We took to the woods

I was nervous. Ridiculously so. I was seeing the big bears that we had coming in on the cameras at each site and I knew that I had to make a damn good shot if a bear came in. I has shot three times to get my gun sighted in and knew that it was right where it needed to be - and I was comfortable making those shots.

I packed all of my clothes, which were washed in anti-scent detergent and properly washed and stored with anti-scent dryer sheets. I showered with my anti-scent soap and put everything into the car. As I sat in the driver seat of the car going through my mental checklist, I realized that my gun was still inside. A quick run back inside and I was really ready to go this time.

At Steve's, I prepped some bait for the day. I was a pro at this point. It was hot - 86 degrees and no breeze but regardless of all of this, it was opening day of bear season! We had lunch, put everything in the back of the truck and were off to bait sites in the woods.

The plan was to get to the site around 2pm and take our time getting into the blind. The last thing we wanted was to get sweaty and then have to sit for more than five hours. I was still nervous during the drive up but I knew I had everything I needed and a gun that was ready and could do the trick.

As we turned off onto the dirt road and rounded the corner, there was a jeep parked where we normally park.
Hunters?
Campers?
Foragers?

They had pulled up parallel to the road, turning the three potential spots into one. We pulled up along side of them and Steve went to find the owners of the jeep. Whomever was out there needed to know that we were planning to hunt and that there were plenty of bears coming into the area. We also wanted to make sure that if we did shoot a bear and it ran a little ways before it died, anyone else around would be aware and know to expect gun shots. I waited next to the truck and got my gear unpacked. I heard voices in the woods and then saw Steve coming out shaking his head
" We have to call the Ranger. They have a fire going in the middle of the woods. No fire ring and no rocks. Just an open fire in the middle of the woods surrounded by pine needles."

It set us back an hour but eventually some very drugged out hippies from out of state emerged from the woods. One girl and two guys reluctantly packed up their jeep and angrily drove off, honking the horn five or six times as they left. They even turned around and drove back by, making sure the honk then as well. The ranger came by and looked for the fire. The hippies had covered it up using pine needles (nature's kindling) and it was still smoldering so he had to soak the fire to prevent any flare ups from starting.

Loud voices, a random fire and some less than polite harassing hippies and we were finally heading into the woods. And I was even more grateful than ever that I deer hunt on land that we own!

Our view of the bait from the blind.

In the blind, I got my steady stick set up with my gun and we waited. It is weird when you are in a new place - the sounds and light is new, so it takes a while to get use to it. This was my first day in the blind so everything was new and took some getting used to. Every year I have to readjust to the fact that squirrels really don't sound like every other large animal in the woods but for those first few days, like most hunters, you swear that what you are looking for be it deer or bear, is coming in when in fact it's a squirrel.

Steve and I waited and waited. I visualized the bear coming into the bait site and the exact shot that I would take. We hadn't seen any sows and/or cubs on the cameras just good looking bruins of all sizes coming into the bait. And one massive bear that I wasn't really sure I wanted to see in the woods.

As soon as legal hunting time was over, at 7:58pm we packed up and headed back to the truck. The bears were around and were steadily coming into the bait but these are wild animals and there is no guarantee that an animal will show up when you are there waiting for it. It's nature. It's hunting. I love it.

Taking Turkeys to Texas

There are a few less turkeys in Maine to hunt this year. A few months ago, Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife in partnership with the National Wild Turkey Federation , captured and released more than 50 birds into East Texas with the hope of rebuilding their population. “Eastern turkeys are where the restocking efforts originally began,” explained Shawn Roberts, Director of Field Operations for the National Wild Turkey Federation, “We tried in the 1920’s but it didn’t work. We tried pen-raised birds and that didn’t work either. The only thing that was successful was to trap birds and relocate them to good habitat.” “We started this current effort in the early ‘80s and we had to begin looking outside the state to see if we could get them moved in. We didn’t want to violate The Lacey Act so we had to come up with a way to compensate the states that were giving up a resource either by trading other wildlife or paying them monetarily,” said Roberts. Texas is on the very edge o

Utilizing technology to make you more aware

Staci and I were roaming around the woods on a piece of property that she knew. It was snowing and we were chasing deer tracks to see if we could find some early sheds. It was a perfect day to be out in the woods and we were relaxed and not really paying attention to where we were going. We knew the border of the property and we knew that if we walked long enough we would hit roads or the bog and find our way back. We got to a point where we thought we knew where we were but we were not sure. Staci got out her compass to take a waypoint to make sure we were going in the right direction to get back to the truck. I took out my phone and turned on OnX. Within seconds we knew where we were, where the property borders were in relation to us and we could watch the dot (that represented us) on the map move as we walked out of the woods and got closer to the truck. In another adventure, my son and I headed out on a shed hunting mission. When we got into the woods, I turned on the tracker

Where are the women?

This week, my interview with Steve at The Maine Outdoorsman went live. Steve said yesterday 200 people hit his site viewing over 500 pages. That is a lot of people reading about little ole me and hunting. Why? When I think of women who are in the general public's eye and hunt, I can think of 2 - Country singer Miranda Lambert and Sarah Palin. Why only two? Why is the female hunter such a fascinating thing? (I should probably note that I do not have cable so any and all female hunters on the hunting stations are lost to me. I'll keep it to the general public because that's what I am familiar with.) People/media were fascinated by the fact that they could get footage of Palin and her gun, shooting (and gutting) animals but I feel like the nostalgia would be lost if they had the same footage of McCain. Lambert and her hubby Blake Shelton tweet photos of their kills, and comment on what/where they are hunting. I only know this because I follow both. That's it.

and a strong cup of coffee

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