eckermanmichigan.com Blog

26 Sep

   Tuesday morning Don, B.B. and I went over to High banks for some early morning fishing. We’d noticed that the earlier your there in the morning, the better the fishing was going to be. That, and Don had to head back home that afternoon to return to work the next day. Brian had brought up his johnboat and Don had decided to fish from shore, so Brian and I tried some trolling. I tied on my crocadile and B.B. used a green and chrome cleo to see how that worked. After the luck Doug and I had, I was sure that we’d get into some good fishing again. The lake was beautiful that morning, with the sun poking through the trees and casting beams of light through the mist that was rising off of the water. (I’m hoping to get a picture Brian took to use when this goes into the story section) We couldn’t see Don from the other end of the lake, but we had radio’s with us to keep in touch. After two or three pass’s through this hole we were fishing, Brian’s drag started to sing. Whether it’s Blue Marlin or just bluegill’s, any time that sound starts, it gets your attention. I reeled in my line as fast as I could, grabbed the net and watched the show. After taking twenty or thirty feet of line, Brian tightend up the drag and started to get it back to the boat. It’s sides were still blood red when it broke the surface the first time, and after almost screwing up with the net, Brian led it into it. We let Don know we’d got one and he told us he’d been having some luck too, but they were undersized. After catching and releasing a few more small ones, the action really dropped off and I started paying more attention to what was going on around us. That Osprey that I’d seen when fishing with Doug there, was back and we saw it land in one of those huge White Pine that line the lake. Every time we’d troll by, he’d look down and watch us go by. Brian noticed that there was a hatch going on and decided to head back to shore and grab his fly rod. It felt good to get out of that little boat and stretch out some but before long we were back out there at it. When we left, I took Don’s crawler rig with us and dropped it overboard when we were out about a hundred yards. We figured the water was deeper and maybe we could get it out of the weeds. We’d just got down to the other end of the lake when Don asked us to come back and do it again. That crawler wasn’t even wet yet and he had a fish on, and it was a beauty too. I had some luck with a crawler too but it wasn’t a fish that I got with it.

   While we were at the beach, I decided to try trolling with a crawler harness. The one I used is chartruse and it had floats on it, to keep it up out of the weeds. It had worked well for Walleye back on Lake Charlevoix, and they wern’t hitting on spoons so what the heck. Your suppose to put a small sinker on the rig to get it down, but far enough from the hooks to keep it up off the bottom. I forgot to use the sinker so it was traveling just under the surface of the lake. When we traveled by that huge pine with the Osprey in it, it was just too inviting for that bird to ignore. With the sound of a bowling ball hitting the water at 40 miles per hour, Brian and I jerked our heads back to see that bird heading back for altitude. Out of reflex, I’d set the hook but he’d let go of it by then, thank God. It was the only rod I had with me, and I’m pretty sure he’d have won that fight. Both fish were 16″, so they were both happy, and I got a hellava story to tell, so I was happy as well.

   Don left early that afternoon, and Brian and I headed up to “Firewood be us” and gathered some firewood. This was the same spot we’d gone to the year before, but when we were there, they were still just cutting lanes into the forest. Now it was all clear cut and we wern’t sure if we were in the same neighborhood or not. All that was left were the tops, and not alot of that. The guy that lives across the street from the entrance to this area sells firewood, and it was pretty easy to tell where he got it at. 15 years from now, that area is going to be FULL of woodcock and partridge and I’d like to invite all those ‘tree huggers’ back for some bird hunting with me. Me and B.B. ain’t as young as some of the guys who’ll be coming up soon, so we just cut enough to keep warm for a day or two and let it go at that.

   Later that afternoon, B.B. and I went across the street and tried some woodcock hunting in an area that was ‘clear cut’ 15 years ago and we both scored one each. It was nice to see I could still hit something with that 16ga. side by each. We were both one for one, and both birds found! It started pouring again around 9:30, so after shooting the bull for awhile, Brian and I went to bed.

