Muskoka Outdoors Network

Speaking without thinking got me into some trouble this past fall. The story is short, but I still get a ‘kick’ out of it when I reflect on the incident from time to time.

It all started (innocently, I should add) when dad and I were taking our deer to the butcher. When we walked into the front section of his ‘processing’ facility, I noticed some large deer heads mounted to the wall. I pointed at the biggest deer and asked where that one was shot. To my amazement, the butcher/hunter said he got it here on his farm. I was amazed because his farm is a very short distance from my own home. While the butcher told me the rest of the story, a small little dog ran between my ankles and on to the lap of a sitting women. I took a quick look down at the brief distraction at my feet and then, returned my attention to the final moments of the butcher’s deer story. He finished by saying,

“…and there is another one just like him running around your house.”

At that point, the lady on the chair said,

“His name is Thor.”

I thought to myself that is a great name for a monster buck and I began to think of ways that I might be able to catch-up with Thor during the final weeks of the 2008 deer hunt.

Then, the lady said,

“If you happen to see Thor running out by your place…"

I finished her statement by saying,

“I’ll be sure to fire a ‘volley’ at him if it’s still hunting season!”

The lady was taken back by what I had just said as she cuddled her little dog closer to her chest. The dog barked, wagged his tail and ran off out the door. Fortunately, she laughed and smiled at me as she yelled to her dog,

“Don’t go too far Thor.”

I am not sure why exactly I decided to write some thoughts down about this, but here is a humorous look at what not to say to a Conservation Officer. They are not in any particular order.

1. “Idiot.”

2. “We would have had more deer but our floodlight batteries died.”

3. “We caught that big one just to the left of the ‘Fish Sanctuary’ sign.”

4. “Talk about luck! I shot it just across the highway here.”

5. “Yup. My firearm is secure. You should see the size of the screws in the mounting bracket on the roof of my truck. It’s even got a dampening system to make sure the bumps are not a factor while shooting at running game.”

6. “Of course I know who you are! I could read your name tag through my scope.”

7. “No...the sign said live bait was prohibited. There is no ‘P’ in ‘Not Allowed’.”

8. “We always get our bag limit on the first day – ever since Bubba started using mortars.”

9. “I don’t know where the other 3 dead deer came from, but this deer over here came out to me 4 times!

10. “You feeling lucky, punk?”

I don’t mean to disrespect the men and women who help protect our natural resources. My hat is off to all you do – even if that means we have to scramble for our licenses when you knock on our hunting/fishing camp doors.

It’s a fitting name. I bestowed this name on a huge buck that should have secured my entry into the ‘Legends’ of Rip and Tear Hunt Club’s history. I guess my chapter was yet to be written.

It started out harmelessly enough. All of the gang had returned from a long afternoon on the deer stands and we were anxiously awaiting supper to hit our stomachs. It became quickly apparent that one of our guys, Kevin, had not arrived yet. I forget exactly why the ‘old-timers’ in the camp felt it was so important that Kevin made it back in good time, but they delegated to me the task of his evac.

Then, the debate started.

I remember it quite vividly. Not wanting to tell the ‘Ole Guys’ that I did not want to agree to their request, I threw on my hunting vest and headed for the closest atv.

“You better take your gun.” dad said.

Grandpa and Bill Billingsley piped up with similar sentiments and I think went into story mode about some long lost time forgotten.

“I’m just going down to Spiers’ field. Besides, the atv noise will scare any deer off before I even get there.” I replied. The dice of probablity began to spin in my head.

Grandpa and Bill stopped talking for a second and looked at me with a puzzling look. I could have heard a .22 shell drop on wet leaves. They grinned, looked at dad and went back into their story. Dad ‘encouraged’ me one more time to take my firearm. Stubbornly, I said “I’ll be fine” and fired up the atv and tore off down the camp road to the field.

The dice were still rolling.

Somewhere in the distance a hound started on a deer scent. A feeding buck planned his escape route.

When I reached the field location where I was to pick-up the hunter I turned off the atv’s engine and waited.  That hound was getting closer.  Out of instinct I reached for where my gun pouch would be and remembered it was sitting on my bed listening to 3 men chuckling about the rookie who left it behind.

