Foliage was at peak or almost peak. Beautiful once the sun shined. (c) S. Warren
Each October we put away our fly rods and pick up the shotguns to go bird hunting. This year, we took a leaf peeping trip to New Hampshire with our grandchildren, and saved the bird hunt for the second week of October with hopes of there being less hunters in the woods. Since bear season was a bust, we really wanted to get some partridge for our freezer.
The past three years, we’ve camped at Lily Bay State Park for $10 per night. Not bad for $30 and with that fee we get warm showers and a private campsite, but the bird hunting hasn’t been outstanding so we thought perhaps we’d take the plunge and “go North” to Bird Utopia.
Each year, our oldest son and son-in-law go on an all-boy excursion with a bunch of their friends to Ashland, a.k.a. Bird Utopia in the North Maine Woods. That’s northern Maine to us…way north; about four plus hours north to be exact. And each year they come home boasting about the number of birds they get, and that they get their limits every day. We get bird envy every time.
To make this more believable, we camped in the North Maine Woods in 2012 for Zack’s moose hunt. Each morning, we watched four grouse strut around in the campsite while we just watched because we were there for the September moose hunt and bird season hadn’t begun yet.
With high hopes of having a banner three day weekend, we packed up the camper, guns, and food and headed north to Bird Utopia. The forecast for Columbus Day weekend was supposed to be textbook gorgeously sunny with a fall chill, but with a passing overnight shower in the “far north”. I even brought a rifle “just in case” we saw a bear.
We arrived in the North Maine Woods just in time for the rain…and the mud. We had to four-wheel drive into the gate because a recent road repair had compromised the firmness and we literally didn’t know if we’d get our camper through the section of road without ripping off something. After paying $153.00 at the gate for our three days of camping and daily use fees, we set up in the rain. It poured. It was cold and damp. Luckily the heater ran all night. We camped in Russell Stream Crossing off of the Realty Road. You can find it on Google Earth. A beauty of a site with the Russell Stream running behind it. We even had a new privy to use.
One of my mushrooms later identified as Catathelasma ventricosum, but I’m not so sure. (c) S. Warren
The following morning it was cold enough that ice formed in the puddles. We got up before sunrise, made coffee, packed the truck and headed out for a day of hunting on muddy gross roads. We saw some beautiful foliage, but hardly any wildlife besides an owl. We rode for hours and saw nothing for partridge. I was beginning to think I couldn’t spot one. We parked the truck and walked in poplar and birch stands with no luck. John and I score some really cool mushrooms. I am convinced they are edible. They look like giant white mushrooms we buy in the store…and they smell like mushrooms. I can’t wait to share my find! Finding such unique mushrooms were my saving grace to not seeing any birds. I figured if I can spot mushrooms, then I certainly can see a bird.
This is what my bow looks like.My oldest son’s pibold, taken with a bow. (c) S. Warren
In order to evolve as a hunter, I’ve taken on the task of learning how to bow hunt. I am the only one in the family who hadn’t tried bow hunting, because I didn’t have a bow…until my youngest son dropped over $800 on a new one. I inherited the grow-with-you Parker bow that we had bought him for Christmas a few years ago. I am fine with that since I am cheap, and a tune up is definitely cheaper than a new bow. After finally getting a proper fitting and a tune up at L.L.Bean, my bow is now officially ready to use to hunt.My dream is to get a buck. A big one…maybe even a pibold like the one my son got a few years ago.
I was thinking this was going to be easy-peasy-deer-in-the-pot, but I soon found out that couldn’t be further from the truth. Reality check in process!
I know your’e thinking, “Can this girl even hit the target?” Yes, I can hit the target, and given the chance, I might actually be able to take a deer with it. I bought some broad head points for a lethal shot, and lighted knocks so that I can find my arrow after I shoot it, if I ever get to take aim. On my first trip out, I was very optimistic and thought I’d have a deer in no time.
After spending so much time bear hunting in ‘real” wilderness, hunting behind the house is painful, but it’s helping me adjust to the noise in case I do go to the city. I really do live in the country, but I also live along two major routes that intersect at the bottom of the hill..oh yay…cars, trucks, motorcycles, dump trucks, tractor trailer trucks…all going by. Add wind, rattling leaves, barking dogs, construction, mowers and you have the idea. I even bought the Expanded Archery license in case I need to go hunt in the city for a deer where I can harvest a doe and still be able to harvest a buck behind the house. The benefit of the expanded archery season is that it goes until December 31st, past the last Saturday in the November of the rifle season and it’s a two week extension into muzzleloader season. I’ve shot deer with a muzzleloader in the past, but if all else fails I’ll be hunting in the city. My plan is to have some deer meat in the freezer this year one way or another!