25 Sep

   I got up Monday morning to the sound of rain falling on the tent roof. I don’t think there’s anything more soothing than the sound of a good downpour when your warm and dry inside. After listening to the Monks ‘gettin’ down’ and some writing, I started on dinner. Last year I made some meatballs and had been thinking about those things ever since then. Instead of using gravy this time, I brought along some “Jack Daniels bourbon brand” and mixed it all up. Don had some ‘majic ingredients’ in the kitchen so I threw a bunch of that in there, along with half a pint of some ‘Black Jack’ that I’d bought in Strongs the day before. I’m not real sure if food tastes better up here because of where we are, or because we’re usually starved when we get around to eating, but it’s a fact that it is. Don and I finished off the skillet breakfast from the morning before and we headed over to High banks for a little morning fishing.

   While we were there, the subject of bear hunting came up; whether it was better to hunt over a bait pile or with dogs. Actually it was the going argument of bait pile verses dogs. Hunters who use a bait pile look down on those who use dogs. They figure running hounds after those bruins is almost un-ethical, and those that use hounds figure that anyone who hunts over a pile, is just plain lazy. Personally, I think they’re both right, and wrong too. Ask any hunter who uses hounds; how many times they’ve arrived at a tree with the dogs at the bottom and just the leaves at the top. This is after spending all that time and gas dragging roads and then looking for tracks the next morning. Once the tracks are seen, they release the hounds and listen to them as they howl off into the swamps. Once they can hear either the hounds stay in one spot, or see on their tracking devices that the dogs are stationary, they head into the bush. These guys arn’t running through the woods as we know them down-state, they’re heading through countryside that is almost inpentratable. While they’re trying to get through this crap, they’re worried about how many dogs have been mamed or killed during the chase, or if it’ll still be there once they arrive. Don told me of many instances where they’ve spent an entire day trying to get to the dogs only to find out the bear moved from one tree to another and then snuck off. He told me of one time where when they arrived, one of the dogs had been dis-embowled, and how they washed and packed the intestines back into the dog and carried it out. He told me of one instance where they spent over 8 hours running after the pack to only end up 1/4 mile from where they started. They just never know how it’s going to turn out, but that’s the excitement of it. Guys like me though just can’t do that type of hunting. Hell, I was having a hard enough time just carrying the bait back there and then sitting in that pine! I spent about 6 weeks traveling 2 hours each way taking the bait up, and then scouting the area to see if there had been any actiivity. Once the hunt started, I had to devote 6 hours a day sitting in that tree listening to some damned red squirrel tell everythng within a mile that I was there, and have an extra guy waiting in camp for that shot to ring out. But, if you walk into a bar or a restaurant and there’s hunters there, the guys with dogs will be on one side of the room, and the guys who hunt over a bait pile will be on the other. I wish I could set in the middle and listen to them both, for they all have some great stories to hear and lessons to be learned. The other lesson I learned that day was that fish don’t always bite in the rain and Don and I only caught one small one each.

   About 1 I headed back to the pile to see that nothing had even come close to eating that stuff. About an hour after getting into the tree I could hear the hounds baying off in the distance and began to wonder if the dogs were the reason there wern’t any bears around. Obviously the dogs didn’t bother that squirrel any, ’cause he was right there with me until 7:30 when I climbed out of the tree and headed back to the camp. With aches and pains I limped out of the bush, mumbling how I was “getting too old for this crap” and saw that B.B. had just arrived.

24 Sep

   Doug and I woke up about 5am to the sound of Maggie whimpering and moving around in circles again, but without the snorts. I don’t know if the bear was actually in the camp or not, but from the sound of Maggie, it wasn’t far off. Doug had received a phone call from his mom the night before telling him that they had to go down to Flint the next day to take care of some family business. It seems that every year, Doug’s stay in camp is shortend for one reason or another, and I don’t think he’s been there for the entire event since Eckerman 1. He had packed all his supplies and gear by 6:30 and I was disapointed that he wasn’t able to see all this through. Every year, we spend a lot of time conversing about the next years trip and we look forward to all the things we want to accomplish, and every year he gets screwed out of it. I think if I had to put up with as much crap as he does, I’d find something else to do during this week. After he left, I put on my CD of “Gregorian Chants” and wrote up my notes until 8, when Don got up.

   Don had made bacon and beans for dinner the night before, so he got that out along with some corned beef hash, a dozen or so eggs and some cheese and made a skillet breakfast. Talk about a heavy duty ‘get er done’ breakfast! My cardiologist would have had a conniption if he saw what I was eating, but if he’d been there, I’da been fighting him over who got seconds.

