Cannon Shoot
Every family has strange traditions… one of my family’s particularly odd ones is attending the annual cannon shoot. I was lucky enough to have this story published in the NFA’s firearms journal, their bi-monthly publication that they send to members. For more information on the NFA (and how to become a member) visit their website here.
My parents have the second weekend of September booked off indefinitely for the annual cannon shoot. Its a full weekend event, most folks drive out Friday and camp out until Sunday. I have attended it a few times over the years and have seen my step-dad’s cannon do a lot of shooting over the years, he’s had it for about as long as I’ve been alive and definitely as long as I can remember. In 2016 I went and assisted my friend Brad who had made his own cannon and mortar, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. What I enjoy most about the competition is that its not really that competitive, I think there’s more competition on who can make the best joke on the firing line… in fact there is a trophy for that, called the “Screw Ball” award. Another aspect that I always find a bit interesting is that my step-dad and his friend Germain, who run the cannon together, are usually the youngest guys there by about 25 years. So naturally there’s a wealth of knowledge there but also there’s just something about old black powder guys that just makes them fun to hang around with.. maybe its the sense of humor required to use a dirty, smoking, outdated method of propulsion, or maybe there’s just some chemicals in that smoke that cross your wires. Either way, if you ever get a chance to spend time with a group of old black powder shooters, do it, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Darrell and Germain’s cannon
Well, last year one of the old guard of the group had off-hand mentioned that he wasn’t sure he was up to coming out this next year. Running a cannon alone is a lot of work, in fact doing it with two people still constitutes a good workout, if you ask me. At any rate, my parents did what any parent would do… they volunteered a child as free labour to a cannoneer. I just realized that statement probably hasn’t been relatable for over 100 years. Furthermore, I am always interested in things that go boom, and learning, so I was on board immediately. My original plan was to help Brad with his cannon too, as I had the year before. However, he ended up not coming due to work obligations.. can you imagine being such a workaholic that you miss a cannon shoot? Poor guy needs help.
This year the cannon shoot was in Athabasca, which is lucky because my dad lives near there so I was able to sleep at his house over the weekend. I arrived Saturday morning and was introduced to Dan, he was an older fellow and was dressed pretty much how you’d expect a seasoned cannon shooter to be dressed. Blue jeans, a button up western shirt, suspenders, cowboy boots, and a hat that has seen more miles than I have. We hit it off immediately, we headed to his cannon and he gave me a once over of it and walked me through the procedure. Ill give you a quick step by step with some side notes here.
- MAKE SURE NO ONE IS DOWN RANGE ( he didn’t tell me this, but its just common sense that I feel is important to drill into everyone)
- Grease and load a led slug into the barrel. The most common projectiles are lead cylinders between 1 and 2 inch diameter, ours were 1 3/4 across I believe, and typically about 3 inches long or so. Guys make them by melting and pouring lead into a mold, the most common way to get bulk lead is weights from tire shops. We would also usually grease or lube a few slugs at a time and just set them aside. The slugs where placed into the rear of the cannon and tapped all the way in with a metal bar and a hammer until flush.
- Next we take the breech and fill it with black powder (about a prescription pill container full.. that was our unit of measure), place some wadding on top and then insert a fuse into the side.
- Screw the breech onto the back of the cannon (where you had just put the lead slug) usually we had to use a bar as a snipe to get it on all the way.
- Aim the cannon at your target, typically cannons use a peep sight on the rear and a post on the front. Left and right is adjusted by moving the rear of the cannon along the ground, often a tap with a hammer is enough to shift it. Elevation is adjusted with a screw gear between the barrel and the carriage, allowing the barrel to pivot up and down on its mounts.
- Announce to the line that you are ready, we were station two so we would yell “Ready on two!”
- Once all cannons on the line were ready we would fire in turn “Firing on two!” light the fuse with a propane torch, announce “fire in the hole!” and watch your target and hope you hit it.
- Once everyone has fired, the breech is unscrewed and a wet rag is pushed down the barrel to clean it and make sure there’s no smoldering bits of black powder or wadding that could set off the next load of powder. A dry rag is then run through.
- The breech threads are wiped with a wire brush.
- The cannon is pushed forward back to the line, the shot pushed it back about a foot
- Back to step 1.