Hunting with a bow is much more challenging than I realized it would be. It’s not the bow itself, but all the gadgets, and the odd shaped size that turns my stealthy walk into my stand into a clumsy wobble into my stand. I think I managed to catch every stick, limb, fern and leaf possible with the cams of the bow in my travels. Trying to climb into my stand with a bow in my hand is stupid to say the least. Yes, I tried it, and I made more noise than I thought possible..and it was daylight! I can’t ever imagine trying this in the dark before daylight.
My new release to pull the string on my bow. It folds back to be “out of the way” which is a total advertising lie. It’s still very much attached to my wrist and makes noise no matter how I fold it.
Note to self: You can put the release on after you get in the stand so it doesn’t clink every rail of the ladder as you climb. My stand is hid among a bunch of fir, hemlock and spruce…with lots of branches that now need to be cut so I can use a rope to pull my bow up the proper way…and that darned quiver (arrow holder) is noisy too, so off that comes, but where to put it? The last thing I want is to drop that with my arrows, so I also need to put up a bow holder…and I have to fix my shooting lanes because I have none for a bow shot. My setup works for the rifle, but I need much more space to shoot a bow.
One of my main problems is that my bow hunting pants and shirt don’t offer up enough pockets for all my junk I tote along for the hunt, and I can’t throw a bow over my shoulder like my rifle. I have to have my windicator spray, deer scent and container, buck grunt, doe bleat, flashlight, phone, and on colder nights, I also need gloves, a neck warmer and a hat..and one pocket on my pants just doesn’t cut it. I have a backpack to bring, but that’s too noisy for mornings…SO I’m back to trying to store everything in my camo jacket liner.
Buck grunt to mimic bucks in rut.Doe bleat to mimic does in heat. Calls in bucks. Anti roll edges which is new and very important…nothing to roll off the treestand.
If you’ve ever hunted in the morning, sound is amplified ten times more than in the middle of the day. Every leaf crunches, every movement makes noise, and every breath, every pulse seems to be there for you–and deer to hear…and that means every little bump, clink, swish of a leaf can be heard.
So, for now, I’ll keep you posted on my progress. I’ll need lots of persistence to get thru this clumsy phase. I’ll need lots of patience for the noise I have to contend with as I sit for what seems like hours in my treestand. There will probably be more stories of my being busted due to my clumsiness than deer success…and I will most likely switch back to my rifle in a couple weeks. For now, I’ll make sure I use my harness and hope for the best and enjoy the sit before it gets too dark and cold.
After all, it’s the adventures in the process, not just the harvest.
Just a small portion of the crappy road that we travel…just not at 60 mph. (c) S. Warren
It’s not often that I plan a gripe session in my blog, but this week I am compelled to gripe a little. We’ve been extremely fortunate to be given landowner permission to hunt on land an hour and a half from home. Getting there has always been half the adventure. A good portion of the road is crappy (I mean 25 mph and you’re still cringing crappy) and it needs to be repaired. We make bets on how many moose, rabbit, deer, and other wildlife we may see on our journey. The crappy road slows us down considerably to get there. But once there, it’s always been our “little piece of wilderness”. The joy of hunting remotely is the feeling that no one else is there–complete solitude. You can totally engage your thoughts in what you’re doing and unplug from the world. For me it’s a good time to cleanse the mind and enjoy the experience of being there without listening to cars, dogs, screaming kids, blaring music, or dump trucks to name a few.
In the last couple of years, we’ve seen a huge increase in the number of vehicles traveling this route. They are adorned with kayaks, canoes and bicycles..in-state vehicles too, but mostly out-of-state cars, driving like freaking mad men and women to get to their pseudo-wild destination that an organization has advertised heavily in a Maine-focused magazine that’s marketed towards the not-so-average-Mainer, but more so for the upper middle class New England Urbanites that want to “unplug” for a weekend. I’ve seen them drive the crappy road as if it was a super highway; driving at high rates of speed, passing on corners, passing on hills, and tailgating just to get to “their” spot. A number of times, we’ve simply pulled over to let them by because they won’t pass but insist on tailgating.
We’ve seen a ten-fold increase in bicyclists, despite the fact that this road is narrow, has no breakdown lanes, no bike lanes, and has hill after hill, and has blind spots throughout scattered with washouts and broken pavement. I’ve even encountered “skiers” on rolling skies who think nothing of tucking down the middle of the road and won’t get over to let you by, or who stop right in the middle of the road to chat with fellow “skiers” without so much as an eye blink when you look at them in disbelief for their inconsideration.
I’ve also noticed that this is the first summer that we didn’t see the number of moose we’re accustomed to seeing in our commute. In fact, we barely saw any wildlife all summer. We saw one moose in May (pictured above), and didn’t see another one until the very last week of September. This is more than disturbing. And I don’t think it’s a tick problem because I’ve never seen a moose in that condition in this area.
Mowed road…seriously?! (c) S. Warren
This influx of tourists….are putting a real damper on little my piece of wilderness experience! They trample paths made accessible by the organization who’s chopped, mowed, and excavated because the trail can’t be too hard for the tourists to hike…and then the organization creates a “world class” bike trail..a trail that potentially crosses through where game travels, across water flows, wet areas, and in order to do so hack a path through the woods..oh yeah, and they nail their signs all along the road onto living trees that they don’t own. The tourists also like to yell and hoot as they enjoy their bike ride, not caring if anyone else may be bothered by it–yet it interferes with my solitude. So much for “leave no trace”.
Only once have we encountered someone face to face since we make an effort to avoid them at all cost–and what did they do? They pitched a tent IN – THE- M I D D L E of the traveled road/trail where camping isn’t even supposed to happen, and they did it all without hesitation, but instead with a sense of pride and entitlement and they with only the best-of-the-best gear that money can buy as if that somehow makes them outdoorsmen/women.Their response when we told them they can’t tent just anywhere…”We’ve done this for twenty years.”…BULL CRAP! this trail hasn’t been here that long! They acted as if we were the ones that were encroaching on their wilderness space. It may have had something to do with one of them hanging out naked by the tent, but I really don’t care. News flash back-to-nature dudes…just because you can hike on it, doesn’t mean you have the right to camp on it, cook on it, or poop on it! Is that so hard to understand? We have access to the same land, and under no circumstances would we feel as though we have a right to bring in our camper or tent and pitch it for the weekend. We have more respect for the landowner than to do that!! We have more respect for others that use this piece of land. No one even knows we’re there when we’re there, and when we leave, we leave no trace.
Don’t get me wrong. I cherish access. Access is critical to the enjoyment of Maine and what it has to offer, and we are extremely grateful for the access we’ve been given. What I do have a problem with is the commercialization of that cherished access that is threatening the Maine wilderness experience for a lot of us.
I can only wonder how many animals were missed seeing or barely avoided being hit because people were driving so fast. I can only wonder how much further north I’ll have to go in a few years to find my piece of wilderness if this continues. I can only wonder how wildlife is being affected by all this traffic and all these tourists. I can only wonder if this is a snapshot of what it would be like for the people of Mt. Katahdin area….their wilderness being sucked up, trampled on, and used without real appreciation by tourists…I can only wonder.
Maybe perhaps Acadia National Park, Baxter State Park and the Appalachian Trail provide enough commercialized abuse for Maine’s wilderness. Perhaps we don’t need to sell off our wilderness experience with yet another national park. I truly hope we don’t if this is a sign of what could or may be.
Last year was my first official bear hunting season, yet last year’s anti-bear hunting referendum in Maine was in full swing, and I wasn’t able to fully enjoy what might have been my first and last bear season. I dang near cried when the end of the season came and I hadn’t gotten my bear. The threat that we might lose the ability to manage Maine black bears because a bunch of anti-hunting animal activists could lie and twist facts on 40 years of bear research was disturbing to say the least. I never campaigned so hard to get the facts out to all my social media friends, and some now former friends because they got sick of my posts. Oh well. I’m passionate about hunting, and I’ve always been a science-minded woman who makes decisions on facts and not claims surrounded in emotion, and on top of that, I made a lot of new friends in the process.
So thanks again to all my hunting and non-hunting friends who “get it” and for voting “No on 1”. Maine bear hunting is safe for now, but not forever. The Humane Society of the United States will be back will lots of other lies, inaccurate and misleading information, and staged videos, but I hope after this season you’ll get to know more about bear hunting and will even better understand the facts. I’ll be blogging about my/our adventures, so wish me luck!
Big bear claw marks. Yowza! (c) S. Warren
Last Saturday, August 1, 2015, marked the first day bear bait could be placed out for the 2015 hunt which begins August 31st. This year we obtained permission to once again hunt a privately owned mountain about an hour and a half from home. Thank you Mr. S! This 1,000 acre property is gated, but not entirely off limits to outsiders because the Appalachian Trail runs adjacent to part of the property. We take this into consideration when we place our baits since I use a gun and wouldn’t want to be shooting in the direction of hikers even though we’re legally far enough from them, but more so, even though it’s illegal to tamper with baits, we don’t want to take a chance that some anti-hunter hiking through would find our site and try sabotage it. Avoiding “issues” is the reason we get permission year after year, and we don’t want to jeopardize that relationship. We’ve already had bear at one of the three sites we bait and I’m stoked because it was my spot!
With permission from a landowner and former high school classmate, we set up a second location with about 100 acres only 40 minutes from home. Thank you Paul and Bea! We were pretty excited to see so much bear sign. Bear poop and clawed up beech trees from previous bears made the setup seem a lot quicker…that and the fact that sons Zack and Tyler joined us. For now we have one bait on it, but may add a second if it turns out to be a productive site, meaning big bears visiting it. 😉
Two cubs or mother and cub…not what I want to see. The benefit of bait is being able to determine what’s there. (c) S. Warren
Long before we could bait, we made arrangements to get bait, which can sometimes be difficult if you wait until the last minute. We’ve used a host of different types of bait. Last year’s bait was cattle feed from the Midwest; I figured if it was good enough for beef cattle, it was good enough for bear. It consisted of mostly cookies and nuts…lots of them and chocolate, which we’ve since learned can be toxic to bears if they eat too much. The raccoon and squirrels liked it better than the bear did. In fact, probably half of the bait we put out is eaten by other critters and not bear.
Marten?? (c) S. Warren
This year’s bait is nothing we’ve had before: lots of fritter-like-spice cake-like cake-muffin-glaze-like…all mixed together and really fragrant. We also have caramel, blueberry pie filling, grease, and a bunch of scents like anise oil (smells like licorice), Northwoods Bear Jelly that’s waterproof and scented with anise and beaver castor (smells like stinky beaver hormone), and a cherry burst sprinkle additive. The Bear Jelly is a new product for us but it seems we’ve had bad luck when it comes to baiting. We’ll just get one site baited only to have it rain so it washes the scent away, so waterproof please don’t fail us! The cherry burst is like confectioners sugar on a dough-boy, and the smell is so strong your mouth waters when you smell it, and all necessary to hopefully lure in a mature bear for me to harvest. Bears have an extraordinary sense of smell which means not only do I have to attract them away from preferred natural foods, but also not have them smell me.
We can’t wait to go back and check and fill our baits. It’s going to be exciting to see who’s there and who’s new. I hope there are less critters and more bear this year. More to come!
Big bear! (c) S. WarrenRed squirrel…too many to count…they fight with chipmunks, grey squirrel and mice for the food. (c) S. WarrenEven vultures and crows come down for something to eat. (c) S. WarrenThree raccoons having a feast. They love granola. (c) S. Warren
October is my favorite month. In fact, my husband John and I were married in October. We had initially picked the first Saturday in November to get married, but that was supposed to be the first day of deer season, so we bumped it back a week earlier so not to interfere with hunting. After all, nothing should come between a man and opening deer season. (I didn’t hunt then so it really was all about him.)
As luck would have it, the October date turned out to be the first year that Maine decided to make deer season earlier…and you guessed it. We were scheduled to be married on the first day of hunting season. After putting my foot down that I was not going to take a black marker to the invitations and change the date, John conceded and we got married as planned.
The first day of hunting season has always been a huge event in our family, so when our youngest son finally turned 10, John wanted to be ready to take him out. Friday afternoon was an iconic picture perfect Maine fall day. The sun was shining, and the Indian summer was in full force. John had scouted beforehand and decided to put up two hanging tree stands overlooking a well traveled deer lane on a knoll not far from the house.