   It had been raining on and off all night so our plans on doing some stream fishing was out of the question. Normally at this time of year, the brookies travel up the rivers and creeks for their spawn run, but with the rain’s, there wasn’t any chance of getting to them. I’d been hoping to get over to Pat’s fishing hole across the street but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. Instead, we grabbed our brooms and started sweeping out all the hornet and fly carcass’ that littered the floor.

   Around 1pm, Don walked back with me to bait the pile and then to make a commotion on the way out again. The day before when I got back there, the bait pile had been torn to shreds but on this day there wasn’t any sign anything had been around. This time I moved around to the right side of the tree and see if I could find a comfortable spot, stay out of the way of that damned hornet and maybe fool the red squirrel. The limbs were all in a more convient location and I figured I’d finally get some time in hunting. Within a couple of hours, my age and medical condition started being a factor again. It was amazingly quiet out there that day and I could hear things that I’d never heard before. There were a family of ravens that would fly by to see if the bear had tore up the pile yet. If it had, they’d swoop down and see what was good to eat along with the chipmunks, red squirrels, and whiskey jacks. The ravens stared making a sound that resembled that of doves; one of them started coo-ing, like they do. I saw a couple what I think were wrablers and two types of birds I havn’t found in the book yet. My little buddy, the red squerril didn’t show up, but the Kestrel hawk did and I got to watch him take out one of the chipmunks from the bait pile. I came down out of the tree around 5 and Don had some fish chouder ready, he’d made for dinner. He said he used salmon for the fish, and I think it’s about the only way those fish could be used for something good to eat. I catch them here in the Jordan river, when they’re 12″ long and then they’re pretty good. But when they get huge all they’re good for is fertilizer.

   After dinner Don took me for a ride to Hulbert. We drove up 123 to the East/West road and headed East, then South on Hulbert road to 28, and then 28 back to 123 and the cabin. I think Don was dissapointed in me for not staying there until after dark and wanted to show me how much activity there was at sundown. We saw more than a dozen deer, two wolves, and all sorts of little critters crossing the roads. He made his point that there were all sorts of things going on, but that didn’t make me neither younger nor healthier. I went to bed that night in the hopes that things would improve, in both the hunting and my stamina.

23 Sep

   Everyone got up at 4:30 today and we found it to be much warmer than yesterday. Rain was always a pain in the butt, but when it rained, it stayed warmer. Don had to head down to Charlevoix to coach his little league football team, and while he was down there, he was going to buy some bug bombs. For the past couple of days we’d been killing hornets as they came into the cabin through an overhead light. We had gone outside and looked at the peak and could see where they were coming into the cabin, so we knew the problem was in the crawl space. As soon as Don took off, Doug and I headed over to Highbanks for some fishing.

   On one of the bait runs I’d made earlier in the season, Ralph Lemieur and I had come over to the lake and try some trolling. As a kid, I used to troll for rainbows in a lake I grew up on and wanted to try it on this one. A couple of the guys had tried it on earlier trips but I thought they were doing it too slow so we kicked it up a couple notch’s. Ralph and I wern’t on the lake ten minutes when we had our first hit, so Doug and I gave it a try. Using Cleo’s and Crocodiles, we trolled about 4mph and really hit ‘em hard. From the feel of it, the fish would come up behind and slam them with their snouts and if they got a reaction, they’d attack it. Some of the fish had the trebles inbedded in the sides of their heads but most of them were hooked dead square in the mouth with all three hooks. Besides crawdad’s and fly’s, the only thing that had to eat was each other, and they seemed to do it with gusto. From first light until about 11am, we caught 17 fish, of which 2 were the legal 12″ size. We believe that if we could have gotten the lures down below the little ones, we might have had better luck with the keepers. Next year, we’ll try the bottom bouncers and see if that works. We also got to watch an Osprey that considered the lake to be it’s dining room. Our back’s got to hurting so much we decided to set on the beach and try it that way. While we were there, we watched that Osprey fly up the lake from the other end and picked up a small trout that was stupid enough to swim near the surface. As it was flying about 20′ over our heads, it was adjusting the fish from broadside to head on. By the time I thought about grabbing the camera, it had continued on over the tree line. On the way back to the cabin though, things went a little better. As we traveled down the fire-break/power-line/road, we could see the bird flying ahead of us. I reached into the back seat and retrieved my camera, putting on the telephoto lens and started clicking. I kept taking pictures as Doug kept creeping up on it and before long, we were right under it. (When this blog gets transfered onto the story page, there’ll be pictures of it). It was almost as if this bird wanted to have it’s picture taken as it tore that fish apart. I’m not sure how often Nature Photographers get such co-operation from their subjects, but I’m gratefull for the oportunity.

   Around 1pm, Doug and I took a walk back to the bait pile with a load of the “come eat me” in a couple buckets, and a spritz bottle full of vanilla extract. After a couple trips back there, I felt confident enough to try it on my own and Doug headed back to the cabin. On his way, he banged together the two buckets making all kinds of racket in the hopes of fooling the bears. It did work to some degree, or I think it did. About 20 minutes after he left, I could hear a couple red squirrels raising hell off to my right. Not long after that, I could hear branch’s snapping and limbs thunking. My heart rate took a jump in speed but I kept it under control and knew I could handle it. A few minutes after that, I heard another red squirrel off to my left start to sound the alarm. Soon, that animal started rambling around making a ruckus. THEN of all things, a red squirrel in MY tree started raising hell. I was invisible enough to fool a Kestrel hawk the day before, but this little bastard was having none of it. I only moved my eyes off to my right and I could see him, staring at me, his rear legs just a jumpin’ up and down and his tail twitching back and forth. I figured moving wasn’t going to help any, so I just froze there and waited him out. Then a hornet comes flying up to me and lands on my glass’s. He tried climbing in behind them but the camo netting I had on my head prevented that from happening. He started sounding like he was getting real pissed, so I held my breath and eventually he flew away. Everything was real quite for a few minutes and then I could see things back in the bracken ferns that probably wasn’t there. It’s amazing what your eyes can do if they need something to see. I’d look away from a spot, and then back to see if it had moved and sometimes it didn’t, sometimes it did. Around this time the arrhythmia’s started back up, my head would get light from the lack of circulation and I’d start loosing consitiousness again. I suppose it would have been a good idea to have one of those safety straps that bow hunters wear for just that reason, but it was too late for that. I would try and stretch my limbs and my torso to get things moving again, but when I did that, my little red buddy off at the end of my branch would start his chattering again. All the while these two critters off to each side are trying to decide who’s going to come into the pile first. They’d start to move, the squirrels would start to bitch, and the little bastard in my tree would take his turn. The hornet would come back, getting even more agitated and circle around behind me. One of the times this happend, my cell phone, (which I had on vibrate) went off, and I almost jumped out of the tree. This went on for 90 minutes or so when God took over. Behind me a quarter of a mile, a lightening bolt hit a tree and I said out loud; “OK, I quit”, and got out of that damned tree and went back to the camp. Oh, and to add insult to injury, when I unloaded my rifle before getting out of the tree, I discovered that I hadn’t chambered a round after I got up there.

   Not long after I got back, Dan Cox and Kent Seymore stopped on their way over to Shingleton for their hunt. They had some dogs with them and their season was going to start on Monday. By then Don had returned from his football game, (which his team won by beating East Jordan) and we all headed across the street to do some shooting with Bob Elliot. Bob is Pat’s dad, and Pat used to be one of my boss’s back when I worked for a living. The two of them purchased a piece of property across from Don’s and have done some extrodinary work on cleaning up what used to be a town dump. We tried some “Eckerman trap shooting” but we wern’t up to the task, and we all flunked the exam.

   After returning from that, Don set off three bug bombs in the attic and soon the place was full of pissed off, dieing hornets. I don’t think I’ve ever seen three guys haul ass so fast getting out of that cabin. About two hours later it was all over, and the floor was littered with hornet carcass’. For some reason it didn’t have the same effect with the fly’s, but by the next morning they were laying all about also. By 10:30, I’d had about enough and went off to bed.

22 Sep. ‘06

   Friday morning started a little earlier than we’d planned. Neither Doug nor I had been sleeping very well that night because it had got down to 30º. When I got up at 1:30 to take a whiz, I could see the constellation Cygnus flying down the path of the Milkey Way, and the same white was all over the grass. It was even colder at 4:30 when Doug and I sat straight up in our bunks, and found ourselves staring at each other and wondering why. It didn’t take long to find out either. A few seconds later, we heard a Whfuuufff right outside our tent. Our eyes grew wider and a few seconds later, another, and then another, this one louder and even closer. Doug’s shotgun and my rifle were on the other side of the tent, and we were both sure that bastard was about to tear itself through the wall and take a walk inside. From the sound it was making, it didn’t at all like the smell of either of us nor the bear hound that was locked up in the truck next to us. Don had brought along Maggie, his Black and Tan in case I wounded a bear; we could use her to find the animal instead of us. Doug and I also figured that if a bear came in the yard, she would raise holy hell once she got a snort of it, and would scare it off. Maybe if she were on her leash, she would have but she was locked up in her hutch in the back of Don’s pickup. All we got out of her was a little whimpering and the sound of her chain dragging around in circles. In that instant, I remembered a conversation I had with my brother Jim about a hunt he was on in Africa. They slept in tent’s made entirely out of mosqueto netting and he was told that a lion would never break through that screen. He’d be there at night and watch those cat’s circle his tent, with him kneeling behind his cot with a .300 Winchester hoping his guide was right. I was not only hoping his guide was right, I was hoping it pretained to bears as well. That animal made one more resounding snort and walked away. Doug looked at me and said; “Maybe we should put a pot of coffee on now Mike”. Not long after that Don woke up and turned on the light in the cabin. As soon as we saw that we headed in to the relatively warm kitchen and took the coffee’s with us. We filled him in on what happend, and he mentioned that the cabin was broke into once, because there was food in it. Luckily, we didn’t have anything to eat in the tent and I whole heartedly recommend that none of you ever keep any in one.

   We decided to head over to Highbanks Lake to catch us some breakfast and not long after, we were there. The lake was as smooth as glass with steam rising off of it to remind us it was truely a lake. The lake is lined with Sugar Maple, Oak, and White Pine and the combination of colors reflected off the surface was astounding. Every year I take a couple pictures of the colors and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s more than capturing the colors but the feelings that went with it. The three of us spread out along the beach and watched the rod tips while we talked about the preceding years and the fish we’ve caught there. It wasn’t long before Doug’s pole almost bent into a “U” and a huge swrill appeared out in the lake. It took him a few minutes to finally get it in, but when he finally had it beached we knew it was a new group record. The old record was 18″, caught by B.B. a year or two ago but this one beat it by 2″. I took his picture just in time to have Don get one on, but Don’s was only 12″, and things calmed down a little bit. Doug ended up with two, Don caught two and I got one keeper. We also got a few sub-legal but we don’t count those. We could see from the gathering clouds that we were about to get dumped on again, so we headed back to the camp.

   In years past, we set up a tarp between some trees to provide ourselves with some cover, but this year we had a nice canopy. Carolyn, Don’s significant other, bought it for their new daughter but we were using it for an entirely different reason. Only twice in the seven years we’d been holding this event, did the sun shine hot. Mostly it came out furitively in-between rain storms and this year was no different. Lake Superior makes it’s own weather, and it likes the rain part more than the sunny. Don told us explicitly that nothing bad could happen to it, so we were carefull, and after a downpour or two, with a little gale thrown in, we took it back down.

   Don and I went back out to the tree stand around 4, for another bout with the bears.

   Normally, I don’t think people take friends along on their bear hunt, but I’ve got a somewhat iffy condition with my heart. The problem is when I become excited, my heart rate goes up, when the rate goes up, it goes into an arrhythmia, or an irregular heart beat. If that should continue for any amount of time, it fibrillates, or quivers. Now, when that happens I have an automatic defibrillator in my chest that fires, giving me a 750v DC charge into my heart to get it right again. When THAT happens I jump straight into the air and probably out of the tree. So what I needed was someone to drag my body out of the woods and Don and Doug were kind enough to help me out, and that’s why they were with me. It takes a lot of self control to keep that thing pumping right, and frankly, I wasn’t sure if I could do that or not.

   In any case, I was back in the tree, and this time I brought along a boat cushon to put on those boards. Doug was kind enough to loan me one of his camo jackets and a camo cover for my head. For all intents and purpose’s I was invisible. So invisible in fact, that I had a Kestrel hawk set down on the same branch as me and watched the same bait pile. I was looking for bear, he was looking for chipmunks. About 20 minutes later, I finally moved and scared the living daylights out of the poor thing and he took off. As we sat there, I saw an ermine visit the pile, three red squerrils and a couple chipmunks. Just before we left there were a couple Whiskey Jacks that came around and started feeding off the ground up grenola bars, but not a bear in sight. When the leg cramps started up again, and I started having trouble staying consious, I called it a day and we headed back to the camp.

   By the time we got back to camp, it was pouring again. We gave up trying to keep the fire going and called it a night about 10pm. This time there wern’t any bears but my snoring kept Doug up all night.

21 Sep. ‘06

   I got up at 1am Thursday morning, and not long after, Jan did too. We’d both been looking forward to this for a long time, and finally it was the day to go. Mark got up a short time later and after a cup of coffee, we headed for the Cherryland Airport. Their flight was to leave at 7:30 so we got there at 6 and they got checked in right away. Originally, I was going to wait until the plane left before I headed back to East Jordan but when Jan told me to go, I did. If it hadn’t been for the threat of hitting a few dozen deer, I would have made it home in 30 minutes, instead of the hour it took. As I was coming in the door, Doug was calling asking how I was doing, and I told him I was allready an hour ahead of schedule. I loaded up the truck, did one more walk-around to insure I had everything and met Doug at Fleet Landing here in E.J. We met up with Don north of Petoskey, at the day old bakery, and we finally had nothing left to do but get the hell out of Dodge. Don led, Doug was in the middle and I came up behind. If it had been the other way around all three of us would have gotten speeding tickets, but as it was, we didn’t and I saved about $15.00 in gas. It also gave me the time to think about how the next week was going to go and what I’d hoped to accomplish. As thick as those bear were in that neighborhood, I figured on getting my bear either the next day or Saturday at the latest. Since the taxidermist was closed on Sunday’s, I’d spend that day fishing and come back early Monday morning with the hide and then spend the rest of that day hunting squirrels. Sitting up against a huge Oak sniping those little critters was something I’d wanted to do since the very first trip. This year I had my very own truck so I wouldn’t have to talk someone else into going with me and I dreamed of reading a good book and waiting for those little rodents to start clucking. On one of the days, or maybe two, I wanted to head out to Seney to reconoiter a couple lakes I use to fish 30 years ago. A year or two before I saw them, they had been stocked with a brook trout developed (or found, not sure which) in Canada that grew to 20″+. When I fished Lost Lake, they were only about 14″ and too small to keep. In all honesty, we kept and ate them on the spot. We didn’t know about the restrictions, or even the name of the lake for that matter. I’d been up there ‘two tracking’ with a buddy and we happend across it while we were lost. We wern’t actually LOST, just temporarily misinformed. (Your not lost until you pull into a gas station and ask directions, and we were 20 miles from one of those). Anyway, I wanted to get back to Lost and Dutch Fred Lakes to see how much they’d grown, or if there were any left. I thought about getting back to High banks and trolling for those rainbows through the night, and over to Frenchman’s Lake and fish for Walleye under a coleman lantern. I figured it was a pretty ambitious schedule, but I had 11 days to work with, and looked forward to doing it all.

   We all got to the cabin at 11am and everything was pretty much set up by 1. Doug helped me set up my tent, which is 14′ squared, and when we got done it looked like a combination office/hotel room. I’d brought along my word processor, and that was in the corner, we had a table between our two cots with a lamp and a two burner stove on that. On the stove sat my coffee pot, and behind that was my CD player. Whenever I do my writing I listen to the Monks chant Gregorian hymn’s, so I thought I’d bring it along to inspire those heathens I was with. Just as we sat down to relax a bit, we had a character pull in to visit with Don.

   “Trout” is a fella that has been through some very hard times, but it doesn’t seem to have bothered him much. He doesn’t have a larynix nor a plug in his throat where the trach was installed, but he still has a sense of humor. He carries around a little microphone that he puts to his throat to communicate, and he sounds remarkibly like Stephen Hawkins but that’s all those two have in common. Trout is a native of Charlevoix but I’ll bet there are a lot more people who’ve heard of him than there are of those who’ve met him. As it turns out, there were a couple guys who came along later who did want to meet him, but he was gone by then. I’ll bet that happens a lot in his life.