The Shooting line. We are second from the end (white chassis)
Black powder is very dirty to work with. I was wearing rubber gloves but they would just rip from handling bits of metal and tightening the breech on and off. I tried leather work gloves but found I needed a bit more dexterity for loading the slugs in so they were constantly on and off. By the end of the day I admitted defeat and just let my hands turn black.
Our reloading bench, that is the breech and you can see a lead slug in the lower left
Back to the actual event. Dan was giving me a quick once over of his cannon and as I bent down to have a look at the bore, my nose started to bleed. It was off to rough start today, I quickly grabbed some paper towel and plugged my nose. Its rare for me to get a nose bleed but it inevitable happens at the worst times, of course.
Our first shoot of the day was at metal pipe at about 100 yards. We loaded up and aimed the cannon. Dan said that his gun usually shoots a bit to the right so lets go a touch left of center. I sighted us in and he bent down for a final inspection, said “looks good” and we were ready to rock. Station one, a very funny man named Henry, fired and missed by millimeters. Dan handed me the torch and told me to light it. I fired up the fuse and hoped for the best. The cannon let out a crack and a whole mess of smoke and the pipe did a back-flip. We hit it a little low of dead center. It was going to be a fantastic day. We had two more shots at the piece of pipe “where it lays” we hit it once more. The next event was stumps, same distance, hit the stump and then try and hit the largest piece that’s left, 3 shots. Our first shot split the stump and the second one cracked what was left, we missed the third. The points were, I believe 1 point per hit, the rules were kinda made up immediately before we shot. This part of the event was referred to as “the junk shoot” so it was pretty free and easy. The next junk shoot was an old fire alarm bell on a 2 inch stake, about 4 feet tall. It was decided, 3 points for hitting the bell, 1 for hitting the post and 2 for cutting the post. Our first shot rang the bell and sent it sailing 40 yards down range, our following two scared the post but never connected.
Dan making sure we are lined up
Stumps before
Stumps after
I was wondering if a slug would go through or just deform the bell. Now I know.
My favorite event, which was something new they decided to try this year, was “The Post”. Each cannon would take a turn shooting at the same post, it was a point for a hit and 2 points for cutting the post down. Cutting it down would also signal the end of the round. With 7 cannons we did three rounds. Several of the teams hit it and gave it a good wobble, and you could see a lot of kindling fly off of it, but it just didn’t want to go down.. that was until, Dan and I managed to bull it over with a shot that may have been more luck than skill, but keep that under your hat for me. We decided to break for lunch, some sandwiches, chili, and a variety of other snacks. My mom is the raining champion of cannon shoot food, every year its the highlight of the event… she does the same thing at the annual DMay fun shoot too. Im sure half of those guys arent into cannons or guns, just good meals. While having lunch a few people, including Dan had mentioned that his gun was shooting very well this year. There was some joking debate about if it was fresh eyes or beginners luck that made the difference. Either way I was happy with how the day was going.
After lunch we went back for the official shoots. There were two, one shooting at individual targets at 100 yards, and we were given points for however close were were to the bullseye. This shoot was called the “Roger Cadeaux Memorial” in reference to an older member who had passed away. Dan and I did ok, but Darrell and Germain tied with another team which lead to a shoot off, one shot, closest to center wins. That last event of the day was everyone shooting, in turn, at a large bulls-eye at 200 yards. This was again a memorial shoot named after Mr. Andy Wood, who had also passed. We did manage to connect but we did not shine at this event. I was still pretty pleased with the results of the day. After that we had supper, another staple of the event. We had some meatballs in mushroom sauce, amazing homemade chicken wings, a variety salads and some very noteworthy desserts. By the end of the meal I was worried I would split open like those stumps we shot. We then sat and joked and told stories and just generally enjoyed ourselves. Dan wandered over and handed me a beer and we toasted the days success. When the daylight was far enough away, I headed to my dads and spent some time with him. Discussed the day and pet the pug.
