J.Y.Jones - Book Author - Physician - Missionary - Hunter - Outdoorsman - Author of Worship Not The Creature: Animal Rights and The Bible, Ask the Elks Guide, Lightspeed to Babylon, One Man One Rifle One Land, Impossible to Fail and Crossing The Burn for www.askthebiggameguides.com...Powered by: www.webs-a-gogo.com

In compiling Ask the Grizzly and Brown Bear Guides, as with the other four books in this series, there has been one requirement that I have tried not to breach in any way: Either I must know the guide or outfitter I�m to interview on a personal basis and have been on a hunt with them, or else they must be strongly recommended by one of many hundreds of hunter-friends that I have in my e-mail address book. Most, of course, fall into this latter category, because one can personally have hunted with only a limited number of guides.

I believe this is the most incisive book in the series so far. There seems to be more interest in the big bears, or at least the guides are more verbose, than for the other animals featured in this series. This book has one-fourth more words than any of the others, in part because of the enthusiasm of the guides for the unique hunts they do for perhaps the grandest game animal in North America. As well, many have harrowing tales of narrow escapes that take time to tell, and many have encountered dangerous situations that require intimate verbal details. Three guides have been mauled by either a grizzly (two) or a brown bear (one). Such incidents cannot be related in a few words, and I believe the reader will find these many anecdotes riveting and entertaining, as well as thought-provoking.

A word on the book layout is necessary. This is the most asymmetrical book in the series, that is, different numbers guides are used for all sections except two. By far the majority of hunts for Ursus arctos in North America are for Alaskan brown bear, and more of these animals are harvested than any of the other categories. This is because in general, these hunts offer a higher success rate and potential for a bigger bear. Moreover, there are three distinct types of hunts for this bear, so I have included two experienced guides for each kind of hunt: Two from the Alaska Peninsula, two from Kodiak Island, and two from Southeast Alaska. These three different hunts are very distinctive, and these differences are brought out in the text.

I did only two guides for coastal British Columbia grizzly bear, for two reasons: First, there aren�t very many outfitters for coastal grizzlies anymore, as the province ratchets back its grizzly hunting and heeds uninformed public pressure instead of scientific facts. This has driven at least one major outfitter to sell his area to an anti-hunting group, closing forever a major hunting area. Second, the remaining guides are severely restricted in the number of hunting permits they are issued annually.

Because of the diversity of terrain and the vast differences in hunting situations, I included three each for interior Alaska grizzlies and interior Canadian grizzlies ( British Columbia and the Yukon). For barren ground grizzly, where only a handful of bears are taken by sport hunters annually with a lesser level of diversity in hunting techniques and methods, I interviewed only one, Inuvialuit guide James Pokiak, who guided me to my own barren ground grizzly in 1996.The featured guides have over three hundred years of accumulated guiding experience, so the amount of studied observation is vast. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed putting it together. May God bless you in your own hunting, and also watch over you in this sometimes-dangerous passion we all hold so dearly.