After a nearly sleepless night of anticipation and hunting dream angst, the alrms went of at 4:AM, the large coffee purcolator furnished by Joe; Jarosz Clan Patriarch always seemed to make the very best coffee, and never failed to make enough for all of us including our morning thermos rations taken just before we hurried out he door.
An opening day traditional big breakfast of eggs, bacon, home-fries, and toast was filling and fulfilling for the enthused soul. The crackle of bacon in a cast-iron skillet, and the smell of toast wafting thru the cabin air was the stuff dreams are made of.
A touch of consternated harrying preparation for the first hunt of the trip had the crew all about the camp in hurried chores. Checking in on the weather on the satellite television reinforced the unseasonably higher than normal temps we could expect for the duration of our stay. Although the mornings were crisp and chilly, the mid-days would be in the '40's all week long; an almost unheard-of occurrence here in The Great North Woods at this time of year. No snow, no rain, no precipitation except for maybe Saturday, our final hunting day of this trip.
In other words, the week would be comfortable to be outside of shelter during the day as long as we didn't over-dress. We all packed in to our respective vehicles, double and triple-checked our gear for the day, battened-down the camp, locked-up and we were off...
It's on!
We turned left and headed north along Route 3 passing thru the center of Pittsburg on our way. The morning-bird locals and the ranks of hunters were out and about and parked at the coffee-shop/General Store in the center. We past them up and were making good time this morning in comparison to last year at putting ourselves out there for first light.
We wound along the shore of Lake Francis, then the 1st Connecticut Lake, and Then the 2nd Connecticut lake to the spot where Route 3 turns more directly northward toward the 3rd Connecticut Lake and then the Canadian border, and turned off on the paper-mill created East Inlet Road at the newly resurfaced snowmobile trail road-crossing.
It is a huge difference from down in The People's Republic of Massachusetts to see how the locale and community actually embraces and caters to hunting and snowmobiling instead of shunning and treating people who partake in such activities as black-sheep or some other derelict of society. It is a far more tolerant, accepting, and even embracing mentality! Frankly, a much more righteous and pleasant mind-set too.
We made a couple of turns, the drivers somehow remembering the maze-like changes in direction that allowed us to wind our way along The East Inlet Flowage and eventually past Norton Pool, by mile-marker 2 over the little 1-lane bridge and out into the paper-company wilderness of East Inlet Road.
Traveling in upon these paper-company/forestry roads slows the pace to an anticipatory crawl and we wind our way along some of the most pristine and beautiful wilderness ever to grace God’s green earth. The natural boreal Spruce forest is something of splendor to behold.
We approached the mile-marker 4 area where another forestry road branches off to the right and winds it’s way around a high knob hill. We continued on and spread the two separate groups of guys out to meet with all the NH state game law regulations of hunting party size, some went up the spur road and some went on down along the main forestry road. Each vehicle’s worth of hunters laid their own hunting plan out, and we advanced into the woods.
Billy, The York Hunting Clan Patriarch’s youngest and I stayed in the truck and ventured down to about mile-marker 6. We exited the truck, checked our gear yet again, and spread out headed back toward mile-marker 5 and entered the woods on the eastern bank of East Inlet Road.
I hadn’t gotten more than a couple hundred yards into the woods when the radio first crackled with Deer movement reports. Dave, The York Hunting Clan Patriarch’s eldest son was into a group that was playing cat-and-mouse with him at about 100 yards out from his position. He had cut up and in along a water-way draw of run-off creed that babbled down between the high knob and the next peak over. The broken cover of young Spruce, swale-grass, and hardwoods was inviting habitat for Deer and they were making use of it this opening-day morning…
My point of entry was leaning a little more toward an open hardwoods and a gradual upward grade toward the base of a peak like the one that towered up on the high side of the forestry-road spur and 1 knob north of that first one by mile-marker 4.
I applied some Doe-in-Estrus cover scent, which I had opted for this year in place of the Dominant Buck scent, I traditionally utilized as cover-scent, in order not to alarm the young (tasty) scrub Bucks by the thought of a tough, wily old mature Buck comin’ ta kick their @$$ during what I hoped was still the rut here in The Great North Woods. A quick squirt from the little pump bottle by Hunter’s Specialties on my hat, a Team-Realtree hunter orange cap with camo brim, near the top/center button toward the back where my own rising body heat would affect the scent and give it some “hot” characteristics, and a little on my boots so my walking footsteps would have some of the Buck Lure smell to ‘em instead of only spreading my human scent along the forest floor.
Another preparatory radio report from the ICOM 2-way radio and a lone shot rang-out.
