An Outdoorsman’s Journal: Two hunters, two states

Hello friends, The last few years, I have started my bow hunting season in an adventuresome way near Durand on the Chippewa River, traveling by canoe to get to my stand. This weekend at the same time that I was hunting, my 23-year-old daughter Selina Walters, who is a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and lives in Missoula, Mont., was on her first bow hunt in Montana.

Saturday, Sept. 14 – High 85, low 63 You better have a hang, skin and quarter plan with plenty of ice when you are camping and traveling by canoe while bow hunting and the weather is so warm that for all four hunts you wear shorts. On the other hand, Selina was experiencing cooler temps and dressed quite warm.

So, here is the scoop: my official goals are to make some fresh meat, enjoy the weather and show my pups Ruby and Red a good time. In all honesty, my goal was an adult doe. On the other hand, unless something changes, I only have one other bow hunting trip this fall as I am booked until Jan. 5, so if a buck came within 25 yards, my max shot, I would quite naturally fling an arrow.

In this modern day there is this thing called texting and Selina and I do a lot of it. On Selina’s morning hunt she was on the ground, in a low mountain valley in an area where she has been hiking and practicing with her bow since she moved to Missoula in late January. Selina purchased an elk tag as well as a deer tag and could harvest a buck and a bull, no doe, and could buy more tags if she filled her tags. Last night, Selina had to take a four-hour online class to purchase her bow license. This morning, she saw several doe, of which some were in range, and a real nice 8-point buck that was just out of range.

This afternoon was my first hunt and I was really into the entire experience. On the paddle to my hunt, I watched a kingfisher dive bomb for a minnow and as it attempted to fly away with its supper, a northern pike came very close to gobbling it for supper and it honestly looked like an alligator as it tried to catch the bird. On my hunt, what can I say? All I have to do is sit in a tree in this Buffalo/Pepin County area and I am at peace. I honestly believe that if Michelle had not passed away that we would have moved here if we stayed in Wisconsin. On my hunt I watched a very large doe that scared the heck out of a raccoon that climbed a tree next to me, got to my level and relaxed when it saw what scared it was just a deer. A while later, a doe with two fawns presented an easy shot. The fawns were young, with a nubby having spots and maybe weighing 40 pounds. The doe was big but her ribs were sticking out.

On the paddle back to camp, I had a cold beer in a cooler just for the experience and I enjoyed every drop as I paddled in the dark. Sunday, Sept. 15 – High 87, low 64 Seems crazy to be leaving camp in the dark dressed in shorts. I have to wear hip boots, as I am in major swamp country, but there was no chill this weekend. On this hunt I saw one doe; she was large like most of the adult deer seem to be in this neck of the woods, but stayed just out of range and I was fine with that.

Selina, on the other hand, is having deer after deer experience and what is very cool is that even though she is hunting on the ground, which is very common in the mountain states, she is not getting busted.

For me, even though I had two more hunts before breaking camp and heading home, I did not see another deer and did not care. Next weekend, I will be duck hunting in northernWisconsin and Selina will be texting me from her hunt. The young biologist who so far has controlled her destiny will be doing exactly what she has chosen to do for this period of her life.

Take your kids hunting and fishing and they just might hang out with you when you are in your 60s!

Sunset

Mark Walters