Pamtnman,
Taking the gun out for bear season?
Yes in a way, but not in Pennsylvania. Every Fall I hunt one of the big wilderness areas in the Adirondacks, usually solo. Last year I killed an enormous bear that squared 7 feet; estimated 500-600 pounds. He was stalking me for two days, and I killed him at 30 yards as he was coming in and we were six miles from my truck. It is a truly wild area with absolutely no one within several miles. This year I am taking the ranger hunting, as he has yet to kill a whopper bear or buck. They are there but few and far between, and you really have to cover a lot of territory to see anything at all. All that said, I would not take a nice gun like this bear hunting here in PA. We hunt the northcentral and it is very tough on guns and people. Last year on one of our bear drives in laurel I tripped and face-planted. I am "large" and my chest crushed the nice binoculars hanging on the chest harness against the laurel stumps. All of our guns show terrible signs of use from the bear drives, like deep scratches, broken stocks, bent sights. Not to mention our knees and boots. And now that said, over the years I have taken a couple double English rifles out for the morning sit up high. And then swapped them out at the cabin for a bolt or lever gun when we head out to drive.
The Adirondacks are very rugged, but in a different way; they are more hospitable. I have hiked, hunted and fished from Maine to Alaska and a lot in between, and I have not encountered a rougher, more treacherous place to walk than the steep parts of northcentral PA. All the slick leaves on top of loose rock...and yet we return.