The single report from the Remington 760 pump carbine in .30-06 Springfield let me know a probable terminal wound had been achieved. I suspected it meant hoofed-venison was down…
Another Radio report, From The Patriarch of my York Hunting Clan; of hearing the wounded quarry blatting confirmed my suspicions. A blood-trail was being followed early on the opening-day of our Great North Woods Deer hunt.
Then the radio poured out a quick and simple message from York Hunting Clan Patriarch’s eldest son Dave; “Big Doe down.”
Dave had harvested a Doe and provided the Clan with early success in the hunt in our first hunt of the season on opening day!
It was a good sign of hope for the anticipatory concerns for our outcome. Dave had already relegated himself to Camp-Mouse again on the first day just as he had done last year with his harvesting of the fork-horn from the 2008 rifle season opener, even earlier in the day than he had last time around. This year it wasn’t the good fortune for his knee malady as it had been last year, as he filled his one NH tag with a Doe, as is legal for the first two days of the rifle season in this farthest north zone in the state.
* * *
I continued on my path, easing slightly closer to the direction the lone-shot had come from in case any further hoofed-venison was making tracks to egress a down-range position from the spot of the shot. I wasn’t yet ready to give up my tag to a Doe, especially since Dave had just secured a successful Clan hunt-trip with his righteous venison harvest. A man that has harvested enough world-class trophy mounted Bucks in his day, only a few years older than I, to not be as hungry for a trophy as I still am, only having harvested a solid handful of good eatin’ scrub Bucks in my hunting career.
As the sound of the shot faded from my mind, and the excitement of the harvest began to wane back into the purposeful task of the hunting at hand, I moved along steadily from Spruce-pocket cover, to scrub-brush, to Spruce-grove in order to conceal myself from distant discovery by my intended quarry.
My habitual nature is to be a lay-of-the-land hunter, exploring as I go like my distant relative; Mountain-Man Jim Bridger who can be found upon a branch of yester-years within my extended family tree, as I was told by my father whom compiled a painstaking researched family history while I was still in my impressionable youth.
We had just returned from a western tour when I was barely a teenager, and I had found a biography of Jim Bridger when in Wyoming, I recall at a museum in Cody Wyoming for Buffalo Bill. Unbeknownst to me, my father had been doing research in The Genealogy Center in Salt Lake City Utah, on the first leg of our tour, when he had made this discovery, and told me about it after I had bought the book, informing me of our shared ancestry/kinship. I am a distant relative of Mountain-Man Jim Bridger, a fact of which I am highly proud of, and one that explains a lot about my outdoors nature and love for the wilderness.
While being a lay-of-the-land hunter is great for exploring territory and experiencing the land and wilderness, it’s not necessarily the best method for endeavoring a lane of a hunt, with only a compass for orienteering thru unfamiliar wilderness. Yet, I seem to do OK with it.
Then I heard a sound that I couldn’t quite make out. Back over my left shoulder in the direction of Billy, York Hunting Clan’s youngest. It sounded like one of the ever present Ravens squawking repeatedly, but something about the tempo and direction made me think it was coming from ground level.
Then the radio came alive again. Deer jumped, 2 or three, maybe 2 Does and a possible Buck that remained incompletely seen. Billy had jumped some Deer and one of the Does was blowing/snorting at getting a snoot-full of his scent at close range. We were at least a few hundred or more yards apart and I could hear her repeated blows/snorts at him in her message of alarm that rang thru the woods for quite some distance.
But it meant there were more Deer here, and a separate group from the group Dave had harvested his Doe from. That was a good sign. Billy informed us that the Deer were traveling in the wrong direction, out of the hunt, so I chose not to move in that direction yet. I was continuing inward toward the base of the knob ahead of me that I planned to skirt the base and loop back around Billy to his north and see if those Deer chose to turn uphill away from his hunting pressure.
Eventually I bumped orange in the woods, my best judgment told me it was fellowship Hunting Clan Patriarch Joe of The Jarosz Hunting Clan, I still don’t know for sure as I never bothered to confirm or deny my suspicions, as I simply reformulated my hunting strategy. I re-oriented myself to another path of travel to slowly begin my northward loop, and end my eastward line of travel.
