Bear spray.

[Drew Wiley]

Roger - might sound like a tale, but in fact true ... I was 12 at the time and the wild bee swarms would
almost blacken the sky like a big cloud (Oregon woods again). They honeycombed about twenty linear
feet of blackberry bushes down by my Grandma's pond in just two days (a LOT of bees!!). It was beside a gravel path, and my brat cousin just had to pick up a stone and pitch it at the colony. Never
saw so many bees in my life. We ran to the pond, broke off short sections of cattail reeds and swam
underwater across that pond breathing through the reeds. Wouldn't be alive to tell the story if we hadn't; and remarkably, didn't get a single sting.

[Vaughn]

There is a Forest Service story about the timber marker who took a piss over a log and got himself stung several times on the offending (from the yellow jackets' perspective) member. The secretary had a hard time (laughing too hard) writing up the accident report -- especially when it came to the part about the swelling...

[John Kasaian]

Wasps seem to love hair.
We went hiking with another family whose daughter has thick lack hair and came across a nest of wasps.
It's one of the few times that it's good to be a baldy (not so good to have a beard though!)
That poor girl was really getting the business!

[Keith Fleming]

I have a niece who had the same experience crossing a log on the banks of the Rappahannock River in Virginia. Her mom and dad had to comb yellow jackets out of her hair.

A somewhat more crazy thing happened when I was a platoon commander in an infantry company at Camp Lejeune, NC in the early 1960's. We were out in the field, and two of the Marines heard a rattlesnake as they were about to cross a log. Taking the rattling as a challenge, they stunned the snake by firing blanks from their rifles, then beat it to death with the butts of the weapons. The two skinned the snake with their combat knives, and, using a canteen cup, brought the skin and some of the meat back to where the rest of the company was set in for the night. They cooked the meat over a fire that night, and reported it tasted a bit like chicken. I saw the skin in the canteen cup afterward, but didn't ask to try the meat. A safety lecture just didn't seem appropriate--I decided it was one of those times I should shut up and just go back to my own area and allow the two to bask in the admiration of their fellow Marines.

Keith

[bobwysiwyg]

I 'ge noticed a number of the listed incidents involved stepping over logs. As a Boy Scout w-a-y long ago, never step over logs without checking out the other side first.

[Drew Wiley]

Rattlers for dinner?? Just a long chicken neck with little meat on it at all. Needs a lot of breading. My
brother and I killed a huge rattler one morning - maybe 7 ft long - then deep fried it, and as a prank
took it to one of those Grange type potlucks, coiled of course, on a bed of rice in a lovely old antique
cassarole pot with a lid atop. The old ladies would lift that lid, go pale, put the lid back on, and walk
away without any food at all. We had a good chuckle, and more slices of pie for us anyway.

[Leszek Vogt]

I've been away for quite a while....foraging for some good Kona beans on the island...well, somebody had to do it....and this thread is still percolating. All I know is that "fear" is not part of griz's DNA make up. Spray makes sense...

Les

[E. von Hoegh]

Bear spray can also be used to make the ultimate hot wings.

[E. von Hoegh]

From bear spray to bigfoot and huckleberry milkshakes in 18 pages. And, far as can I remember, not a single reference to LF photography. This is exactly what I've come to expect from LFPF. Hitler would not have approved of this thread. Nor would MLK.

Actually, I think Goebbels would be the one who had problems with the thread.

[Drew Wiley]

Yes indeed. There are lots of goebblers in the woods too.