Our results for the Roger Cadeaux event
The next morning we were back out with the cannons. The first event was tires. Truck tires were set perpendicular to the shooting line (so they could roll toward or away from us) and we had three shots to see who could get the most distance. After each shot we could go stand our tires back up. Our tire only rolled a few feet but, to our right, at station three, they managed to push theirs nearly 100 yards. Darrell and Germain had theirs roll back and fall over right behind someone else’s tire, effectively blocking them. It wasn’t intentional but we all considered it a personal favour anyway. Next, and my second favourite shoot, was water filled washer jugs and propane tanks. They were placed at random between 80 and 120 yards. There were seven cannons, so the jugs and tanks were spray painted with numbers so there were 3 with each number on them, then were drew straws to see what number you were shooting at. Dan and I got number 5. What made this fun for me was that because they were randomly set out, some targets were blocked by other peoples so you had to strategise a bit. Shooting a far target first would reduce your chances of someone else’s target landing in your way after it got shot, but it also, in our case, meant that a slight miss would mean hitting a competitors target and giving them a free point. We opted to work front to back in the hopes that people would knock their targets out of way. As luck would have it, we went three for three on our washer jugs. It is a great feeling to see those jugs explode when that much lead slams into them.
Up next were the mortars. This event was the Doc memorial. I had actually met Doc a few times over the years, to describe him as a character probably wouldn’t quite do him justice. Lets just say he was well liked and not the kind of fellow you forget meeting. In fact he was so dedicated to the cannon community that last year we had spread his ashes, via a mortar, at the cannon shoot. We also hung a picture of him at the firing line so he could watch.
The mortars are loaded and operated in a similar fashion to the cannons, though most people fill them from the top instead of having a removable breech like the cannons. For shot, some people use lead with a bit of a tail on it to help stabilize it and some people, like Dan, use cement filled beer cans. Darrell and my friend Brad (who got most of his designs from Darrell) use hockey pucks held together with an eye bolt which has a rope attached to it, this stabilizes and helps us find them when you miss and hit the trees. They all have their pros and cons, the pucks tend to bounce more which can sometimes help you get closer to target… or throw you away from it. Where as the lead and cement cans are more authoritative in their landing. Lead seems to get the least push from wind, and beer cans full of cement are typically the cheapest to make. Pick your poison, as they say. I like the pucks, personally, as they are the easiest to make and not too expensive. The goal when shooting a mortar is to get as close as possible to an object, typically a tire laid down at about 75 yards, and bounces count. Mortars are always a good time because its mostly guess work and something funny always happens, someone puts a half load and throws their shot 4 feet or doubles the load and loses their shot passed the end of the 200 yard berm. This year was no exception and Dan and I lost a can into the trees. I couldn’t find it, but I did find a different brand of beer can full of cement that someone had lost the previous year, so we came with six cans and left with six cans, who cares if they weren’t the same. We didnt do particularly well in this event but it was still fun.
After the mortars, it was all over. We packed up our gear onto trailers and into trucks. Everyone pitched in and helped everyone get packed up. We then had some lunch, leftover chili and some more sandwiches and what ever desserts were left. That chili was just as good second time around, no question. After we were all squared away we met up in the club house for the final numbers and trophies. The screw ball award went to Darrell who I believe had had and incident and dumped a breech full of black powder onto the ground. I dont recall the mortar trophy’s new owner or the proud recipients of the Andy Wood and Roger Cadeaux. Then to my surprise I was awarded “Best Effort” more as a thanks for all my running around up and down range and helping everyone load up. Its usually the award given to new comers so I kinda got it by default, but I was still more than happy to accept it. Then when they started doing the top 3 overall, I got excited thinking Dan and I may have squeaked into 3rd place. We were shooting well all weekend and I was half keeping an eye on the competition and I knew we were in the top half or so. Third place was announced and it wasn’t us, so I figured we placed 4th or so, not too shabby if you ask me. 2nd place went to Darrell and Germain, which isn’t surprising as they are pretty good with that gun of theirs. When they announced 1st place my hat nearly flew off. Dan and I had somehow accumulated enough points in the junk shoots and kept up well enough in the other events we pulled off 1st place! This gave us two trophies as there is one for overall 1st place and one for bore diameter over 1.5 inch which we also qualified for. Dan and I shook hands and celebrated our success. We each got a 1st place trophy to take home and put on the shelf to brag about to guests. Those 2 trophies (best effort and 1st place) are real conversation starters, I must say.
