A Close Call on the Logging Trail
A local sportsman finds his gun jammed while a bear charges, forcing a desperate, makeshift solution.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Last Thursday, a number of our sportsmen went bear hunting. Mike Kirtz, while standing on a log, saw a bear and fired at it, but only succeeded in hitting the bear in one of its front legs. The animal immediately ran towards the log on which Mike was standing and commenced climbing up on it. In attempting to throw the ejecting shell, the gun jammed in such a way that the weapon could not be fired. Mike then seized it by the barrel and commenced whacking the bear over the head. Mike struck the beast on the hind leg, thus attracting its attention until he succeeded in forcing another cartridge into position, when he dispatched the animal.
“Mike then seized it by the barrel and commenced whacking the bear over the head.”
This account captures the rugged, often dangerous outdoors culture that defined the Washington frontier. While bear encounters are still a concern in the Cascades today, the 'clubbed gun' technique is rarely found in modern recreational hunting literature.
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