Miller was on his boat northwest of Victoria on Tuesday evening, when he saw the bear run up an adjacent jetty after swimming across the Jordan River and jump into Pharis's boat.

The bear ignored the coho salmon that Pharis threw toward him and instead jumped Pharis.
Miller heard Pharis screaming, picked up his metre-long spiked gaff and dashed toward him.
"He was pinned on the floor. Miller sunk his gaff with its five-inch spike into the bear's neck.

"It went right in and the bear still wouldn't let go." Miller kept sinking the gaff into the bear's neck until another fisherman showed up with a gaff and joined in the fight.

But the bear kept hold of Pharis's shoulder. Two other men showed up armed with a knife and a hammer. "This bear was getting hit between the eyes with the hammer and it didn't flinch," Miller said. A fifth man with a fishing knife began stabbing the bear in the neck.

But, Miller said, the bear "didn't let go until he was dead."

That bear was involved in a life death struggle for <food.>