As we packed up and headed out I shook Dan’s hand again and thanked him for the cannon education. He thanked me for the help. Just before I left I said “do it again next year?” “yep” was his reply. I’m already looking forward to it.
It also occurred to me and made me chuckle… I have a trophy for winning a cannon shoot, and I dont even own a cannon. But never fear, I plan on building one someday, and dont worry, you’ll hear all about it.
The Illustrious Screw Ball Award. I feel like more competitions need this trophy.
Posted in Marksmanship, Published Workwith no comments yet.
Bass Fishing In Colombia
I was fortunate enough to have this story published in Hooked Magazine, Im still quite proud of that.
When Erin and I were packing for our trip I made a point of bringing my fly fishing gear. As I packed, I dreamt about catching piranha in the amazon and brown trout in Patagonia. Not once did bass cross my mind, maybe they should have.
While in Colombia, Erin and I went to Guatape the reason for our visit being La Piedra, essentially a very big rock that they made a staircase up the side of. The town is also near a very large man-made lake that flooded a town when they built a dam. When we were looking for a hostel I noticed one listed fishing as one of the nearby activities, obviously we booked with that one.
La Piedra
The day we arrived we decided to do the hike up the 700ish stairs to the top of the rock, which was conveniently across the road from our hostel. We slogged our way to the top and I’m told the views were amazing. I was not interested in going near the edge, or peeking over the railing. I hate heights, and don’t worry, Erin got a few pictures of me crawling around on the top right next to a three foot concrete railing.
The Stairs Up
Not A Fan Of Heights
View From The Top
The next day we walked the three kilometres into town, which involved crossing over a very shaky suspension bridge over the highway. The town wasn’t particularly exciting there were lots of people offering boat tours and a few stores selling fishing tackle, mostly small and expensive hard plastic fishing lures. That afternoon, after we got back to the hostel, I started asking about fishing. The lady running the hostel told me that the neighbour had a boat and would take people fishing for a small fee and the she had an old fishing rod Erin could borrow. I asked her what kind of fish the lake had in it and she said “trout I think, is there one called a rainbow?”. That evening, after the neighbour had returned home, her and I went over and she acted as a translator for me to hire the boatman. I was informed that the fishing seemed best between four pm and dark, about six pm. He said it would cost 40,000 pesos and he would pick Erin and I up at four the following day. That night I did a lot of research into how to catch rainbow trout in lakes.
Colombia Is Prone To Questionable Bridges
In the morning, the hostel owner showed me the fishing rod she had for Erin. It was an old collapsible spin caster rod with the last quarter broken off of the end. The reel on it was dusty, dirty, grinding, and had about twenty feet of old sun damaged line on it. I stripped it down as far as I could and used some vegetable oil to lubricate the reel, that made a huge difference, but the rig still had a lot of problems. We walked into town again to see how much some fresh line would cost. Upon seeing the price, I decided that line would probably be too heavy for that rod and not cast well anyway.
I packed my fly gear, some snacks, and the borrowed rod into my backpack and at 3:30 we got a call that the boat was here to pick us up. We were told that he had a few other anglers out on the banks, one of whom was from Puerto Rico and spoke excellent english. As the boat headed out, I started assembling my, nearly, top of the line Redington five piece fly rod, I looked at Erins shambled excuse of a rod and felt like a bit of a show off. I was also terrified by the realization that she will still likely out fish me like she always does. I expected that the boat driver would drop us off at on the shore and come back at dark, but I was mistaken.
All Of My Gear Before I Packed It
Riding Out
We pulled up to the shore and a man with a Texas accent, and a bunch of fish on a rope, jumped on the boat and introduced himself. Turns out he was the Puerto Rican, or more accurately, a Texan who had lived in Puerto Rico. He was followed by a few Colombians. We started chatting and it turns out his girlfriend is from Colombia and the men with him were his in-laws. We started talking about the fishing and he informed us that the fish in the lake were actually large mouth bass, but everyone in town referred to them as trout. He said they resembled the bass from Florida and he guessed they were transplanted there after the dam was built and to his knowledge they were the only bass in Colombia. I don’t know where he got his information from but he seemed to know a lot about bass and told us he had done some tournament fishing back home. I believed him and he was kind enough to give me some tips. Also, in an amazing act of kindness, compassion, or maybe pity he saw Erin’s rod and promptly handed her his, stating “I have been fishing for five days straight, I need a break” she took the rod and he promptly opened a well deserved beer.
