Another beautiful morning on Friday, contrary to the mute weatherman. Stephanie and I drove out to the landing as our adventure began. This time out we brought the chainsaw, mineral rocks, molasses, apple buck jam, and deer cocaine to start the preseason off right. For the sake of not jeopardizing my own hunting success, I won't dislose the exact location. I cut down a fairly big cedar tree on the edge of a clearing. The chainsaw I was using was a 1950s model and weighed about 25 lbs. While I was walking through the snow, I lost my rhythm and stepped into a bit of a hole. When I lifted my leg out of the snow, the chainsaw was on its way inward and it collided with my knee something fierce. Right on a ligament above my knee. Ouch.
So after I limbed the tree, I cut a nice slot in the stump and placed the trophy rock on it. It was something like Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. So don't try to move the trophy rock off the stump or death will chase you. I poured molasses all over the freshly cut stump and man did that stuff smell. It was like hot fudge that was cooling. It was so thick! It's set up perfectly so a camera can catch the trophy rock at about 15 feet and a main trail running behind the rock at about 25 feet. Hopefully the Cuddeback Excite can get the job done with the 40' flash range. In about a month, I'll head back out there and groom the unwanted trees out and then tack my way in and out (reflective tacks in the trees).
After catching my breath, we headed back to the jeep and then headed down to my portable ladder stand. There was hardly any fresh deer sign if I remember. Of course it's been melting fast enough to sort of distort, if not do away with, any recent tracks. We got to the other trophy rock and I went into the story of Tank... and how I blew my chance at this beautiful 4 1/2 year 9 point. After memory lane, we walked south around the east edge of the big clearcut. We came back up through the clearcut, veering into the point on the west side. In the woods about 20 yards, Steph spotted a chunk of hide and hair. Of course that got me all fired up. We looked pretty hard and didn't find any other sign of a kill. I'm still not sure what happened to Tank (my missed opportunity). We headed north to the other place I want to clear out this spring. It'll definately take a couple of days in there to get it how I imagine it. But I know once we did, if we left it alone, the deer would love it in there. Anyways, we headed back out to the strip and up to the jeep.
We had some Mac 'n' Cheese for a late lunch and sat around lazy-like and watched the Outdoor Channel. They had some good shows on, actually. We worked up the ambition to head over to the Refuge and take a little walk. By this time it was about 4:00pm. We parked on the road off the Salto Field and walked in a bit and cut north on some heavy trails. There was good sign up until the field off the East 3 Corner. However, we decided to press on up to the border. I just felt like there would be some bedding up north. There was some cool spots, but the deer sign wasn't very promising. Overall we learned that there still is about 8 inches too much snow in the woods. We walked up to the Canadian border and headed west until we hit the bulldozed trail and headed back south and east. Once we got to the East 3 Corner field again, we tried to head back where we came from, but to use different trails. Still no luck. Lots of beds, but no 60" antlers. Haha.
By this point, we're both dog-tired. At first I just wanted to drive around the sanctuary to see if there were any deer out in the field. Then I started thinking about the mysterious circle west of the West 3 Corner. I was curious to figure out what type of trees there were. On GoogleEarth, there was an obvious tree change out there and it looked (by all educated guesses) to be a great bedding area. Well it was a popple ridge and it was really cool to say the least, but there wasn't much for winter sign. There were plenty of old rubs, but only a few stragglers' tracks and faint beds. We decided to head out before it got dark. My jeans were soaked, my legs were sore and tired, and Steph was a trooper. To be honest, she was incredibly upbeat and I was impressed to say the least, that she kept up. We put on about 8 miles (7.29 using the 'ruler' on GoogleEarth) through shin-deep, wet, wet snow. I know that if I was suckin' air, she had to be hurtin'.
After being out nearly all day, we didn't find any antlers. On our drive back to the cabin we did see a few deer out in the fields so that was nice.
I'll be out of town for the next two weekends, so we'll see when the next time I write is.
Hopefully it will have an undertone of success.
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