Within the next hour or so, the radio came alive with Moose sighting reports. Dave Peich, our newest Hunting Clan affiliate member, was the first to have a one-on-one encounter while in the woods and was able to watch a Bull Moose, a Cow, and a Calf all within short distance and even at close range during this first day’s hunt, I could hear the excitement in his voice over the 2-way radio. This years opening day was beginning to fulfill all of our expectations…
I made a loop that moved me further north than I had anticipated, as I would find out later. A couple times I heard some sounds that seemed like game movement, but was never able to catch a glimpse of movement or livelihood in the woods. I turned and headed in a vaguely south-west direction to re-orient myself back into the thick of the hunt-zone on my way back out. Still, as always getting caught up in my lay-of-the-land hunting; wanting to see what’s past the next clearing or contained within the cover at the end of my visual horizon in the woods.
As I caught the conversation of the others who were all making their way out of the woods and back to the trucks, I hurried my pace just a bit and started hoofing toward the road. Always keeping my eyes scanning the edge of my range of vision for movement or odd shapes of color that might contain the bovine mammal of my quarry.
At one point I eventually broke out of the woods and onto a slightly grown in forestry road. This was clearly not East Inlet Road and was not a motor-way I had crossed when on my way into the woods. I became somewhat confused as to my location and wondered if this was a stretch of the spur-road that branched off at mile-marker 4 or another branch further along East Inlet road.
Since we hadn’t ventured further than about mile-marker 6 with the vehicles yet, I expected it must have been the spur from mile-marker 4. Therefore I must have ventured much further south than I had anticipated on the last leg of my loop while hoofing back to the trucks/road. I crossed over it and made my way to a larger rushing run-off stream that came from what I expected was the draw between the two knobs in the area where Dave had entered the woods and gotten his Doe.
I followed the stream down for a few hundred yards and eventually broke out onto East Inlet Road. My orienteering skills were still OK, and I knew on what road I was, but not my exact point of reference in accordance to mile-markers. I looked up the road to the north and there was a camp/cabin. As I unloaded my rifle before stepping onto the road, I headed toward the camp.
I felt I recognized it from last year as the furthest out camp along East Inlet road. Last year there was a nice Buck or possibly even a couple of Deer hanging from a meat-pole that was now an area obscured by what appeared to be a small new addition to the camp/cabin.
The sign on the front near the road gave it’s title as; “The Wolf Den.” Which made me check the underbrush quickly for any fur and fang bearing denizens of the woods which I knew to exist out this way from Mr. York’s encounter with a Wolf last year only a couple miles northward up this road.
My consternation grew because I didn’t recognize if we had passed any little such camps on our way in, in the dark, this morning and wasn’t sure if it had been there and simply hidden in the darkness as we traveled up the road, if I had made my way that far south accidentally, or if I had come out even further north than I had entered the woods at first light this morning.
I took a calculated risk and figured since I had a 50/50 shot at making the right call and simply turning around was my only price to pay for making the wrong choice, all I had to do was walk less than a mile, since I wasn’t right near any mile-marker that would tell me the story I was looking for, and I began walking hurriedly north along East Inlet road.
I was the last one out of the woods and the boys eventually checked on me to which I asked where the Wolf’s Den was in relation to our hunt. To which our successful hunter of the Clan Dave; The York Hunting Clan Patriarch’s eldest son replied, “Jim, you need to come back to The United States, turn and walk South on the road.” I sensed the humor in his voice and I also knew that no matter how turned around I had gotten, I couldn’t have walked the dozen or so miles to the Canadian border in my morning hunt alone, so I accepted that my calculated risk was wrong and I turned and walked south and back-tracked the distance I had put on since breaking out of the woods onto East Inlet road.
I had begun to think that the 7 mile-marker sign had gone missing as I had never come across it and was pretty sure I had walk about a mile northward once I had come out onto East Inlet road. Before returning all the way to The Wolf’s Den, the familiar diesel rumble of Billy’s truck came to me just before it came into view as he rounded the bend and picked me up to put an end to my sweat-stirring hoofing in these unseasonably warm temperatures.
I climbed in thankful for his efforts to retrieve me and we turned around and headed past The Wolf’s Den toward the rest of the hunters where they had gathered up for our lunch-break.
I found that I had only popped out of the woods a few hundred yards beyond the mile-marker 6 where we had exited Billy’s truck at first light a couple of quick bends north on East Inlet road. My egress of the woods was pretty close to spot-on of where I had gone in. That wasn’t nearly as disappointing as I had thought it was as a testament of my orienteering skills and sense of direction.
That next forestry road spur had lain just beyond mile-marker 6 around a couple quick turns in the road, as did The Wolf’s Den. True it wasn’t the mile-marker 4 spur-road, but the angle with which it left East Inlet Road was almost identical as was the grass slightly over-growing in-between the wheel travel areas of it’s road-bed.
