Nothing beats the discovery of finding section of water that holds enough ‘hook-yearning’ fish that give your reel hand a monster set of cranking blisters. The same feeling holds true for those of us who find, or own, a plot of land that oozes wild game from bushy shadows.

We call the spot our own and like sly foxes our eyes make a quick sweep of the area to ensure the secrecy of our newly added GPS

The view below at one of my secret spots

way-point. If your are like me, this hunting or fishing ’sweet spot’ becomes one of our most closely guarded secrets. It remains unknown to all but a few close friends.

Herein, lies the potential problem with good fishing and the dilemma that it causes in my mind.

It is so easy to get wrapped up in keeping our secrets with ‘the few’ – that we forget the benefit of sharing the experience with ‘the many’.

I am guilty of this. Big Time!

An angler approached me, before a local fishing  tournament, and asked me to mark some great fishing spots on Vernon Lake. At first, I marked all my favorite spots except for one. I struggled for several seconds before I could get my hand to mark the last and most secret of my spots.

Why?

I think it was because it is nice to have that spot on a lake where you can go and expect to catch some fish – without having to worry about another angler being there before you were. With my new found love of fly fishing, I can really appreciate the importance of solitude in your favorite fishing spot. After all – it is part of the experience of fishing.

I guess what I am wrestling with is how can we as ‘anglers and/or hunters’ expect to propagate the excitement we enjoy (and cherish) in our conservation activities if we become tight-lipped about where all the ‘good’ spots are?

Am I alone? Possibly. Ask yourself this: Could you easily hand over a GPS coordinate list of your top 5 fishing spots on your favorite lake? If your answer is yes – stop reading.

Imagine if the NHL, NBA, or NFL expected to share the excitement of their sports by keeping the venues for these high impact sports for just a select few of the population who happen to know where the next event was taking place? Does it seem realistic to expect future anglers to get ‘cranked’ about fishing when their first experiences are spent ‘fish-less’ in the great wide open of a new body of water?

Some of you are now saying, “What about the enjoyment of the experience of, the newcomer, learning to find their own fishing spots and techniques?”.  I can’t disagree with you. I am just wondering if that is making fishing one dimensional? Could we also add to the teaching process of the outdoors a clause that encourages us to share that extremely productive bend in the river with someone else – without the need to be tight lipped? This would, in turn, encourage a more complete 2-dimensional fishing  experience because it has been shared and enjoyed by others who caught just as many fish as you did.

This is not sour grapes. As the keeper of my own secret spots and a fantastic technique for catching lake trout in Algonquin Park, I am still thinking this through. I’d appreciate your thoughts.

Is it time to end the secrecy and let others enjoy the fishing in your spot?

In a recent Huntsville newspaper, The Forester, a letter to the editor shared a complaint about a butcher’s hunting promotional sign.

The sign reads: “Hunters. You kill ‘em, we cut ‘em.”

A portion of the ‘offended’ citizen’s response is (tea fingers up):

“This type of insensitive advertising has no place alongside other merchants in town. I think it would be socially responsible for the town of Huntsville to insist this slogan be altered to something in better taste.” Entire Article Here

I think someone should remind the person, making the complaint , what a butcher does. They cut, slice, saw and slash in a process that does involve blood, cut flesh and grounding messes. The slogan is a truthful phrase targeting many of the other ‘socially irresponsible‘ people in the community who purchase our meat from the forest.

The truth is – turkeys, cows, chickens (and other barnyard animals) are killed and cut for millions of people every day. The offended letter writer should be writing similar letters of disgust to the “Billions served” who are “loving it” in communities where the golden arches shine brightly.

Thumbs up to Big Daddy Meats in Huntsville for reminding us of the “inconvenient truth” of  animal meat processing!

Earlier this week, the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (O.F.A.H.), along with the Canadian Shooting Sports Association (C.S.S.A.) and other organizations representing firearms owners across Canada, became aware of an apparent breach of confidentiality involving information contained in the firearms registration system.

This breach strongly justifies earlier calls to scrap the system, as proposed in Bill C-391, currently before the House of Commons.

Ekos Research, a private sector polling company, was contracted by the Canadian Firearms Centre (C.F.C.) to conduct a survey of firearms owners across Canada, and was provided with personal information about firearms owners by the C.F.C., in an apparent breach of privacy and confidentiality. Worse still, the Minister of Public Safety, who is responsible for the C.F.C. and its parent body, the R.C.M.P., was not consulted prior to the release of the information.

“The fact that the C.F.C. would provide highly sensitive information identifying individual firearms owners to an outside polling firm is a travesty,” said Greg Farrant, O.F.A.H. Manager of Government Relations and Communications. “For years, licensed, law-abiding firearms owners have pointed to repeated abuses and breakdowns in what is supposed to be a highly confidential system. When the Liberal government created the system under Bill C-68, they insisted that a violation of this nature would not occur, despite being warned by the firearms community and Opposition members at the time that the potential for serious abuse existed. We hope that this will finally convince Opposition Members in Parliament of the need to scrap the system by supporting Candice Hoeppner’s Bill C-391, which simply proposes to repeal the long gun portion of the firearms system.”

The apparent release of information to Ekos, which occurred in violation of government policy, and without the knowledge and approval of the Minister, who in any case would not authorize the release of such information, is the latest in a long line of procedural gaffs and financial disasters associated with the ill-fated long gun registry, which has cost Canadian taxpayers almost $2 billion to date.