A buck picked a path down a ridge to Spiers’ field.

The dice in my head stopped rolling.

“Snake-eyes.”

After another minute, the hound sounded very close and then I saw a massive buck briskly walking across the field. He was 75 yards from me at full broad side. I watched with a broken heart as the deer continued his perpendicular path in front of me for another 30 seconds!

Moments later, Kevin walked out of the bush and asked if I saw anything. I said “Yup!”

Then, he asked, “Where’s your gun?

“Back at camp.” I sheepishly whispered.

When we got back to camp the smell of supper welcomed us inside the cabin. 3 heads turned towards me and asked me if I needed my gun.

The dice in my head started rolling again. There was not much chance of dodging that question.

Four old-timers jeered about what had happened that day. Three were in the cabin and the other was somewhere west of Spiers’ field.

Have you ever been told you hunt too much? If you have, it is probably because of some of the strange things you do in the 'off-season'.  Are you guilty of the things on my list?

1. You wear your camo or hunter orange jacket out for supper with your spouse

2. When someone asks for direction and your response includes your topographic map and wind direction

3. You watch T.V. in your living room from inside your ground blind

4. You come home from work and the kids don’t recognize you without your camo gear on

5. Your spouse begins to ‘enjoy’ your favorite cologne (or perfume) called ‘Essence of Buck’ or ‘Doe in Heat’

6. Outside play time with your kids becomes a Marco Polo type game with you in your new camouflage saying, “Can you see me now?”

7. You constantly test the effectiveness of your Scent-lok jacket by walking past your dog with a juicy T-bone underneath your shirt

8. Your spouse says, “C’mere Dear!” and you respond by instinctively reaching for your bow and asking, “Where did you see that deer, Honey?!”

9. You wish you had an outhouse.

10. You hang your game cam, at night, beside the outdoor garbage bin – just to make sure the night vision setting works on racoons.

Have I missed any? Would to love hear your additions to my list. Please comment below

I remember, as a kid, an old Tamarack tree that guarded our well at the hunt camp. By day, I would hunt grouse in, and around, its lower branches. At night, it became a dark and spooky place that little boys liked to stay away from

It was the perfect place for an overactive imagination. I found that out the hard way on a dark, deer season night. I was starting to enjoy the warmth of the camp stove when dad announced that we were out of water. Normally, I would not worry about such a comment but this time his voice sounded different. Or perhaps it was his ‘I am looking at, YOU, kid stare’ as he reached for my coat and flashlight. A feeling of impending doom poured over my body. Outside, a slight breeze began to blow through the ‘fang-like’ needles of an old tamarack.

Sensing my fear and hesitation, dad pulled me out of my over-worked imagination by saying something like, “You don’t need to be afraid of the dark. It’s time you got used to walking alone…at night.”

I felt like reminding him that it was not the dark that scared me. It was that old tamarack tree.

Slowly, dad ushered me to the cabin door and handed me a light and the water pot. The door creaked closed behind me as I headed down the foreboding trail to the well. Everything was fine until the trees around me moved closer together and blocked the light coming from the cabin windows.

I was theirs now. Their branches, like giant fingers, crept out towards me. I did what any kid would do.

I started whistling. This was a mistake.

My barely audible tune woke up the ‘beast of beasts’ lurking under the branches of the pine and spruce tendrils. The beaked monster circled around me. It was attempting to block my approach to the well. I ran faster and it kept pace. I dove behind an old tree stump, held my breath and waited. The giant grouse missed my diving maneuver and noisily crashed with a thunderous flap into the night. I peered around the stump and my shaking light caught a section of the well. I ran from my hiding my place and made my final approach to the well.

Wham! I tripped on the tamarack’s gnarly roots and landed looking up into the tree’s needled gaze. If trees snickered – I just heard one. My flashlight fell a few yards from me, but through the moonlight  I could see the water pail resting against the side of the well. I crawled over to the well, slid the lid over and dipped the pot into the dark waters. Wanting to make sure I had more water than ‘floaties’, I crept to my flashlight and revealed the inside of the pot.

It was full of tamarack needles. Again, the well’s rooted sentry seemed to snicker.

I poured the water back into the sandy well and re-dipped the pot. Just then, a branched cracked out in the darkness. I slid the lid back onto the well and and my legs hit ‘warp-speed’ in a matter of seconds. Drops of water fell out with every step. I did not slow until I was safely within the glow of the camp stove’s fire. When the door flew open, with my hasty arrival, I handed my prize to dad.

His reaction was mixed and definitely not what I expected. He brought the pot closer to the light and, together, we saw water that the water was clouded with sand and yellowing tamarack leaves.

It looked like a kind of tamarack tea.

“You poured the water back into the well didn’t you?”, he sternly asked, “We can’t drink this and it will take a day or two for the sand to settle again”. I thought about telling him about the scary grouse, moving branches and the snickering tamarack.

Across the room, Grandpa laughed quietly; as if to remind my dad of a time long ago when his son did the same thing. Two days later dad took me back to the well (at night) and showed me how to get a better portion of clear water.

There were no gnarly branched tendrils.

No stalking grouses.

No tamarack sneers.

Figures.

Bringing this story back to the present. I am looking across the room at my daughter and wondering when it will be her turn to go for some tamarack tea.

Should I warn her about the old Tamarack?

Contrary to popular belief, these kind of scopes do exist. These ‘diseased’ scopes surface in normal populations of rifle scopes across North America. There is no vaccine or inoculation to help the hunter protect their scope from this malady.

The most apparent symptom is missed deer (or other wild game) following a large volley of shots. The symptoms never presents themselves at the shooting range. The Deer Proof Scope disease (or DPS) is usually accompanied with a secondary infection of Buck Fever. There appears to be NO fast-acting cure for either disease.

If your scope is not infected randomly, the exact transmission vector of the disease is not clearly known.  Preliminary studies have the manner of infection linked to 4 methods:

-Making fun of your hunting buddy who has an infected scope

-Telling your hunting buddy that THEIR scope is of lesser quality than your own scope

-Making outrageous claims that it is “virtually impossible” to miss deer with your current scope set-up

-Assigning your radio call sign to be ‘SNIPER’. (this infection vector is still under debate by scientists)

I hate to mention it, but my scope got infected by one of the methods I just listed above. I think my scope contracted it from my cousin, Kevin.

Kevin, has one of the greatest shooting abilities I have ever seen in a hunt camp. There were several times where he would shoot two deer that he startled out of their beds to or from his deer stand. Consistently, he would make incredible ‘one-shot’ kills from any distance. We gave him the nickname, Terminator. It seemed fitting to honor his shooting prowess in this way.

Then, without warning, his scope was randomly infected.

His shooting stats declined for a few years and he would often be the topic of discussion around the supper table in the camp. It was during those dark years that I would make fun of his ‘cheap’ scope on a regular basis.

At the peak of my jesting about Kevin's scope - my scope got infected. It got the more dangerous strain of the disease. This mutated DPS strain remains dormant until the most inconvenient times.

I did not self-diagnose DPS until one particular encounter with the Ghost Buck.

As usual, we crossed paths again at the deer watch we call, The Pines. One of our hunters in our party pushed him off a sunny ridge and sent him running right towards me. I could see the buck looking behind him as he reached full speed beside me.  The wind whistled in his ivory head gear.

He did not see me as he ran by. He was close enough that I could have put my foot out to trip him up.

Honestly.

He was no more than 15 feet from me when I brought my gun up to my shoulder and started firing. My fifth (and final) shot was at 50 yards. I could see the dirt at the buck’s feet spraying were my bullet had hit the ground.

During my reload, I had time to reflect on what had just happened. I theorize that the disease made it impossible from me to find the deer in my scope and caused me to actually not even effectively use my scope on the next 3 shots. On my final shot, the DPS mutated my vertical settings and caused my shot to go low.

I think I tried to explain the dangers of this disease around the camp’s supper table that night. They did not seem to take my claims seriously as  their laughter over the event drowned out any concern.