Not a big mistake, and not a negative testimony about my woodsmanship after all. I decided I had been much closer to where I originally expected I’d come out of the woods in the first place, so I took it with a hint of satisfaction and ambled over to Dave’s Doe where it lay in the swale-grass where he had dragged it out to aside East Inlet road, just north of mile-marker 4 and that eastern spur-road.
She had a big long snout and face that had some very rich character and individuality. A wide and remarkable jaw-line told me she was a mature Doe. Some guessed 150 pounds and others 120 pounds. I expected she was somewhere in the middle of all that.
Dave took Billy’s truck and left us for the afternoon hunt after we consumed our cold-cut sandwich lunch with pickles, chips, and a splash of soda for some caffeine refueling for the afternoon hunt.
While sitting there in the warming sun in the swale-grass next to the East Inlet forestry road, a little white SUV came motoring down from the north, it had some green striping and other colors as it rolled closer I read the distinct bold writing on the side; “Border Patrol.” I couldn’t help but muse to myself that it gave a whole new meaning to the term “wet-back” of an illegal was going to swim Boundary Pond to enter this country illegally a few short miles north of this position. I just hadn’t expected to encounter a Border Patrol vehicle here in The Great North Woods. The agent contained in the SUV nodded and waved to us and continued on his way down and out from this locale. We all noted humorously that it was a different experience than we expected out here…
* * *
We drew up some ideas and York Hunting Clan’s 2nd son Wayne made the call and we decided to pursue the Deer that were with Dave’s Doe and some others that had been jumped toward the end of the hunt that went up and over the spur-road from mile-marker 4 toward the first tall knob off the eastern side of East Inlet road and south of the spur-road.
This was a lofty goal and this “knob” loomed high over our heads with elevations that rivaled any local mountains close to home such as Mount Pomeroy, or even Mount Tom, in our native Pioneer Valley homelands.
Billy and I piled into The Jarosz Hunting Clan’s Ford Expedition with our gear stowed in the back, along with Patriarch Joe and son Todd, and we followed Dave Peich’s truck up the spur-road from mile-marker 4. We split up from the hunters in Dave Peich’s truck and we were to hunt on this; the vaguely south side of the knob and the other vehicle was driving around the mountain to the vaguely north side to hunt.
As we split up along the spur-road Billy and I taking the farthest north/east positions while Joe and Todd took the bottom 2 positions closest to East Inlet road. We all wished each other luck and made our way up into the woods.
These slopes were much different than the surrounding woods had been with nearly open hardwoods and a slashing or whippets and saplings from a semi-distant in time forest cutting.
Making my way up the slope, climbing higher and higher toward my goal of the peak. I made my way up an ever steepening grade of rocky ground covered in swale-grass and a nearly impenetrable slashing of whippets. So tightly growing together were these saplings that I could literally not see 10 yards from my position at any given time. If I were to see a Deer, I could never tell if it was a Buck with all the stems and branches of these hardwood saplings.
Yet the Deer scat was there in the middle of it all, along with Moose tracks and sign. The tell-tale Moose rubs were everywhere. Distinguishable by their relative height off the ground of their massive stature in comparison to those a Whitetail Deer makes normally being between knee and waist level, and their prolific nature being on a dizzying number of trees/saplings as opposed to a single rub or rub-line that a Whitetail Deer will maintain for the duration of The Rut.
As my elevation climbed steadily skyward I hit a very steep slope that opened up the sky behind me to an unforgettable vista that at one point gave me a breathtaking view of both the 2nd and 1st Connecticut Lakes along with the East Inlet Flowage body of water.
So I paused to commit this view into a few photos while I caught my breath from this steep and strenuous climb…
The East Inlet Flowage is where East Inlet road breaks off of Route 3 (next stop Canada) on the opposite side of that body of water.
I turned and returned to pushing my way thru the whippets that fought me every step of the way as I could see a darkened belt of Spruce cover above me that I supposed would be the demarcation line of the end of this slashing hell and the beginning of some huntable broken cover.
As I forced my way thru the tightest of the whippets and saplings I eventually broke free of the vertical visual hell, the bare stems/trunks of such a plethora of saplings has the proclivity to reflect the sunlight in a wall of gray glow that plays havoc with one’s visual senses in a bright sunlight. It becomes very uncomfortable and a headache will come quickly if one doesn’t persevere to keep lookin’ down at the ground and up above the wall of the slashing.
I stepped into a darker grove where far more Spruce trees resided and upward as the slope angle of ascent increased exponentially for the last climb to the top. My vista disappeared behind me within the blanketing Spruce boughs with some tell-tale cut-off stem growth.
