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Bear Bites Bowhunter Sitting in Treestand

By Brodie SwisherOctober 20, 2021

Wisconsin bowhunter, Dalton Roach, was sitting in his treestand hunting recently when a black bear came on the scene. Wanting to capitalize on the unique encounter, Roach grabbed his cell phone to shoot some videos of the beast below his stand. 

Roach initially felt safe from his vantage point, 20 feet up in the tree. However, a moment later, the bear turned and walked straight to Roach’s tree.

That’s when things took a serious turn. 

Missouri's Return To Bear Season
How would you handle a bear climbing up your tree?

Roach says he heard scratching noise and realized the bear was climbing the same tree his stand was in. 

“The next thing I know, I can hear him right behind me and feel him breathing on my back,” said Roach, who was sitting on a large treestand platform.

“Then I feel a paw on my lap. He just kind of left the paw sitting there, so it’s not like I wanted to make a big move and make him squeeze.”

When Roach began to feel pressure against his back, he new the bear was now biting down on him, and it was time to take action. 

He spun around in the tree and did what he’d always heard you were supposed to do to prevent being eaten by a bear. He raised his arms wide and shouted with everything he had. 

Fortunately, the stunt worked, and the bear began to back down the tree. 

Once back on the ground, the bear walked 15 yards away and then stopped to look back at Roach. Roach phoned a friend to let him know what was going on, just in case. Once the bear was completely out of sight, Roach climbed down to slip out of the woods before dark. 

After returning home, his wife insisted he go to the emergency room for a closer look at the bite. He reluctantly agreed and made the trip to the local clinic to let the medical team check things out. The staff cleaned the bite with saline, prescribed some antibiotics and gave him a fresh tetanus shot, along with the first round of 22 injections of the rabies vaccine regimen. 

“I still plan to hunt like usual,” says Roach. “I honestly am not scared of heading back into the woods at all. It was a super rare situation and I am just happy to have made it out okay. But I am still excited to get back into the woods.”

Brodie Swisher
Brodie Swisher is a world champion game caller, outdoor writer, seminar speaker and Editor for Bowhunting.com. Brodie and his family live in the Kentucky Lake area of west Tennessee.
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