Bear… I mean Fish Camp

The sun goes down hours earlier these days and that has given me time to start writing my blog entries again!

It’s been a few years since I’ve been bear hunting, so when I got the chance to go to a friend’s bear camp, I jumped at the chance! I packed a bag and made the several hour drive (and ½ hour boat ride) to our “Home away from home” for a week. No cell phone reception, no TV, no distractions, just camping, the outdoors and the sound of loons on the lake.

The second night in my tree stand, I had a small bear come in to the bait and hang out for a while, he even laid down and started cleaning himself at one point, with no clue I was even there. Although I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about shooting him, I let him walk due to it being pretty early on in the week. Thanks to the use of trail cameras, I also knew there had been a bigger bear coming in to the same bait which also influenced my decision to pass up the small bear.

I sat in the same stand on the 3^rd night, and then decided to switch it up for the next 2 nights at different spots. I don’t know if it was a change in the weather, or if the bears knew something we didn’t, but they just weren’t coming in anymore. I switched back to my original stand on the last night thinking that if the smaller bear came back in, that I would take him. Guess what? He didn’t! Although it was a bit disappointing to be going home empty handed, it’s like the saying goes “that’s why it’s called hunting and not killing”

Most of our time during the days before we headed out to the bear baits, was spent fishing. I do a lot of fishing around home in central Saskatchewan on the smaller reservoirs etc. but the fish in the Northern Saskatchewan lakes make the ones at home look like minnows. It was on this same trip that I caught my biggest jack fish (aka Northern Pike) to date. He weighed in right around 14 lbs, and later that night, we had him for supper.

I have never considered a hunting trip to be unsuccessful, whether or not an animal is taken or not, does not determine the entire trip. I had several days of being outdoors in the warm sunshine, being in the tree stand for several hours each day gave me time to think and clear my head from all the chaos left behind at home. I got lots of sleep, the food was great, and I was in good company. To me, all of those things add up to a successful week.