Here is the story HogSniper was refering to, The whole story and a pic of the (very small sow) can be seen at
http://www.adn.com/front/story/1633810p-1751603c.htmlKenai River -- When a brown bear poked its head over the bluff behind the state's most popular fishing hole just after midnight Friday, 20-year-old Matt Pennington was surprised.
When it came full-bore for Pennington, the surprise turned to shock.
"The speed," he said this week, "that's the part that gets me."
Nervous about bears, Pennington had carried a shotgun on a sling across his back as he and fishing buddies Garen and Kalen Brenner hiked down along the Russian River to near the Kenai ferry crossing earlier that evening.
The shotgun was still there as Pennington stood knee-deep in the water about 100 feet upstream from the ferry landing on the river's south bank. When the salmon run peaks, hundreds of anglers line up shoulder-to-shoulder along this stretch of river.
On this night, though, there was only Pennington, his longtime friends the Brenners and three others.
"I was casting," Pennington said, "and I just happened to turn to the left. I saw (the bear) right there, coming up over the hill. It came right at me at a full run. I yelled, 'Bear, bear, and he's charging.' "
Pennington threw down his fishing rod and began wrestling the pistol-gripped Mossberg, pump-action 12-gauge off his back. He was unsure whether he'd been able to chamber a shell when he realized the bear was almost on him.
With the grizzly at three feet away, Pennington knew he had to do something. But what? He was deadly afraid of pulling the trigger on the shotgun only to hear the thunk of a firing pin falling on an empty chamber.
So he threw the gun in the bear's face and dove for the deep water of the fast-flowing river.
"I tried to stay underwater as long as I could," Pennington said. "It got real deep."
As Pennington submerged, the Brenners were drawing their guns.
Kalen had heard, "Bear, bear," before seeing a blur as Pennington disappeared into the river with the dark shape of the bear close behind.
"It was fast," 21-year-old Garen said. "We didn't hear any footsteps or anything."
"By the time I saw (Pennington) hit the water," Garen said, "I just started shooting.
"Usually I keep the gun in my chest waders, not loaded."
On this night, though, he had decided to fasten the holster to a strap holding up his waders, and the gun was where he needed it.
"We've fished there for years," Garen said. "We've seen bears. They've just never been a problem. They don't usually come over the hill and charge you."
Still, the men knew there was danger. When people in the Grayling Parking Lot at the Russian River Campground asked why they carried firearms, Kalen told them it seemed better to play it safe.
"Me and my brother, we're always looking out for something that's not normal," he said.
This was far from normal.
"(The bear) was five feet away when (Garen) got that first shot off," Kalen said. "That's how fast it was coming."
That Garen hit the fast-moving bear with his handgun was fortunate, he admits. That one of the 9 mm, full-metal-jacket bullets -- woefully inadequate for stopping a charging brown bear -- happened to slam into the socket of the bear's front shoulder might almost be considered a miracle.
That bullet blew up the shoulder. The bear went down, rolled over and spun.
Garen kept shooting, now joined by Kalen. They estimated they fired at least seven shots.
"I pointed my gun at its head and shot three or more times," Garen said. "And we're yelling, 'Matt! Matt! Where are you,' because we didn't know where he was."
"I thought he was drowning," Kalen said.
Pennington wasn't drowning. He was just coming up from his Kenai dive in chest-high neoprene waders, hoping the bear was gone.
It wasn't, or so Pennington thought.
"I saw the second bear, and I thought it was the first one," he said. "I thought it was coming down the river after me."
"I heard him yell, 'Shoot, shoot,' " Kalen said.
Only then did the Brenners realize there even was a second bear.
"It was so dark you could barely see," Garen said. "We saw the bear because it was blacker than the dark, and because it moved."
The second bear ran as Pennington screamed.
"We honestly thought it was a baby we had killed," Garen said.
Larry Lewis, an Alaska Department of Fish and Game wildlife technician, later estimated the weight of the dead bear at 400 to 450 pounds. The Brenners admitted they don't know much about the size of bears, having only seen them at a distance.
"Neither of us have ever hunted or anything," Garen said.