He explained to us where bass tend to hide, in the weeds, and where to cast, just beside the weeds. At first no one was seeming to catch much but finally Erin connected and the whole boat was a buzz. The little bass thrashed and skidded across the surface until Erin brought it in. The Texan grabbed it, took the hook out, we got a quick picture and then it was tossed on the string with the rest of the days catch. At a glance, I would say it was one of the bigger fish caught that day.
Erins Monster
Everyone kept on fishing and chatting, I kept practicing my casting. A few other guys on the boat caught a few fish, and kept them all. Finally, in the crystal clear water, I watched a small bass swim up and take my chironomid fly. All at once it was on, I lifted the rod and set the hook, I started stripping line. I then realized how tiny the fish was, I could tell by the joking and cheering from everyone else in the boat. I hollered at the Texan “Get the net! Gonna need a bigger boat!”. I reeled the little guy in, grabbed the bottom lip, got a picture and tossed it back into the water to grow some more. It may have been small, but on a fly rod anything is exciting and you don’t have to even be catching fish to have fun fishing, so I’m still happy with it. We fished some more with very little success until finally it was just too dark.
My Minnow Sorry About The Blur, It’s The Only Way I Look Pretty
Sunset
We started heading back in the pitch black night. I was marvelling at how well the boatman could navigate in the dark, when suddenly the boat stopped, then turned sharply. He said something in Spanish, the Texan laughed and replied, then told us the boatman took a wrong turn and was a little lost. That was comforting. We made it home with no further incident.
While we were fishing I noticed there wasn’t an abundance of plant life in the water and there didn’t appear to be much for the bass to eat. It was nice to be the only people we saw fishing on the lake and an amazing novelty to say I have bass fished in Colombia. I would be curious to see if it develops into a better fishery in the future. Maybe once aquatic plants can spread more and other aquatic species work their way in from rivers and become a food source for the sport fish. If not, its still a great place to spend and afternoon or two casting a rod.
Posted in Fishing, Published Work, Travelwith 3 comments.
Going Back To The Beginning
The last deer hunting story I posted got so much attention that I nearly had a heart attack. Since it was so well received, I decided to post the story of the first deer I ever shot. I was fortunate enough to see this story published in the “readers stories” section of the July 2014 issue of “Alberta Outdoorsman”. Some of you may recall that this marks the second time I have seen my writing in legitimate print, something that I hope to see again someday. Without further delay, here’s the story of my first deer.
I have been around guns and hunting for about as far back as I can remember and I’m seldom known for forgetting. That being said the first time I actually went deer hunting was when I was 14 and just out of hunters training. It was all of three sparse days where in I saw two mule deer dos and got rather cold. It seemed after that, that my hunting career had come to an abrupt and uneventful end. I did not hunt for many years after that, I did however, field dress and butcher many deer in that time with my step father. At the time it was just for the sake of being helpful, I thought. In the end however, I feel it was a good skill to gain that will help me a great deal in life and it might sound strange to a non hunter but I do intend to pass these skill on to my children someday.
My second year of university I found myself working at an outdoors store, it was an easy step to make as I had already been exposed to the outdoor world as I mentioned earlier. In this time I found myself more and more tempted to try hunting again. It was at this time that a beautiful gun came through the shop, an older and, somewhat, abused Ruger M77 International in .243 Winchester. I immediately fell in love with this old gun. It had on a beautiful and well worn in wooden mannlicher stock and an older weaver 4X scope. For what seemed like a better portion of an arm and a leg at the time it was mine and I was happy to have it. I brought it to the farm and we sighted it in with some 80 grain soft point and away I went to my good buddy Troy’s house for some fun. Troy didn’t seem to mind the idea of me coming hunting on his land I figure it’s because he’s a nice guy and he’s usually only after moose, they have more meat. On this particular hunt we were joined by a lovely lady Troy had been seeing at the time, whom I haven’t spoken to in many years, so let’s leave names out of it shall we. She had in her possession a moose tag that she had hoped to use along with her normal deer tags. We began our day on the quads, me naturally being overly protective of my possessions opted to put my rifle in a hard case and strap it to the quad rack. In my youth I was open to many things but as I have gotten older I’ve grown more opposed to things like hunting from an ATV, at the time it seemed the way to do it, now it seems like cheating. At any rate we drove the back country trails me on my quad and the others sharing another, after a sightless morning we came to the house for some lunch where I realized that there’s no point in hauling around my rifle because I wouldn’t get it out in time to make the shot anyway. So we opted to all just kind of share the one gun of Troy’s. It was perfect for the job; a stainless synthetic Remington, chambered in .300 Remington Short Action Ultra Mag. Before you break out the reloading manual, yes that is a real caliber and no I don’t know anyone else who has one.
