I had some encounters with bears while out in the woods/stream side. Once I was going downstream to hop in the river and fish up to the vehicle. When I got to the spot where I was going to enter the river I started to cross a little meadow with tons of wild roses and full of hips. Halfway there, I a brown bear jumped to its feet and stared at me for an instant; I probably did the same and was staring right back. The bear jumped into the river and took off. I walked back to the Expedition and had a beer.

Another time I was on a nice Sangre de Cristo stream and from the corner of my eye saw something coming down the hill. My first thought was that I was an elk or two because of the color. I got the attention of the person fishing with me to point out the "elk" that was on the opposite bank. When I focused on the animal I realized that it was a huge bear with two cubs. The blond bear had a dished face, humped shoulders and the cubs where as big as most bears in the state. I told my companion to reel up and if the bear continues walking we should head to the vehicles. The bear and cubs stopped on farside slope and stared for awhile. We decided to leave and the bear turn and started to walk across the slope up into the forest.