When I first started hunting, we didn’t have many tree stands and we considered ourselves resourceful when John built some, since anything was better than the old rickety nailed on tree stands of the past. We owned hanging stands, and some of those were homemade. We also had some screw-in tree steps, some strap-on ladder steps, and homemade ladders to get into our stands. Ladder stands were the newest thing on the market and we had purchased a “buddy stand” which seats two people, to use when John and I first hunted together. I really, really like that stand.
The majority of the time, I used the homemade or a combination of the homemade stands since we had several places to hunt and we wanted as many options as possible as the season went on. When I look back, it’s amazing I even continued to hunt given how hard it was for me to climb into stands. I really thought John was testing me because some of these stands were so challenging to get into. I was always athletic and strong, so realizing I couldn’t climb into these stands as easy as I thought I could made me try even harder to succeed.
I had the stand that had strap-on ladders, that led to climbing several feet of hemlock limbs only to be totally spent by the time I reached the actual stand. More than once, I’d have to stop and catch my breath, take a break and pray I wouldn’t fall out of that tree. By the time I finally made it into the stand, I’d be a wash of sweat.
Another stand we still use requires climbing a pine about 25 feet high to get the stand. I’ve only climbed that tree three times because it literally takes all the strength I have to climb it. This big old tree overlooks a swail grass area known for deer crossings. After climbing tree steps, I have to hold onto limbs so big it requires me to hug the branches, not hold onto them with my hands. Every step has to be calculated so that I can step onto my stand, and unlike a lot of my stands, coming down is just as scary.
Then there was “tall stand” because it was in a tall tree. It was located down in the bog which wasn’t some place I craved to be. It consisted of a small maple tree with it’s top broke out and a board perched on top of it. After climbing screw in steps set too far apart for my short legs, and then shimmying up two pine saplings I finally made it onto the platform where I threw myself across it and lay there trying to figure out how to actually maneuver into a sitting position.
And finally, there was the tree that wasn’t that bad to climb into, except that I had been sick with the flu for a couple days and when I sat in the stand, the wind blew so hard that the tree swayed back and forth all night; it moved and bent so hard I had to hang on in fear of falling out of the stand. I’m not sure if it was the flu or the swaying, but I was not a happy hunter.
That’s right, I was afraid of falling out of all those trees because not once did I everwear a safety harness or use any type of system to protect me from a fall. None of us used a safety harness.
Selfie….Getting ready to bear hunt…safety harness in place! (c) S. Warren
Rude Awakening Day: On October 30, 2009, John had found the perfect spot to take our youngest son. He remembered he had a stand already hanging from the previous year, so he decided to check it out. Climbing about twenty five feet up the tree, he hung the second stand next to the existing stand. Then he cautiously climbed onto the existing stand. He tested the tree stand as he hugged the tree, putting his weight on it, and then gave a couple jumps. “Good to go”, he thought. He settled into the stand and looked out over the oak stand, just enjoying the fall afternoon view. A minute later, all our lives changed.
The tree stand made a loud snap; it was the weather-rotted strap breaking. John fell to the ground, landing with his back onto a stump. He laid there unable to move. After what seemed like forever, he rolled over onto his hands and knees and began coughing up blood. He knew he was hurt and had to get out of the woods fast because he didn’t think anyone would find him. After not being able to reach anyone with his cell phone, he decided to walk out. John made it to his truck, and then he drove himself to our house. Our daughter rushed him to the hospital in Waterville. After being examined, he was transferred to Portland for trauma care for seven days. He suffered broken vertebrae, ribs, shoulder blade, a ruptured spleen, punctured lung and several smaller breaks and bruises.
John baiting before he sits in his tree stand. Note the climbing harness is on. 😉 (c) S. Warren
Fast forward to today. John is lucky to have come away not crippled or permanently injured from his fall. He still hunts, but he and none of us hunt unless we wear a safety harness. “I never thought I needed a harness, but I’ll never go into a tree stand without one now” says John, “and I’ll never use a tree stand that’s been hanging for a long period of time.”
We also gave up our homemade stands, not because they weren’t sturdy, but because the price of metal tree stands have come down. We change our straps every couple years and never leave them hanging anymore. We’ve added Prusik knot life lines to the big pine and I only use ladder stands now. I’m a much happier hunter knowing that not only can I climb into stands but also my family is safe from tragedy.
Bear hunting season is about to begin and that means the beginnings of sitting or standing in tree stands, so when you go out this season, please use a safety harness system. Happy Hunting!
My Mainely Girl Adventures 