   Right after Trout left, Don made up a breakfast of bacon and beans with a little onion mixed in. It really set in the notion that we were back were we all belonged. I asked him if I could put the receipe in this accounting and he said; “No fuc in’ way”. “If anyone wants to know how to make this stuff, is going to have to come across the bridge and watch”. Fair enough I guess, but I was there, and I still don’t know how to make it.

   After we ate, we started working on the camp fire. Some trees had been blown down a month or so before and all that wood was there, but it was green, and wet. We took a ride up to North rd, which is just a little north of us, but goes East. I wondered if they had a road up there somewhere’s named West, that went South… Anyway, Doug had brought along a chain saw and it didn’t take long to get a truck load of good wood. When we got back, we started on getting a real serious fire going. We don’t have any kindling with us so I use my little Burnz O matic torch which works even better. Usually, there’s a hellava wind blowing in that area, but on this day there wasn’t. I went back into the tent and brought out my mattress inflator and turned that on it. Instantly, you’ve got a hundred mile an hour draft to help it along. I was never a boyscout, but I’m always prepared. While we were doing that, Mrs Paul pulled in next door to do some pruning and yard cleaning. She had brought along her sister from down state to do that, and to plant some Hosta along the little creek there. When Doug mentioned that deer loved the stuff, she said she’d been coming up there for years and never even SAW a deer, let alone see some damage done. Personally, I think she’s a little lacking in her ‘Animal recognition skills’ but I could be wrong. Near as I could tell, there had been a couple deer who’d walked through her back yard the day before. I’d seen some tracks back there, but maybe it was from a de-formed red squirrel. The hosta may last the season, if none of them ’squirrels’ get a case of the munchies.

   Around 4pm, Don and I went out to climb that White Pine for some afternoon bear killing. We’d been out there earlier to bait the pile and put all the logs back, but since then there hadn’t been any activity. I got into the spot I’d tried out in the tree, but I’d made a HUGE mistake in choosing it. When I’d checked out the seat before, I hadn’t set there for more than a couple minutes, and didn’t realize how uncomfortable it was going to get. Back in the day when my ass was 20 years old, I could set in all kinds of contorted postions without any problem. 20 years old was 36 years ago! I wasn’t there 20 minutes before my ass started to object to what I was asking of it. Someone had attached a couple of 2 x 6’s over a couple limbs with zip-strips and I’d figured on using that for the next week. In recent years when I’ve been hunting, it was from a nice heated blind with a lawn chair, and now I was sitting on a board with pine boughs as cover. Stupid, stupid me. Don had been sitting on the other side of the tree, and I’m sure he could feel me jostling around too much. At times Don would reach a hand around the trunk and pat it once to get my attention, and then give me a little pep talk. It worked for a while. We had been hoping to hunt until dark, giving it our best try right off the bat, but my back and my ass just wasn’t up to it. Between that and me continually falling asleep then waking up instantly, I decided to get out of that tree. I sat on the end of the ladder for awhile, but it was too late by then to help much. Don motioned for a conversation, and he told me that there were three bears off to our right moving around to the front. It was a sow and two cubs, and the two cubs we of age to be on their own. It really didn’t matter though, because I never got a full view of them. I could tell where they were by areas between leaves turning black, then light again, but I never had a clear shot. There just wasn’t any way I was going to shoot for hide just to see what happend, and hope for a better shot. I don’t hunt that way, but it sure was exciting to listen to them animals occasionally stepping on limbs and have them go Scrunch. Don also saw a doe working her way off to our left but she never got involved with the bait pile, so I never saw her. About 45 minutes before dark, I decided that I’d had enough and headed back to camp. The day had started at 1am and I’d figured that that was pleanty enough, given that I still had 10 more days to go.

   We all turned in around 9:30 hoping to get a good nights sleep and then have at it again, first thing in the morning. ‘First thing in the morning’ started a whole lot earlier than anticipated though.

   It’s been a very interesting and inlightening 11 days, and I’m happy as hell to be back. I’m sitting here in my B.V.D.s and slippers with warmth all about. I don’t smell bad anymore and I can go to the can without looking for porcupines, and if you give me 24 hours to do my laundry and get some more bait and ammo, I’d be ready to go back. I kept a lot of notes on what I saw and how I felt at the time and I’ll convey them all here over the next couple of weeks. Instead of just posting the whole thing at once under the Eckerman catagory, I’m going to post them in the blog and when I’m done, Katrina can put it all into the story section.