. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />

So, here am I, pounding on the door for the wife to let me in, making enough
noise to wake up the dead, which scared the crap out of the poor bear.
By the time my wife was able to open the door, that bear was gone up the road
and into the bush.

I don't know who was more scared, the bear or me...but I can tell you who
was more stoopid....me <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

That is some funny stuff- <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> great read-Thanks !! ( LMAO)

For a long time now I have been advocating that the combat shotgun is the best form of secondary weapon for a Sniper and much of what is said above explains why. If you move around at night on your own...(we now work in pairs like your Marine Snipers but it was'nt always so)...ideally with the wind in your face to carry scent and noise away...you should hardly be suprised at what you bump into....but there is little or no thought given to this type of scenario when it comes to training.

FMJ .223 rounds are not going to do much on a charging bear...neither will they assist in a quick instinctive turning shot if a cat is up a tree...where as a shotgun loaded with a mixture of slug, buckshot and heavy bird shot would give you a much better fighting chance. Very effective on two legged suprises as well.

I have certainly had a few close encounters which scared me half to death but in fairness nothing along the lines of a Bear although in Africa we certainly were close to some Lions and Hyenas who thankfully were more engrossed in each other than us.

Spiders...Snakes...a Badger of all things...an angry heard of Cows...I have even had an Owl nearly take a chunk out of my ear...and a Hippo launching itself out of the water and up the bank when in Africa...have all taken their toll on my nerves......

Risks like this though never get a mention....as to sorting these problems out with a knife...well...good luck is all I can say and go for cutting the spinal cord as high up near the head as possible. Cutting throats would only work well if the animal bled out into the lungs so it choked quickly...but IF you can sever the spinal column it will go limp straight off.

This is not an easy thing to do however on predators whose skeleton and muscle structure has them armoured like tanks. If pushed I would pick what I am presently liking the most of the knives I have ...a Basic 9...it is long enough to get deep and not too deep in the blade so it can pierce well...plus it will be with me for it's other uses. Maybe a SHBM Jungle Assault with it's serrations might be a better choice...but you would need to be very lucky whichever way and in all liklihood the knife with you will not be selected for these reasons. Much as I think a Ruck might be a good contender...I doubt I would be carrying one.

Great post SF - makes good sense-Thanks <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />