The First Days of Hunting

November 2020 (Part Two)

Over the next few days we were up early, and out exploring and looking for deer at dawn.  Some days we came back to camp for lunch, and other days we packed a lunch and spent the day out.  Either way, we were always out again in the evening, hoping to see a deer.  
On the first day of exploring we checked out each branch in the road and walked along many old clear cuts scanning for deer and looking for tracks or fresh buck rub.  
 

Buck rub on the tree.

While Jason and I walked the road from the shore to our camp yesterday, we had seen a lot of fresh buck rub and we were very optimistic.  Many of the alders right around our campsite were rubbed clean of bark by bucks; some were so recent that no fading, discolouration, or drying had occurred.  We were sure that there were bucks in the area.  
As we made our way along the main road, exploring each branch as we came to it, we got to a large washed out section of the road.  Clearly, during some of the more recent heavy rains, water had been rushing down and across the road.  
 

We moved some logs and rocks around, and soon we were able to pass through the area on the quad and side-by-side.  Unfortunately, a little ways further up the road we discovered a huge landslide.  
 

Massive trees lay crisscrossed like sticks, and mud 20 feet thick was spread out across the road.  Looking up towards the mountain a clear gash marked the mountainside.  We know that this slide was not there a week ago because Ken flew over in the floatplane and did not see it.  This slide must have happened on the night of the lightning storm due to the massive amounts of rain that we got.  
 

Unfortunately the slide cut off many, many kilometers of road that we could have explored.  We did do several day-hikes past the side, but still we were unable to even begin to touch the amount of country that is back there. 

The first night in the wall-tent we decided to let the fire go out, and since it frosted up and got down to minus 7 degrees, with ice in our water jug, it was quite nippy getting up to go pee during the night. 

Luckily the fireplace produced heat quickly, so that in the morning when we got up and lit the fire it did not take long to warm the place up.  We decided to spend some time gathering a bunch of wood so that we could keep the fire going over the next couple of nights.  We were easily able to find some dry wood, and we gathered a good pile, which we left out in the sun for the day.  The next night we kept the fire going, and it remained a quite pleasant temperature inside, although the frost was even thicker outside the following morning. What a luxury to have a fireplace inside of our tent.  
 

On one of the icy mornings, as we headed out, the fog lay low over the mountains and dramatically limited our vision.  

As the sun got higher through the morning, the fog parted and drifted in and out, before finally burning off in the early afternoon.  It was very pretty as everything, each branch and bush, was covered in white frost.

On one of the days that we were out exploring we left footprints over an area of soft sand where there were no deer tracks in sight.  Later in the day, when we returned, there was a set of deer tracks that had literally walked right over our own tracks.  

Another time we headed out for the day only to return to our camp to find a set of deer tracks; the deer had walked right past our campsite.  We knew that there were deer in the area, but they remained completely elusive for us.