I believe that the next day, Kevin, landed a headshot, on a running deer, from a distance of over 100 yards. His scope was cured.

That was bittersweet news for me. It means there is hope for scopes everywhere. It also confirms that my scope is infected.

Is yours?

It was supposed to be a 'routine sortie' into the area we call (at Rip N’ Tear Hunt Camp) the “Grand Canyon”. Named because of two deep creek beds that intersect and create interesting valleys that are flanked on both sides with high forest walls.

Dad and I were bird hunting and scouting for the upcoming fall deer hunt. Upon reaching the landmark area of the Grand Canyon, we took a minute to enjoy the view. It is one of those spots on our acreage, where all of the life’s issues could be solved or forgotten if given enough time. Today, the possibility of sighting a grouse shortened the moment and spurred us to keep moving.

For some reason, I thought it would be a great idea if we split up and met back at Moose Lodge. It made sense. Two hunters walking in different areas would increase their respective chances of seeing a grouse. Dad confirmed the general direction I should travel via HIS compass and some hand motions. My compass was tucked into my shirt under my vest.

At least it should have been there.

I knew in theory which direction to travel. I had walked this particular section of bush before. My mind knew where I was supposed to end-up and it convinced me that I would not need my compass, so I did not check to see if it was still in my shirt.

Stepping off the canyon and down the slope I began my solo trek in search of a grouse. After approximately 15 minutes of walking, the feeling of unfamiliarity began to sink in. Nothing looked as it should. It was getting swampy and wet. Gads and swamp grass prevailed. I reached into my vest for my compass. A slight panic washed over me when I realized I had actually left it back at camp.

I stopped.

I panned around my location hoping something would strike me as familiar. Nothing did. I walked another 50 meters and stepped over a rotting log. Strangely, I looked down at my feet after straddling the log and noticed a large pile of fresh bear scat.

Slightly unnerving…

I walked another few steps and noticed another pile. Then, another pile. If forests had rooms like a house I knew where I was. It was eerie. Suddenly, I heard the rustle and snap of twigs behind me. I turned my head but I saw nothing. I continued to walk in what I was hoping to be a westerly heading (based on my postion to the late day sun). The rustling of leaves and twig snapping continued. I picked up my pace slightly and stopped to listen. That’s when I saw it.

A slight hump (or rise) in this low, swampy land. On that hump was a tangle of bush and stone that resembled a den. My mind put the bear piles, the snapping of twigs and this hump into two words: Bear den. I fingered the safety on my shotgun and listened for the noise behind me. At this point, I finally remembered I had my radio with me.  Turning the volume up I whispered,

“Alpha…Alpha are you there? You should see what I just about stepped in and what I am staring at! You there?”

The radio cackled back,

“Aaa….yes. Where are you?”

I answered back, “I have no idea. I left my compass at camp. You should see these bear piles. I think I found a den and…I think something is following me….”

Dad quickly replied, “There is nothing following you and YOU are not looking at a bear den. Now hurry up and get back here. Head west and you’ll find something you will recognize.”

I veered away from the den in question and walked for several minutes. I still had no idea where I was. I was about to call dad on the radio again to see if he would fire a shot into a log to help me get out of this mess. Fortunately, I emerged from some deep forest cover onto an old logging road that I recognized. This was encouraging but what happened next was surreal. I walked down this road for a few minutes and approached a large, fallen beech tree. While walking towards the toppled trunk of the tree, that blocked my path, I heard…

“Grrrrrrrrrrr……..Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr……”

The leafy section of the tree shook. I pulled my gun to my shoulder. My heart felt like it was going to explode. I looked into the leafy top but I could not see anything but green leaves, beech nuts and a wad of black fur.

“Grrrrrrrr…..”

This was not a raccoon or a squirrel with vendetta. It was a ‘large and in charge’ kind of growl. I clicked my safety off and slowly backed away from the Beech tree. When I was out of sight of the tree I used my radio again.

“Ahh…Dad I found my way out but a bear in an old beech tree growled at me.”

I think his response was,

Yeah right!” or “Sure…there was.”

Either way, I was not sure how I was going to explain this one.My retreat took me to another road that quickly led me back to Moose Lodge. There, with coffee in his hand, Dad came out to greet me. I sat down and I began to think how I would explain how I got lost and the location of the bear den.

I left the growling beech tree out of it.

When I tried to empty my shotgun’s magazine, I had discovered that I had not loaded shells into it. It was not until I opened the cabin door that I noticed my shotgun shells were sitting on the table beside my compass.

I never mentioned that blunder to dad either.

*(The bear den turned out to be a pile of forest debris. The Beech tree became firewood. The bear has not been seen since.)

Compass photo is public domain from wikipedia

The coyotes came within feet of dad and I.  It was too dark to see them – but we could hear them walking!

It all started late into a week of deer camp. While walking from different directions, dad and I were returning from our evening watches on a cool, crisp November evening. The walk back to the cabin was dead quiet until a few hundred yards from the cabin. That was when our ‘new to the neighborhood’ coyotes started filling the still air with their eerie howls. The hair on the back neck tingled as I picked up the pace to catch a glimpse of the the cabin’s porch light.

This was always welcome sight on the lonely walks back from an evening deer stand.

During my brisk walk to the cabin, I theorized that the howling brush wolves were somewhere near Spier’s swamp. Fortunately, that location was opposite to the direction I was heading in. I released the grip on my rifle slightly in response this prediction about the coyotes location.

After several minutes, I made it back to the cabin and sat under the inviting glow of the porch’s dim light and listened more closely to the wild orchestra now playing before me. Within minutes of my arrival, Dad returned to camp and after we unloaded our guns and put them in the cabin (legal shooting time was over) we returned back outside to the porch.

That’s when dad whispered, “Why don’t you give them a howl?”

Hesitantly, I put my hands to my mouth and tried to mimic what I was hearing. The rustic music paused for a few moments. Then, silence.

Then…

(Mom’s chili kicked in! Just kidding.)

Then, surprisingly, one of the coyotes responded. After a few more minutes, the concert began again. Only this time much closer.

Dad said in a low voice, “Again.”

I let out another brutally imitated solo and abruptly the music ended again.

Time passed.

Like the first time, it started up again even closer. Much closer.

Dad didn’t have to ask me a third time. I ripped out a howl and waited with baited breath for the results. This time we could hear the coyotes breaking and snapping branches within several feet of myself, dad and the old cabin porch. It was too dark to see anything but their they were – walking amongst the black tangled mess of the forest’s undergrowth.

Unfortunately, as soon as we noticed they were there – watching us. They silently crept away back into the night. The night time sounds of the forest returned with the wolves’ backstage exit. Dad and I retreated to the cabin in silence.

We both knew it would be an uneasy walk to the outhouse.

*coyote photo from wikipedia

It only took the silent sound of a falling glass and, suddenly, I found myself remembering a large rut in the forest floor – not to far from an old, rotten stump on Spier’s line. This was one of the first times dad had taken me deer hunting.

To this day, I am surprised it was not my last time.

I had promised that I would be quiet for the entire time we were on the deer stand.  To keep my profile down, Dad pointed out the large depression in the trail and gestured that it would be my temporary hiding place for the next couple of hours. I did admirably well for about 3 minutes.

What was a kid to do?  After all, dad had let me carry his old single shot pellet gun.  Included with my new ‘piece’ was a tin full of funnel shaped pellets.  It was not long before I tried to silently break open the barrel of my pellet gun and load it with a small silvery ordinance.  Then, between dad’s ever panning eyes and glances, I picked a spot on the freshly cut stump and launched a small projectile at it.

“Thunk!”.

That was the sound of compressed air pushing the pellet out of the chamber towards my rooted target.  Big stump down.  The unique sound momentarily grabbed dad’s attention and I held my new firearm as if I had no idea what was going on.  Dad rolled his eyes and continue to scan the surrounding forest for the unlikely visit of a deer.

