Bow Season 2012

Katrina, my cousin Tom's daughter, took her first deer this week.  She was hunting alone and I was "on call".  I helped her track the deer- she took a 25 yard shot and it was right on the money.  The blood trail was easy to follow for the first 75 yards, but it took at least half an hour to finish the last 25 yards.  I've never hunted with a bow before and we both learned a lot from Katrina's friend Jim, who skinned out and broke down the deer, which is something that I've never done.  In our family, we've always taken the deer to a butcher for processing.  Jim made it look easy and gave great instructions, but I know that there's a learning curve.  My brother Tom also helped out today.

Minnesota Grouse Opener 2012

This was the result of our opening day grouse hunt near my brother's property on the North Shore.  My brother Tom and his vizsla Ruby were doing the hunting, I was carrying brush loppers, neither were used.  Our several mile walk was more of a deer scouting mission than a hunting mission, but I thought that we would have more than a tired dog to show for it.  I figure that we walked around 3 or 4 miles through some pretty good looking grouse habitat and we only flushed one bird.  The woods were still thick and Tom never even got a shot because of the foliage.  We never settled on a spot to hang the portable stand, so I never used the loppers.  It was still a productive day since I left a nice squiggly line on my GPS, marked a few way points for likely stand locations, and got some much needed exercise.

Walk in the Deer Woods- Where are the Grouse?

I went for a short walk to check the trail camera today and saw this little critter.  I think it must be a mink, but it kind of looks like an immature fisher.  When it saw me, it scurried up about 40 feet up a tree, which is where he was when this photo was taken. With the clear sky, this was the best picture that I could get.

Here's another photo of the mink.  I think that even an immature fisher would have had a bushier tail than this.

Somebody must have found this old grub ax laying around and decided to hang it from branch by the trail.  There's always something to see in the woods.  One thing that I didn't see was a ruffed grouse.

Blue Moon at Deer Camp

I admit that this is not a great photo, but I had to post it.  This is the blue moon, as seen over Lake Superior, near Beaver Bay on August 31, 2012, shortly after sunset.  My cousin and I went up to check the trail camera and got in the woods around 7:15.  From about 7:30 til 7:45 we were in a stare-down with an 8-point buck, a doe, and a fawn, all within between 25-40 yards of where we were standing near the trail cam.  Neither one of us wanted to get busted by a deer right near a stand, but that's what happened.  It sure was fun, and I doubt that they'll remember anything by November.  It was as dark in the woods as it could be with a full moon when I took this photo, which you would never guess by this photo.  Without a high end camera, and taking a photo directly into the only natural light that there was, I was happy with how this turned out.

This one is for my Dad- he sits in a chair in the open spot that's immediately to the left of the freshly shredded tree.  There's usually a lot of scraping activity below this spot, but hopefully this rub is extra motivation.  This photo was actually taken about 10 minutes before the "blue moon" photo was taken- this was also taken with a flash.  Because I knew the woods, and with a full moon and clear skies, it was easy to know where I was and where I needed to go.  What wasn't easy was trying to see where my feet were going without a flashlight or a trail.  For any "real" walk in the wood, I would normally bring a compass, headlamp, and matches/lighter.  This was a good reminder that any trip into the woods- even when you think that you know all of the variables, deserves some respect in regard to survival, planning, and communication.