I moved to AB in the late 90's and since then have had only one run in with a grizz while fishing. In 2010 my brother and I were fishing the east side of the Berland river off HWY 40 around opening day. When we first got to the area we pulled into the campsite on the west side of the hiway and saw a big grizz walking on the road. He bolted like a bat out of hell heading north. We went back to the east side and fished down stream after our encounter. We were getting skunked and after a while we decided to call it. On our way back up stream we ran into the grizz on a flood plain. We had some distance bewteen us but not enough. When the grizz first saw us he turned and bolted but put the breaks on after about 15yds. He turned reared up on his hind legs and then slowly made his way towards us. We had a bit of a mexican standoff on the flood plain. I took two pics before I put the camera away and pulled out the bear spray. My brother had one popper and one flare. The bear made his way around the one deadfall log in the right of the picture. We worked our way to the left towards the river. When he cleared the log my brother fired the one banger which spooked him a few more yards away from us. We moved close to the river and we shot the flare and that spooked him a little further away and we lost him in the bush. We managed to put the river between us and the bear and made it back to our vehicle. It was a little unnerving but knock on wood there has been no encouters since. I only carry bear spray and bear bangers with me. I try to stay away from venturing too much in the bush on my river ventures and have not had a run in since.