The area up at the top of this knob was a veritable living room of a Moose residence. The paths criss-crossed and Moose scat was all around. Anything large enough to give resistance to some Bull’s antlers was rubbed up in a fanatical fashion showing territorial marking.
All the undergrowth had grown up to a level of easy reach for a Moose mouth and clipped off clean at about my waist height. It made looking around the area up here very easy as the woods was open above waist height until the Spruce boughs above my head began to obscure outward view.
Mixed in among the glacial rocky outcroppings were dead-falls and blow-down twisted and rotting remains of many Spruce trees. I can only imagine the winter snow and ice storms that this locale must endure during the harsh winter season.
During those dog-days of winter, none of the wild game would be found up high where I stood now, they would all share the sanctuary from wind and snow down low in the valley along the water-ways under the tight Spruce cover below, but for now, until the heart of winter came calling, especially during these unseasonably warm days in mid November of this Deer Season (2009) the game would venture almost anywhere and it was going to be up to us to find where that was if we were going to successfully harvest our quarry.
At better than better than 45 degrees Fahrenheit, in fact nearly 50, it was warm in the sun no matter where one was, the strenuous climb to get here made beads of sweat pop-out on my forehead and I could here my heart racing in a pulsating drone in my ears. I stopped to recoup my normal heart-rate and breathe deeply until my excessive physical exertion symptoms died-down to a more normal level.
Once I could hear something other than my pulse in my ears, I continued on up to the very tip-top of this knob that over-looks the mile-marker 4 area of East Inlet road and the surrounding wilderness.
The pristine beauty was epic in nature and epitomic in it’s existentialism. There was just something about this place that spoke of raw nature in all it’s primal intensity.
I found a dead-fall in a spot where I could look down in 360 degrees around myself being on the very highest pinnacle point on this peak. I grabbed my 2-way radio and checked in.
Wayne; York Hunting Clan Patriarch’s 2nd son had began a circle around the peak somewhere a couple hundred yards below me or so. As he was moving he jumped some Deer. Somewhere before that he had ventured into an encounter with a few Moose that positioned him within 20 yards or so of a Bull and some Cows that gave him an opportunity to take some calm/still pictures of them at very close range. I envied such an encounter as I had still not yet seen any large game on this opening day of rifle season for Deer in Coos County, NH 2009.
Thru the trees I could see over the next hill and distant mountain tops that were most definitely within Canada. From this spot I could also see quite fare to the east into what I was certain was the state of Maine. I did not have the large panoramic views I was able to obtain lower on the hillside, and could only see small little shapes of view thru the trees, but I could make it out well enough to get a feel for this vast wilderness and these vast expanses of paper company forest land.
I knew I was rather far from my point of entry within this hunt and it was going to take quite a little while to get back. I was glad it was all downhill, even if that is as strenuous or even more so on the legs, but it wouldn’t be nearly as taxing on my cardio and respiratory systems as the ascent had been.
I made some contact and made a calculated guess of Wayne’s approximate location and moved a little lower to the edge of a long wide draw with enough Spruce cover and darkness to invite Whitetail Deer that might be attempting to evade Wayne’s intentions and set up over-looking a probable path of egress to cut-off any back-door; back over the top, means of escape.
He had jumped them again and had been able to see a flash of antlers and knew there was a Buck with these other Deer that he suspected were Does. I kept keen at my perch watching for any signs of movement.
A steady squawking from a circling Raven told me there was some movement of interest not too distant from my locale, so I stayed-put and pulled out my Bushnell 18x28mm binoculars and began glassing the periphery of my naked human vision horizons, exploring the depth of brush and cover hopeful for signs of movement.
It was now that I began to realize just how quiet the forest was here in The Great North Woods. Unlike at home where there is always the drone of some airplane en-route to one of the myriad of nearby air fields and airports, there were zero airplanes traversing the sky above me. There was no constant drone from far off machinery or the din of traffic, just plain, simple, and almost stark silence. The level of quiet was amazing to hear in stark comparison to the much less quietness of home, even at night at home it was never this quiet and without some sound of civilization coming to you across the lands. Here only wildlife noises of Ravens, song-birds or an unknown thump or crack of some settling in the trees, or a breeze rattling dead leaves still clinging to their branches, would break the near dead-silence from time to time. The difference in quiet was remarkable…
I could see the sun beginning to dip toward the south western horizon and knew I had better get motivated so as not to be caught too far from road or truck as nightfall grew nearer. This wasn’t the very last hunt of the day, but I still wanted to start moving back down and out while there was better light on theses steep slopes.
