BEAR TRAILS AND TREESTANDS

Author's note: I have a couple of preliminary observations prior to posting today's blog. First off, this has been a long day (29 October, 2008). Duane Deno and I spent many hours grinding venison, mixing it with pork and beef, adding various spices, packaging it into hamburger, summer sausage, bratwurst, and much more. We will freeze some of this meat, smoke other parts, and simply refrigerate other cuts. We killed these deer, and we will use all the meat we harvested. In the end, it is all worth it. We'll be eating venison well into next year (and we are not done hunting yet).

Secondly, I have to post a complaint against my internet provider, Hughes Satellite. I had to make six attempts to get logged on tonight to post this blog. Each time I went through the same series of steps I normally make, but it continued to come up with different destinations - none of which were the place I needed to be to post a blog. It stinks, but is the only service provider available in my area.

In any case, I'm on now and this is tonight's blog. It is a continuation of yesterday's story about a typical half-day hunt. I hope you enjoy it!

P.S. When Duane and I returned from the day's meat processing at his brother's house, we got the word that his nephew had taken a nice buck today while bowhunting. I also have to note that I have witnessed some early stage rutting activity (pre-rut) here in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The bulk of this activity is still one to two weeks away, with the main rut most likely starting after November 10.

Here is the continuation of yesterday's blog:

7:00 a.m. We are well on our way toward the stands we have chosen to hunt for the day. The route takes us to the end of the old, overgrown road, across a ridge planted with red pines that are now eighty feet tall, through a passage past the ruins of an old trapper’s shack, and across another ridge, this one planted with spruce that are now about sixty feet tall apiece. A thick carpet of pine needles covers the ground, making our movements as quiet as the night.

BEAR TRAILS

Once through the spruces, we drop into a thick tag alder maze, following an old bear trail well worn into the dirt. In past years we have had to use thigh-high hip boots to get through some of these parts due to standing water and the resulting muck in the alders. Recently though, things have been much drier and we find no pools of water in this swampy stretch. We don’t use flashlights. Full darkness is more appealing, and lets us slip through the woods with the least disturbance possible.

While crossing the alder maze we come up to a small one-acre rise with a few maples growing on it, cross this higher ground, then drop into low ground again. Another rise comes up after a while, and a big spruce tree on this higher spot marks where we split up, each going on alone to that day’s hunting spot. In 2006 I sat on the ground behind this same spruce tree and bagged a fine eight-point buck on the third day of the rifle hunting season. Today though, Duane and I are hunting with bow and arrow and it is a lot harder.

NAME YOUR TREESTAND

7:15 a.m.: Duane is hunting at a spot we call the “Pocket Stand”. This is a small rise of higher ground surrounded by low ground. A maple so big that you could not even come close to encircling it with your arms, grows here. This old tree has seen pioneers, lumberjacks, hunters, bears, deer, bobcats, and maybe a mountain lion on occasion. Deer trails cross this higher ground, and the deer stop at the old maple in the fall to pick up leaves from the forest floor that the maple drops. Once they have been exposed to a frost the starch in the leaves begins to turn into a sugar and deer eat them. Many times I have seen bright orange, red, and yellow leaves sticking out of deer’s mouths as they amble along.

I am hunting at “Birch Hill”, which is also a small patch of higher ground – maybe two acres – with tag alder swamp surrounding it. My spot also has maples, but most are younger trees. Small shoots of maple that grow from the roots of mature trees extend up out of the ground. Each of these shoots looks like a miniature maple tree, and has full sized leaves growing on the tiny branches. Most are two-feet tall at maximum. Deer show up here to browse on the leaves as well.

Live birch trees grow here along with some cedar, spruce, and hackberry. Dead birch logs lay scattered across this small hill like so many soldiers on a battlefield. Limbs lay entangled and broken, while the new maple shoots find a way to grow up through them. Deer trails cross this place like cow paths through a barnyard. Local bears come through once in a while, but we never see them while hunting. We attach a trail camera to a tree to monitor the worn bear trails though, and get pictures of the big, black bruin. He passes through at odd hours like 2:00 a.m., on his way to whatever bears do during the night. We don’t bother each other, and that relationship works very well, thank you.

Copyright Ray Hansen, 2008

Stop by tomorrow for part 3.