Somewhere between dropping the metal tin of pellets (after my tenth shot) and my frequent position changes on crunchy leaves, Dad reacted.  He sternly grumbled something like,

“If you are ever going to be a good hunter you are going to have to learn to stay still and BE QUIET!”

He stormed off the watch in frustration and indicated we were going to go back to camp for coffee.  As the rest of the crew returned back from their watches and looked at dad and I already in the cabin, Grandpa asked why were back early.

Dad looked at me in mild frustration and sighed. I don’t exactly remember his words, but he said something humorous about his new hunting partner that liked to stump hunt.

Grandpa chuckled and somehow the glimmer in his eyes communicated to the rookie hunter that he had seen somebody else do this before.  We all laughed at dad's comment.  I could tell he was disappointed, but at the same time I could sense he was glad I was there.  He understood that the whole learning process of his restless student was something he was looking forward to.  Something his father must have once said about him.  Stumps and all.

A new sound of shattering glass pulled me away from reflecting on my memory.

Lara (our 11 month old daughter), had managed to knock her first glass off the table and on to the waiting hardwood floor.  It happened somewhere between flinging peas and spraying cracker bits. It had been a long day and I was slightly irritable as I scanned the large mass of glass shards now covering the floor.  I looked in her eyes and she could tell I was disappointed. She was waiting for my response.

I laughed. She laughed. We all laughed.

A smiling stump hunter held out a torch from behind some cover in the shadows of my mind and faded from memory.

How do you name the deer stands in your favorite hunting area? I delved into some official records of the Rip N’ Tear Hunt Club Manual to find out.

The aging and dusty manual is rarely referred to in our club except for matters of the utmost importance to keep the peace in the camp. Specifically, Section 2 – Determining Seniority In The Camp, seems to be quoted frequently. That is the part that says (in summary) that the young guns have to do dishes while the veteran members enjoy the camp stove and a hot cup of coffee.

Moving on to Section 5 of our camp’s paper relic is a portion entitled, Naming a Deer Watch. Once you get through the ‘pre’ and ‘post’ ambles, you can read,

A deer stand (or deer watch) can be named after one, or more, of the following instances:

-a humorous or unusual event that occurred at the forest location

-a unique geographical characteristic

-a member of the hunt club so long as an adjective or descriptive term follows the member’s name (ie. Bill’s Sleeping Hollow)

In order for the name to stick, all members must be made aware of the recommendation (and agree unanimously) at the next deer planning session before the next hunt or immediately preceding the day’s Bunk Watch.

Now, that you are caught up on some of the formalities of our deer stand naming conventions, what follows is a list of our deer watches indicating how the rules applied.

The Knob – the highest point in small hardwood section of forest that is beside a swamp on Dad’s lot. The previous property owner’s favorite watch. It is also home to a very comfortable Oak tree that can cause a hunter to sleep against during a sunny day.

Howie’s Choke – Where, Howie, came face to face with a monster buck at 10 yards (still debated) and missed. This watch is in the middle of 3 long evergreen trees that fell during a windstorm.

Dead Deer Flats – Named after an event where a deer tag was ‘filled’ by Wrangler who fired very few shots to accomplish this. It was so surprising that all of the other Rip N’ Tear members felt that Wrangler brought in a dead deer ahead of time and faked the shooting. Hence, the name. Geographically, this spot watches a flat stretch of an old logging road.

The Pulpit – a tree stump that looks like a pulpit and overlooks a large pond and hardwood section of bush on grandpa’s lot. Also, the location where I observed a bull moose jumping from shore into the water (and repeating the process) for 30 minutes during deer season.

The Back Watch - A spot on a ridge that overlooks and old logging road and hardwood section of forest. It is not far from the Pulpit and it got it’s name because of a tendency of deer to circle back around the hunter (walking through this section of forest). A deer pulling this maneuver would usually escape by the Back Watch.

Sweetie’s Hollow – Named after my brother-in-law who got sick while watching in this small hump along a trail that crosses a wet section of bush. We figured he got sick because he missed his sweetie (aka. wife).

There are more names and watches, but I would be interested in hearing the names of your deerstands and the story behind them. Please comment them below.