That afternoon we resumed scouting via the ATVs until finally we came around a corner and there was a beautiful buck just standing there on top of the hill. Troy looked, so did his companion and they asked “Tyson, you want him?” “Yes, yes I do” Troy handed me the rifle and I took aim and paused for a moment as I calmed and realized that it really a faux pas to shoot a sky lined animal even that far out in the middle of nowhere, the deer looked at me, looked away, looked at me, and walked casually into the bush. I looked back at the group with what I am sure was a sad face and he pointed and said “there’s another cutline farther down” I was off! I didn’t know I could run that fast, especially with a rifle. Sure enough there was that same buck standing in a clearing with a nice broad hill behind him, I felt good about this. I brought myself down to one knee took aim and yanked on the trigger the whole gun lunged forward off of my shoulder and did not go off, I looked at the safety still in the on position and re-evaluated a better part of my life and in that second I was about as disappointed in myself as I ever hope to be. I took a deep breath flipped the safety off steadied the rifle with the crosshairs just behind the shoulder and gently squeezed the trigger this time I was solid like a rock. With a thunderous crack that Remington let out everything it had and that buck fell down just as fast as it possibly could. In the distance I hear “Did you get him?!” to which I rebutted smugly “YOU EVER KNOW ME TO MISS?” I opted not to tell them about my first attempt at firing that gun. We then took a few pictures and they went off to get a truck to haul out the deer while I stayed with it and took a moment to sit there proud of myself and then began to field dress it. While field dressing I had noticed that my stead aiming behind the shoulder had landed me a perfect neck shot, I somehow was a foot and a half out on a sixty yard shot and managed to get perfect placement, again I would fail to mention my intended trajectory for the bullet to my companions.
Eventually I got tired of waiting for the truck. I brought out the winch line on the quad and found an old t shirt under the seat I wrapped the shirt around the deer’s neck and the winch around the shirt and began to slowly drive in reverse dragging my trophy toward the house. I eventually found the holdup. The truck, in its haste, had found its way off the trail and become hung up on the edge of the path, luckily no damage but the pilot had to go back for a tractor to get the truck out. In hind sight this tractor coming to get the truck that was coming to get the deer was starting to remind me of an old nursery rhyme. The truck came right out and then we remembered there is a perfectly good trailer for pulling behind the quad, we grabbed that, loaded the deer, and hauled it back to the house. By this time I had learned a few valuable lessons about planning and preparedness little did I know I wasn’t quite done learning that lesson on that day.
The next snag in my plan was that I drove a rather boat like Pontiac at the time, a car not known for its deer hauling capacity, though I’m sure if I didn’t like the seats it could be done. So I had to get it hauled to my parent’s house via Troy’s pickup truck. Between the time I shot the deer and we got it out of the bush and into my parents garage where I could skin it, about 3 hours had passed in about -15C temperatures. For those of you who have never tried to skin a cold deer it’s a lot like trying to open a Christmas present wrapped with duct tape while your hands are numb from the cold. We cut and pulled so hard we broke the deer off the hanger twice and eventually had to tie its legs to the metal spreader. We got it eventually but it was not pretty or pleasant.
My first attempt at a field photo
All in all I got a beautiful buck that scores about 140 gross inches. I found this out later in the year when a friend of mine took me to his uncle who scores deer for a hobby… I guess. More importantly than the size of the animal was that not only did it fill my freezer it taught me some valuable lessons about being prepared, checking your equipment, and remaining calm while firing.
