Your last comment (above) actually expresses a conundrum on this kind of shoot – when you find a scene like that, do you sit and wait for the bear, or wander and find them where they’re at? I tend to do a lot of the former now that I’ve already got a number of closer, portrait style shots. It’s hard to do though, sit and wait, when you have great bears maybe just 100 yards down the river, but the minute you give up the location, you miss this kind of shot. Lots of factors play into it, of course, and I’ll often miss something really cool because I’m sitting by a gravel bar, or tree with fall color, waiting. Wildlife photographers spend 99% of their time wishing they were somewhere else, eh?

Cheers

Carl