On measuring success

The satisfaction of participating.

Bear camp this spring was a success. I didn’t get a bear. I was however part of a successful hunt where my friend took his first (he is an otherwise very experienced hunter, just not with black bears). My proposal for the hunt was that seeing as he had never hunted bear and I had taken one in the same area last year, he should have the first opportunity. I was happy to attempt any subsequent opportunities and was keen to attempt it with archery gear (perhaps with some temerity!).

The joy of being in camp.

After our success on the first evening I was thoroughly enjoying being out and being a part of the bear success. The camp was great, we were shooting our bows, my partner was having her first big game hunting experience, we were philosophising in camp chairs and skinning/butchering a bear over cups of tea – damn grand if you ask me.


 After my friend’s bear was tagged I had this feeling that the trip was a great success and began to feel that it no longer mattered as much if I got one or not. I have had similar experiences while fishing my favourite runs for Yellowfish, on the Vaal River in South Africa. At times, after making a number of successful pocket casts and getting into a few fish in a rapid, I have felt like I have been granted my fair share of success and harassed the fish enough. I have then retreated to watch birds and Monitor Lizards and laze on rocks – often even in the face of a likely looking eddy imploring me to try and cast a Gold Ribbed Hares Ear into it!

Towards objective hunting ethics?

“Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do”

- Potter Stewart

I embark on writing my thoughts about hunting ethics with some trepidation. Far from being prosaic, there are few discussions surrounding hunting that can be as fierce as those concerning ethics. Often these debates descend into a quagmire of subjectivity and opinion; proponents of widely varying ethical views predictably claim a right to their doctrines and challenge others to disprove their definitions of sound and acceptable conduct. While hunting ethics can be a horribly messy issue with ample room for debate at their margins, there are certain fundamentals that I believe the vast majority can, and do, agree on.

You know you had a late spring when..

...you are paddling around 5ft thick unshaded ice shelves in the middle of May.

Warm spring days, icy spring water.

As always, sliding my kayak into the freezing river for the first time after winter was like being freed from a non-paddling cage (I clearly always avoid hyperbole too). My stiff back and shoulders feel rewarding and a pleasant reminder of more river-dances to come this summer.

Here's a short video. They will get a little better as the summer progresses!

© Brian Joubert

3D Archery - or how to deflate any overconfidence. (video)



Discussing the Grizzly Bear results. (Photo: Jamie)

Humbling! Other than an excellent way to spend an outdoor-sport day, that’s the best way to describe my first 3D archery tournament. The Edmonton Police Fish and Game Association 3D shoot was a really enjoyable event held at a great venue in the North Saskatchewan River valley. Hunting buddy Jamie and I spent the day with a friendly and good humoured father and son pair, walking two rounds of the 20 target course.

Meat eating anti-hunters: a logical house of cards?

Bear burgers - 'horrible', superior
 or morally indifferent to beef? 

I have, on occasion, had chance to debate the morality of hunting with anti-hunters of the most nonsensical kind (at least to me) – those who will readily tell you that hunting is ‘bad’, all while tucking into a hotdog. I am amazed how the adherents to this argument fail to see that this is a clear invitation to repudiate this house-of-cards logic.


In my humble opinion, the ethics of eating animals is bifurcated insofar as you think it is either indefensible to kill and eat any animal, or you believe that it is in fact morally acceptable to eat meat. If you are an adherent to the former, then any accusation towards hunting as ‘wrong’ or cruel has some philosophical foundation. Of course it is not automatically granted immunity from debate under these conditions. However someone who does not eat meat or use products from dead animals, by virtue of this view, has a certain degree of absolution from the immediate cause of death of food animals (even this though is specious, as most food production results in significant numbers of animal deaths).

Canadian Tire advert wildlife faux pas?

So, how many of you can notice the potential geographic and wildlife inconsistency in Canadian Tire’s new TV ad?

Ok, I’ll spoil it for you, at 0:27 the animal running through the trees sure doesn't look Canadian or North American – it looks to me like a European Red Deer (Cervus elaphus of one the various subspecies). Agree?

Notable Quote:

Authentic treachery is found when we abandon ourselves, becoming deaf to the whispers of our spirits and blind to the powerful potential therein.

Espinosa