Heading to camp (complete)

[adeeden]

9/10/07 another gloomy night gave way to another rainy gloomy cool day. had to be in the low 40's to upper 30's last night. I broke down and built a fire in the woodstove and did it ever feel good. The sunrose in a brief break in the drizzly showers giving me this shot to take pictures of.

 

We made our usual trip to check baits and rebait again this morning. Those signs stating the roads were not maintained were right on. I spend alot of time on gravel roads around home but these took the cake! After coming back from the second bait the old suzuki barely turned over. After closer inspection I found that a battery cable terminal had cracked from all the bouncing around luckily I had a couple extra in the glove box.
After taking care of that the sun slowly started peeking out and soon it was quite a nice day, we took advantage of it for a little midmorning fishing. It was incredible, a walleye or pike on every 10 cast or so for the next couple hours!

 

It was fresh fish for dinner tonight!

We made it back to our stands around 2:00 P.M again today and set till dark. No bears were seen but I was entertained by a never ending show of birds, squirrels, and hares all in all a fine day! The local wolf entertained me again with some howls as I walked the trail back towards the road in the dark.

 

[adeeden]

9/11/07 A very stiff wind blew in last night and stayed. It had to be blowing around 35-40 mph. I had to get up every hour or so all night to refasten all the windows in the cabin the wind was strong enough to rattle them until they came unlocked then making them bang over and over. When it got daylight enough to see I slipped down to the dock to check on the boat (I was worried it may have sunk or been blown away). I was happy to see it still there, but the whitecaps on the lake were downright scary. There wouldn't be any crossing the channel this morning to check baits. We had already talked to Carl the night before and he was putting us on new baits today anyway so we decided to just hang around camp until the wind died down.
 

  Finaly around noon the water had settled down enough that we were able to cross the channel. It was still a rough wet ride! Carl showed us to our new stands/baits. Dad was put on "new blind" and I was taken to "8-ball" both baits had been hit when we went to them so we rebaited and settled into the windy evening on stand.

 

I set until it was too dark to see the bait bucket with out seeing a bear. once again there was a steady stream of birds, squirrels, and hares to keep me entertained though. Dad had had no luck either, but when we returned to camp we saw our neighbor Melissa had shot a bear. This was Melissas's first hunt for anything and wow was she excited! It was a small bear compleley black but had a great coat! She couldn't have been prouder and I was very happy for her as well!

[Wapiti Chaser]

Great story and pictures.

[Osagetree]

What trip! Man, the memories you'll have for ever!


Thanks for taking the time to share your wonderful experience!!!!

[adeeden]

9/12/07
   We were off at daybreak on our usual run to rebait this morning. Once again I took advantage of the sunrise for a photo shoot from just above the boat landing.
 

It was cool again this morning and as we drove further away from the lake there was a pretty good frost on the ground. I am assuming the lake held enough heat to keep the frost away by it. Anyway we rebaited 4 baits. The one dad had hunted the first 3 days had been hit really hard. I tried to talk him to relocating to it but he seemed content on the oone he had hunted yesterday. He is still recovering from a car accident he had 3 weeks ago and not moving to quick, the bait he was on now was a short walk and that was fine with him!
    When we tried to leave the last bait we had baited the old suzuki wouldn't turn over. A quick check and we noticed the rough road had managed to break another battery terminal. Luckily I still had 1 left in the old tool box. We fished the miday and did fairly well again, it looked like fish and chips for supper again tonight.
    We got back on stand around 2:00 P.M. our normal time and hunted till it was to dark to see. No bears were seen again, but the normal squirrells, hares, birds and a couple spruce grouse had kept me entertained. Dad even seen a fisher this evening from his stand.
     On the drive up I had seen several of these signs warning us of moose crossings and had took a picture of one.

 
While there wern't any signs on the gravel there should have been. I picked up dad and drove a mile or so when I came around a corner and there was a huge bull moose facing me in the middle of the road he was probaly 45 inches wide! By the time I got stopped he was maybe 10 yards away! he stood there for a bit then started away from us, then turned around and came towards us I thought for sure he was gonna give us a little push! He eventually changed course and crashed into the brush I could hear small tree's breaking as he trotted of through the brush. I had seen moose before alot when I worked in Yellowstone but this was the first dad had ever seen he was very excited and amazed by there sheer size!

 

[adeeden]

9/13/07 Our last day to hunt. We slept in a little later today but i did catch a little bit of sunrise still.

 

We set out to rebait this morning as usual. The stand dad had hunted earlier in the week had been hit hard again. I tried to get Dad to hunt it but he still didn't want to. So I decided that I would have to hunt it this evening.

   I slipped into the stand around 2:00 as usual and set till dark. There was one pine squirrell stealing bait all evening. This was a very quiet stand to sit, no birds at all. I read a book glancing around at the end of each page before turning it. No bears were seen and I slipped out when it became to dark to see the bait barrel.

   When we got back to camp, I made up a little momento to leave in papa bears cabin with all the others of course i had to do mine tradgang style it was made on birchbark and i added a tradgang wrap.
 

All in all it was an great hunt, Carl even told us we were welcome to stick around a few more days and hunt since the weather was so crazy and the bears weren't to active but we decided to go head and head out friday morning so we could have a little rest before we had to get back to work.

 

[adeeden]

A couple more pictures from Friday morning.

 

 

 

[Mr.Magoo]

Great pics.  I'd have been tempted to spend half my time walleye fishing.

[BigRonHuntAlot]

Thanks for the Pics. Congrats on some time well spent.  

[Talondale]

Nice pics and good story. Thanks.