I began descending at a contented pace just kind of wandering down and falling into my lay-of-the-land hunting routine; always choosing the path of least resistance to increase my level of quiet in movement as I went, keeping in the shadows and cover as much as possible to hide my own movements the best I could from my ever-wary quarry.
The radio bristled with another report from Wayne on the unthinkable…
He had jumped the Deer again and they had turned and bounded up and over the top and out of the hunt. I had missed them… I had either miscalculated on his approximate compass degree below me on the slope as I had never seen him and was simply making a guess based upon my supposition of his area of ascent, and I had probably come down far enough to leave too much room behind me that the Deer could escape thru without my detection.
I chose a less obstructive path down closer to the rest of my hunt-brothers in between where the two trucks were on either side of the knob, sort of making a half-hitch shaped loop up to the top and back down crossing my own path near the top so I would come out a touch further north than I had come from, rather than the U-shaped incursion I had made on the morning’s hunt.
This hunt was drawing to a conclusion without any more action and I began easing back toward my original path of ascent in order to come out closer to the vehicle than I had intended just a relatively short time ago.
Eventually I spied the spur-road below me and exited the hunt within 20 yards from where I had entered. I felt a rush of encouragement and reassurance that my orienteering and woodsmanship skills were proven as good as I demanded/expected them to be for myself.
I met Joe, The Jarosz Hunting Clan’s Patriarch out of the forestry road and we headed back to his son Todd’s truck. Billy was already back at the truck and we only needed to wait a few short minutes for Todd to show up as we regrouped to make plans for the final hunt until dark on this opening day.
Wayne, Dave Peich, and Mr. York; my Hunting Clan’s Patriarch were all going to spread out and post-up until dark in the same area we had just hunted, but near the spur-road. The Jarosz’s Billy, and I decided upon retreating down to East Inlet road and back tracking to an old cutting near and across from Norton Pool by mile-marker 2.
We all climbed in the Ford Expedition and motored slowly back down the spur-road and back onto East Inlet, and back-tracked toward the entrance and The East Inlet Flowage. Nearing our intended destination I spied an old log-landing over-grown with swale-grass that gave way into some dark Spruce bands with some logging skidder ways that were similarly gown-in with swale-grass that caught my attention on the south side of this area of the paper company forestry roads.
We crossed the little wooden plank covered road-bed bridge that fed Norton Pool and parked in the side-hill grown-in cutting across from the entrance to the dam at Norton Pool. My 3 compatriots spread out and ventured in at the old cutting, and I turned and trod back up the forestry road in the direction we had just come from.
During my walk I wondered how Dave; my Hunting Clan Patriarch’s eldest son had made out at the check-in station and what grand trophies of the forest he may have encountered that had been checked in while he was there.
I had slight difficulty getting across the mud and hoar frost entrenched drainage ditch on the south side of East Inlet road at the old log-landing, it hadn’t looked difficult to cross from inside the truck. I eventually scaled the rocky bank that crested into the swale-grass that was a maze of felled logs covering a wet area concealed underneath the swale-grass.
I found I could pick my way across walking up on the logs, kind of like picking your way across a stream or brook by hopping from rock to rock. Eventually I crossed the open expanse of the old landing clearing and entered the tight young Spruce grove.
I loaded up the Remington, thumping one in the chamber as I racked the pump forward and I then installed a fully loaded detachable box magazine into it’s well. A quick check thru the Redfield Widefield 2-7x wide field of view scope and I made my way into the soft darkness before me.
The ground was mossy and also covered with a green leafy growth that made movement nearly silent. That put an open smile on my face as the open hardwoods hillside of the steep knob I had previously traversed was getting crispy noisy from the drying-in-the-sun-and-breeze leaf-litter that covered that forest floor. I like moving quiet when I’m doin’ my thing; still-hunting.
I passed thru the first dark grove of closely growing Spruce trees that were only about 30 – 40 feet tall and broke out into an open lane that must have once been a skidder travel route unless it was simply a space between these what appeared almost to possibly be man-made plantings of these Spruce trees, yet the tight spacing wasn’t linear enough for that so I surmised it must have been a naturally occurring thicket. The trunks were tight enough to impede easy movement so I utilize the open lane to proceed further into the area.
I spied some neat semi-large birds frequenting this area. They were white, black, and gray. I didn’t pay them any mind and continued on my way. As I eased deeper into the forest I could hear the soft murmuring and cooing of these birds drawing nearer to me from behind. I turned to take a look and realized they had been following me up this woods travel lane. There were 2 of them close to me and I thought I spied more, but the others were much further back toward another clearing from a grown-in cutting. These two were calmly flitting about from Spruce to Spruce, down to the ground to pick up some seed or berry, and then back up into a nearby branch anywhere from 6 to 10 feet off the ground.
