So two weekends ago, I went up to visit deer camp over opener to see old friends and my dad. It was good to see the usual suspects and that they were all doing pretty well. It had been a year or more since seeing some of them, and it was nice to hang out and bond with the traditional card games, story telling, and good natured ribbing. Hunting-wise, the weekend didn't turn out so well, one eight-pointer (shot by Dean) out of six deer hunters in the 20-25mph winds is all we got. I didn't do to well either, instead of deer hunting I bought a small game license and brought the 20 gauge over & under in hopes of getting a grouse or black squirrel for tying flies. I find that grouse hunting is more enjoyable to me because I can relax as I put less pressure on myself when I am not competing for a deer in an acreage that isn't exactly overpopulated. I only flushed one grouse, and it was gone before I could get a bead on it. I also kicked up deer twice in some thick underbrush. And both times I could not hear it running off into the woods even though it was within 20 yards of me. I watched it's white flag bob back in forth out of sight completely stunned that I didn't even hear so much as a twig snap. The odds were not in our favor this time.
Even though the hunting wasn't so great, I did get to see a bald eagle circle over me just above the tree tops. The highlight of the weekend was Carmi's video footage from her deer stand. She captured a couple minutes of a grouse by her stand and almost ten minutes of footage of a bobcat chilling out. It appeared to know that Carmi was there, but really didn't care. It napped, it stalked a bird, and it stared at the camera, before scooting away. Earlier in the day, the land owner had seen two adult bobcats and a kitten from his stand. Very exciting stuff!
As for the increasing stories and evidence of wolf sign in the area, I was not as impressed. One pack of wolves actually treed an acquaintance of ours a few weeks earlier when he was bow hunting for deer across the lake from where we were hunting.
As of last night, I heard that Dean got a button buck, making for two deer total for the camp. Dad is still up there, so hopefully with a little luck he will get one too. I'll cross my fingers for him anyway.
Steelhead closes tomorrow and we did not go fishing for them since my last post. So now we wait till next fall to resume that game. This weekend consisted of prepping the house for winter and freeing up space by bringing a lot of stuff over to our storage unit. We did a pretty good job with our to-do list, but I am saving the Fly Tying room (a.k.a. the man room) for this coming weekend. It might only be one room, but it needs a lot of attention. It is in total disarray with fishing stuff, camping gear, and hunting clothes strung all over. I think I can see what color the carpet is, sorta, maybe. Okay, I can't. But, I do have memories of what it should look like once it is back in good order and prepped for fly tying season.
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