Posted in Hunting, Published Workwith no comments yet.
Bear Hunting And How It Got Me Hooked
This is my first post since starting this site, so I thought it would be appropriate to tell you all how it started. I found my love for writing as a result of a bear hunt. I had such a thoroughly good time that I felt the need to tell the story over and over to friends and family. One night at about three AM I was so “taken by the spirit” that I shot out of bed and wrote the tale of my adventure in a single sitting. I then sent it to a coworker who seemed to enjoy it and suggested I submit it to the Alberta Outdoorsmen. I laughed at the idea but other people who read it suggested it as well, so I sent it. To my amazement I was told it would be published. It was put into the September 2013 issue (which I’m sure had record sales as a result of my mother and I buying everyone we know a copy). You can read the published version and also take a look at their other content. Below is my original (somewhat longer) version.
It’s strange the things you learn from the situations you put yourself in. For only a few years now I have been a self proclaimed hunter. My repertoire however is quite limited; grouse, deer, a lot of gophers. For quite a while I had been day dreaming about hunting a bear, it always looked like fun and I am inexplicably fond of bear skin rugs, this desire for one is not shared by my girlfriend. For some reason this winter I decided that a spring bear hunt would be worked into my schedule. It was possibly spurred along by working in a hunting store and having too much time to daydream.
Over the winter I had purchased a new bow and thought it would be a good tool for the job. I could picture it now… me in a tree stand… at full draw… waiting for a big bear to turn just right… and thunk! This is what I wanted. So I began asking around, as I stated I work at a hunting store, so I asked my co-workers with known experience with bears. I got the basic information; set up a tree stand and bait near a swampy area with trees, chain the bait barrel to the tree, cut holes in it just too small for a paw to fit in it. This seemed reasonable and I was looking forward to the set up which I planned to do near my father’s house. As time went by school and work continually got in the way, as they tend to do. Finally after three weeks into hunting season, I still had no bait out, I got two days off and these were, as far as I was concerned, for hunting. I bought my wildlife certificate and my bear license and tags, but if I wanted to afford the gas to get there and back I couldn’t buy the bow license. I wasn’t quite competent enough with a bow anyway, following an angry wounded bear into the woods as a result of a poor arrow shot is certainly on my list of nightmares. I guess this hunt was my old Marlin 30-30’s chance to shine. Unfortunately my father’s schedule did not match mine, instead I went to a friend of mines house. Troy is his name and we have been friends for years and when it comes to wildlife, his land always seems to have it. I arrived at Troy’s on Monday, the first of my days off, we began the day by going for a quad ride to find bait. Beavers I was told make excellent bait and cause problems in the area. So the plan, I was informed by my “guide”, was to go shoot a beaver to use as bear bait.
So there we were, sitting… me with my 30-30 and him with a more task appropriate .22 magnum, staring at sizeable beaver dam and lodge. The whole time all I could do was question the morality, and a little the legality, of shooting an animal simply to use it as bait for another animal. On the other hand I was told they are a pest. After some time sitting quietly and no action a plan was built, “I’ll pull apart the dam, he’ll come out and we’ll get a shot at him, hold my gun” and he was off and standing in the middle of this dam pulling logs and tossing them aside. My moral question got a little bigger, we are now wrecking the beaver’s hard work to lure him out, and all I could picture was two hooligans pulling siding off my house to lure me out to be shot. Luckily for me my moral qualms needed not be answered that day as it was still spring and that beaver dam was frozen solid after the first few inches so that plan was scrapped and my dreams of shooting a bear seemed to shrink a bit more. We went back to the house to formulate a new plan and have a bite to eat. After a few delays, such as dinner and my distraction by Troy’s newest additions to the gun safe, I figured our best bet for bait that we had on hand were cans of tuna, plenty of fishy smelling juice what’s not to like? It was now dark outside (I don’t understand where the day went) me, being determined, made my “guide” take me to where his treestand was already set. We were not setting bait for predators in the middle of the night, even at the time it felt like a bad idea. Looking around the area it was perfect I thought, nice slope along a cutline with some brush piles and a swamp, what more could a bear want? I was told the tree stand was on the other side of the small swamp about 50 to 70 yards away from where we had nailed two tuna cans to fence posts and the third to a tree. All I had to do now was come back in the morning and carefully cross the supposedly small and shallow swamp to the nearby tree stand and wait.