These little creatures were rather intriguing and their coloration was stark; their heads were white with big black eyes a gray chest/breast and darker gray almost black wings with some other white patches at the base of their legs. They were nearly the size of a sea-gull, just a touch smaller with a little bit shorter wings and short sharp black beaks.
They seemed to be following me, yet at the same time semi-disinterested. I casually continued upon my way and I could hear these two birds coming with me as I continued in a southerly direction into the woods. Eventually one of them landed in a branch at about 7 feet up only about 6 feet away from me looking at me. I stood there studying it with interest…
When I head a tiny garbled murmuring coo from a position that sounded as if it was inches from my right ear… I felt a strange sensation of knowing I wasn’t alone and I very cautiously and slowly turned back to my right to see the other of these birds had taken a perch on a branch in a spruce tree that was now less than 1 foot from my face.
I slowly turned to face this tiny little creature, wondering with a little trepidation if this was simply curiosity or if this was some territorial defense behavior that was going to cause me to sustain a scratching, clawing, pecking facial injury in my immediate future…
The calm and unagitated demeanor told me it was no such wild defense tactic and it sat within about 10 inches of my face letting me study it closely. It’s dark black eyes seemed like a liquid void of light in the midst of it’s bright white head and crest.
It was then that I noticed a tiny metal band with numbers wrapped around it’s tiny twig-like ankle. These birds had obviously encountered people up close before and it had no fear of me whatsoever.
I suspected these were the local Canadian Jays I had heard about in passing from my fellow hunters a couple times, but had never encountered them before myself.
Without hesitation this little Jay dropped to the forest floor at my feet, plucked a little seed or some such morsel from the ground and seemed to simply levitate back to it’s position within a foot from my head without a care in the world. I was simply amazed at the experience/encounter and remained still until it went about it’s business dropping to the ground and then flitting back up to another nearby perch in another tree.
I’ve had Chickadees land on my in my stillness when posting for Deer in my tree stand or in a natural ground blind, but never anything like the size and piquant variety of these Canadian Jays while completely aware of my presence and even movement. It was very interesting and pleasant to experience.
As they eventually decided I apparently had nothing to offer them, the pair of Canadian Jays hop-scotched their way off in a separate direction and I refocused my attention on the final hunt for Deer on this opening day of Rifle season in New Hampshire’s Great North Woods.
The terrain was dotted with sinking impressions of little draws and bowls along below the dark Spruce canopy, yet the view was pretty far as there wasn’t a lot of actually ground cover or brush. I stayed in the low-spots to keep myself as concealed as possible while maintaining a superior visual scan capability of being able to look over the top of the high spots keeping a constant vigil for any detection of movement in the area. Mixing up my movements and stillness cycles as to not settle into a repetition that would give away a readable constant that would inform my quarry of the presence of a human kept me busy as I progressed southward at a snails pace deeper into the woods.
Up ahead I noted a break in the terrain and that it was changing to a more broken/mixed-bag of swale-grass bog and juvenile Spruce growth that seemed to me to be optimum Deer cover/habitat. I eased toward the area that was a little more open yet obscured distance vision due to much more brush and undergrowth, where a Deer could be bedded or simply positioned behind cover.
I noticed a odd coloration on the ground as I eased out into some of the swale-grass, and to my surprise found a collapsible ground blind in Realtree AP HD camouflage lying flat on the ground at the apex of a high-ground island like anomaly of ground at the edge of this swale-grass bog. The trampled Deer run full of fresh tracks and scat with criss-crossing game trails showed historic utilization by not only Whitetail Deer, but Moose also. This was a good spot and some local had found it to be such as well.
The blind was covered with a scattering of wind-blown dead leaves and twigs/branches from the unseasonably warm breezes that told me this ground-blind hadn’t been used in a few days at the very least if not weeks. I supposed it was a local that had weekends free to hunt and had to work during the week just as I Bow hunt back at home. I couldn’t tell if it was used by a bow-hunter or someone who was hunting with Primitive Firearms as the local Black-powder or Muzzle-Loader season had just concluded on the previous day. However, it looked to have not been utilized for at least few days of inactivity.
This area was beginning to look very promising, yet I noticed the daylight was beginning to wane and twilight was edging near. I looked up at the fading light and scowled to myself at the fading daylight and the fact that this opening day of our hunt was drawing to a close.
