From Fishing to Photography

I spent 15 years as an avid flyfisherman. As I would fish the remote backwoods lakes in British Colombia I would see moose, bear, elk, etc. Finally, I got the bright idea to buy a camera. On my first trip with camera in hand, I fished Island Lake. I was in a "float tube" (an upscale inner tube with pockets and a back rest) fishing close to the shoreline, when a black bear came out of the woods and stopped just short of the lake. I was so excited I could hardly stand it. I got out my camera and took not quite three rolls of film, when he stomped his foot at me. I decided to move back a bit. As I moved back he took two steps forward and lay down on a patch of snow. Evidently I was too close to the snow patch for his comfort level. As it turns out, with my telephoto lens on, I was also too close to get a good photo. All of my photos of that bear were out of focus. DISAPPOINTMENT!! (I didn't know that of course until I got home and developed the film). However, after fishing Island Lake I took a dirt road over to Tunkwa Lake. On the way I came across this black bear with her two cubs -- one of which was brown. Although, bears have a great sense of smell, they don't have great eyesight.  The mother had to stand to get a good look at me. I took several photos of mom and the cubs before running out of film. The sound of the camera rewinding was loud enough to scare off the bears so that was the last photo. Fortunately, though, all of these photos turned out.