After lying sleepless and uncomfortable for a few hours on a leather couch slightly too small for me, the morning finally came. I fired up my truck and drove off alone toward the hunting spot. I left my tuck just outside the entrance to the cut line only a few hundred yards up hill from the “bait”. Upon my arrival a few things came to my attention; 1. It had rained that night so that nice fish smell likely didn’t go far 2. The swamp was much larger and deeper looking than I had been led to believe and there was no easy way around it 3. I have never been accused of being a good judge of distance but that 70-yards-away-treestand was closer to 200, a lot farther than I can push that 30-30. My doubts increased but I was already there and didn’t want to make myself a liar as I had already told people I was going bear hunting, I actually am that proud/petty. I decided to make myself comfortable, kind of, on a small brush pile between the “bait” and the swamp. It was comfortable…ish and I had a good view of the make shift bait but to see the swamp I had to look over my shoulder, several logs, and willow trees.
I sat for a few hours questioning most of my life’s choices most notably my poor planning skills in regards to hunting. Occasionally my thoughts would be broken by the sounds of squirrels making large amounts of noise in the bushes. I occasionally checked the clouds moving in, it was chilly and overcast and rain looked imminent. There I sat on a miserably overcast day starring at a tuna can nailed to a post for hours on end, slowly losing faith in myself as a hunter, wonder if maybe I should just stick to the gun range… or video games. When over my left shoulder I hear a splash, I look, it’s a bear coming right toward me and my bait. It’s beautiful, graceful, majestic, walking towards me… WALKING TOWARDS ME. It hits me, my heart it pounding, it’s a bear, 20 yards away and ground level, eye to eye, it doesn’t see me but I’m sure it smells me, or at least my fear, I can taste my fear, that unmistakable metallic taste that screams “YOU’RE ALIVE! RUN! FIGHT! DO SOMETHING FAST!” The only thing protecting me from a mangled death on a brush pile is some logs and my old Marlin. I take aim behind the shoulder just like I know I should, it’s him or me, BANG! My old gun never sounded so loud, the bear yelps, curls, rolls, and runs into the bush, crash bang crack, that sound that only breaking trees can make, I can barely hear it over my pounding heart. I immediately run the action on my gun, for all I know the bear is injured, mad and knows where I am. I wait 5 minutes motionless, listening, I hear nothing but my heart, a good sign I hope. I dig through my pack, hands shaking, looking for my phone, no signal. I get up, slowly, and walk along the cutline to my truck, slowly, all the while watching the woods for movement and doing the best to stop my heart from coming out of my chest. I reach the truck still no service on my phone, I want someone else here if I go into the woods after that thing. I jump up on the tool box of my truck, finally, some service I call Troy, no answer, three times no answer. I decide to send him a text “Shot a bear. Get here quick… bring a gun” I’d have liked to have seen his reaction to that text. I got the text out but I don’t know if he will get it anytime soon or what he’s doing. I load another bullet into the tube magazine on my gun, I guess I’m going in solo. I walk back and start to track slowly and cautiously I’m no more than a dozen steps in when I hear the soothing sound of a diesel engine, good, this hunt got slightly safer. We begin again and he immediately spots a trail of water and blood, as I had shot the bear in a shallow swamp there was a heavy water trail too. 50 yards in we find it collapsed and dead. It’s a male, and he sure looks smaller now that he isn’t walking towards me. I am not comforted by the fact that based on his final run, had he wanted to he could have easily made it to me before expiring from his wounds, which I might add were perfectly placed through his chest in the right and out the left.
In my excitement, very few photos were taken
I understand now why people hunt dangerous game, I have never felt so alive as when I looked down those iron sights, heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my ears, taking a deep breath to steady and squeezing that trigger, hoping my shot is true because at this point it is all that can save me. But I think for the sake of my mother and my girlfriend, in the future I’ll use a tree stand, but some small part of me wants to try it again, but with a bow, just to see.
I now have a lovely bearskin rug
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