The terrain ahead was calling to me to come and explore, but the fading light told me I had better adjust my direction to head back in order to come out by dark. These swale-grass draws seemed to naturally slope directly back toward where Todd; Jarosz Hunting Clan Patriarch’s son had parked his Ford Expedition that I had been riding in with Billy; York Hunting Clan Patriarch’s youngest son, since Dave; York Hunting Clan Patriarch’s eldest son had taken Billy’s truck to go check in his Doe and attend to his newly accepted duties as Camp-Mouse.
I kept looking over my left shoulder back at the new terrain I so terribly wanted to go explore as the ever-descending darkness obscured it from my vision as I made my way back in the direction of the truck.
My sense of direction was proven accurate once more, further reassuring me of my able woodsmanship as I rounded a bend in the swale-grass way to come directly too our Ford Expedition and Joe; Jarosz Hunting Clan Patriarch who had also come out of the woods just moments before, even though I had entered the woods almost a half-mile further back in the road and had made a looping arc in this general direction. I was pleased and become confident that I wasn’t going to lose my bearings in these big woods after all as that is a serious matter when hunting this far out and away from home territory. I am thankful for the gracious and accurate orienteering lessons Mr. York had given me throughout the years of hunting under his tutelage that has blessed me with this nearly natural ability, coupled with a smattering of Boy-scout orienteering exercise in my youth, I seem to do just fine with nothing but a compass to depend upon.
Even my wise elder; Hunting Clan Patriarch Dave York owns and utilizes GPS devices for his hunting endeavors, so I surmise that it is high time I bite-the-bullet and invest in one for myself for the simple sake of convenience if not the peace-of-mind security of having terrain marking directional maps and even topographical maps and aerial photographs at one’s fingertips in order to maintain situational/directional awareness when out in the vast wildernesses that we love to hunt.
I conversed with Jarosz Hunting Clan Patriarch; Joe and confirmed my suspicions that the birds I encountered were indeed the Canadian Jays I had suspected. He had himself encountered a pair, possibly even the same pair, one with a leg-band and it had actually fed on his cracker snack right out of his had while he was posted-up in a good spot for a Deer encounter.
I unloaded the .300 Savage and stowed it securely upon a sapling near the Expedition and ambled across East Inlet road to the Norton Pool dam area. I read about the prolific Ruffed Grouse, which I had been encountering all day and quit counting after about a Baker’s dozen heart-pounding explosions from the brush and cover by these thunder-chickens we refer to as Partridge as a local misidentification idiosyncracy from back home, and the less common Spruce Grouse which are protected in these parts.
The signage also told me that this dammed pond was produced and donated to the people of New Hampshire in 1967 (coincidentally the year of my birth) by The Champion International Corporation; a conglomerate of paper goods producing companies that have managed, stewarded, and maintained these natural Boreal Spruce Forests since 1898 with such success and accomplishment that these entities wanted to preserve and bequeath this pristine nature boreal Spruce Forest conservancy to the people of the state in which it resides, and named it Norton Pool and Moose Sanctuary.
It’s pristine beauty is breath-taking!!!
The placid glass-like surface gave way to the occasional ripple of feeding fish and the trout I can only imagine reside within as the final rays of light faded into darkness as my hunt-brothers retreated for their forested positions and gathered up at the vehicle.
Our partner party’s truck rolled up as I was walking back across the road to get in I glanced back over my shoulder one last time at the glory of this pristine wildlife refuge in the middle of this vast expanse of wilderness and did my best to take it all in for an ever-lasting memory…
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The ride back to camp was of content and the chit-chatty sharing of hunting experiences and the communion only found by those that share this True-North American lifestyle of hunting, and outdoor stewardship of our world. Eventually the lights o town came into view as we passed The Connecticut Lakes and down into town by Back Lake and Lake Francis.
We turned up our familiar Dairy-Mill dirt road and eventually spilled out of the vehicle gathering our gear and retreating into the magnificent comfort of our glorious log cabin Deer Camp. A cold beer cracked-open and the smiles and laughs flowing freely, life is good!
The first hunting day’s supper of Chili made by York Hunting Clan Patriarch’s 2nd Son Wayne and his wife Theresa, prepared by Wayne and Camp-Mouse Dave was a fantastic conclusion to this opening day of the 2009 Great North Woods rifle Deer hunt.
Memories cemented securely into my mind, shared experiences compound the epic existential nature of what life is suppose to be made it as unforgettable as expectations had hoped.Dave’s Doe hanging on the meat-pole and a fire crackling in the fire-place insert wood-stove opened with fire-screen in place made for snap-shots in the mind that will never fade. Toasts and cheers shared, our first day came to a close…
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To be continued...