“We are profoundly concerned that an apparent violation has occurred, which has provided a private business with information that is supposed be closely guarded. The government has referred this matter to the Privacy Commissioner for a ruling on whether the Act has been breached, an action we strongly support. It is inexcusable that information of this nature should be made so readily available. The timing of this action is highly suspect, given the apparent source of the information, and the fact that Second Reading of Bill C-391 to scrap the long gun registry is scheduled in the House of Commons next week,” said Farrant.

With over 100,000 members, subscribers and supporters, and 660 member clubs, the O.F.A.H. is the largest nonprofit conservation-based, fish and hunting organization in Ontario and the voice of anglers and hunters. For more information, visit www.ofah.org.

*Muskoka Outdoors Take: You may be wondering why this is a big deal. I suppose it is not IF the information gathered about the firearms is not released to the wrong people. Potentially, the big deal is, that addresses of gun owners have been taken from a ’secure’ database located with the RCMP. Gun owners were told their information would be private and secure. It’s possible that firearm owners could now be targeted by any criminal idiot who ‘accidentally’  gets access to our information.

Back when Muskoka Outdoors was in it’s infancy – I made a short video blog questioning the ‘point’ of a handgun ban. It has also been on YouTube for some time, but I suspect some of my recent blog and twitter followers may enjoy this video. Agree or Disagree – Here it is:

CTV News reports that Canada will launch a formal protest with the World Trade Organization over a ban on the import of seal products approved by the European Union. Entire CTV Article Here

Before you say that this news does not impact you think twice. It cuts into the jobs of the 12,000 Canadian sealers who exported $3.5 million in products to the EU. In an economy where jobs are already scarce, this hits North Eastern Canadian communities very hard.

The media and EU nations have been sucked into the hype of bright red, bloody seal images (against white snow backdrops) that litter anti-seal hunt groups propaganda. The kind of bloody images you don’t see when you buy your hamburger meat, chicken wings and veal from the grocery store shelf.

The anti-sealing group, HSUS, claims the hunt is not done humanely. Their claim seems to fly in the face of science and other concessions made by seal hunting participants and Canadian Government officials.

The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (in 2002), has already determined the hunt to be humane. Their report states,

The conclusion is that the large majority of seals taken during this hunt (at best, 98% in work reported here) are killed in an acceptably humane manner. However, the small proportion of animals that are not killed effectively justifies continued attention to this hunt on the part of the veterinary profession. Entire Sealing Report Here

The second reason you should pause and consider this ruling is the question, “What is next?“.

Anti-sealing groups are also anti-animal killing groups. It will not be long (actually they already are) until these groups target fishing, hunting, cattle meat processing, chicken farms, and turkey farms. If they can twist their message for a seal product ban – you can expect that turkey dinner, chicken wing nights, and fishing off the dock will become extinct and banned as well.

I would like to thank HSUS, PETA and EU officials for putting the lives of a non-threatened seal population before the jobs of some Canadian communities. I know the seals aren’t capable of thanking you.

I doubt the Canadians looking for work will either.

A Wyoming man shot 3 times at an attacking grizzly and killed it – but not before he could avoid the grizzly’s fury!

The real tragedy is not that the man is in hospital and hoping to recover. It is not that the attacking bear was killed. The tragedy is that the man who was defending himself may face charges from local Fish and Game officials.

My Question: Since, when is animal life valued over human life?

One of the local newspapers that has covered the attack, Cody Enterprise, states that:

A Clark man is in the hospital with extensive injuries to his face after encountering a grizzly bear sow with three cubs Sunday afternoon. The man fired three shots at the bear with a .41 caliber revolver, killing the bear. Entire Article Here

Neighbors of the man involved in the attack, and friends of Muskoka Outdoors, have recently found out that local wildlife officials are ‘investigating’ the attack in an attempt to determine if it was ‘actually necessary’ to kill the bear during the attack.

I may not have the training to work in ‘Fish and Game’ but how daft do you have to be to even investigate this?!

I would think the fact that the man is recovering from major face and head injuries in the hospital would be more than enough evidence to prove justification of self defense!

Stacey Huston (neighbor of the attacked man) shared this with me this morning via Twitter:

“He (the victim) was very agitated last night while recovering. He was worried that he is going to be in trouble for this. He shouldn’t have to worry! If Jerry had not killed this bear, she (the sow bear) would have killed him and most likely the young man that was with him…”

Have wildlife officials been tainted by the emotional, media-hyped and ’send-us-money because bears are cute’ philosophies of PETA and HSUS that much?

Obviously, I should not use a big brush (many wildlife officials are not like this) but this does happen – especially when talking about the ‘endangered’ grizzly bear.

Sherry Kerr, a specialist in Outdoor Marketing and Communications, told me:

“I Had a friend who killed a grizzly that shredded his tent. It fell on top of his tent when it died. The local Wildlife Agency put him through the ringer!”

It’s not like these bear attack victims were illegally hunting or provoking these endangered animals at the time. They were random, violent encounters between man and beast.

Unlike some who champion for bear and wolf rights and would like to see man ‘go down’ in these situations, I have to side with my human brothers and sisters in these kind of cases.

So should game and wildlife officials.

The grizzly bear attack victim should be able to recover without the cloud of a pending investigation waiting for him outside the hospital.

I like how Mike Huston (neighbor of bear attack victim) put it in a twitter conversation today:

Don’t get me wrong, I like ‘grizz’ in my wilderness, but they must be managed…not the Outdoorsmen.