Wednesday, August 31, 2022

2022 Bear Hunt Day 5 - The Howling

After moving around too early, the day brightened much more than the previous day.  Breakfast was pancakes (I probably haven't had pancakes since I was here the previous year), then Carter took Doug, Gene and me upriver a short ways to cast for pike.  It dry and sunny allowing all the dampness from the rain to dry up.

Fishing was a bit slower than Monday, but everyone in the boat caught a few pike.  No smallmouths were taken in so I'm not sure where they were hiding.  Doug did hook into a really nice 39 inch pike which was quite fat.  So the big fish are still there.  Everything else was too small to keep with the exception of one which went into the live well for lunch later in the week.

As the morning wound down, we headed back in to camp for lunch.

With nice weather, everyone went upriver for hunting that night.  I sat at Kendall Right.  The stand was a wide double ladder stand, so it was relatively comfortable, but I still had a hard time not squirming too much.  It was windy which did allow for a little bit of movement, while also making it hard to hear anything.  The wind also kept the mosquitoes away (mostly).
The evening passed slowly.  I had beavers making noise in the water behind me along with quite a few ducks quacking.  It got slightly cool as it got darker and the wind died down to almost nothing.  I fired up the Thermacell as the wind died down and despite not having used it in a few years, it blessedly did its job of keeping the mosquitoes away.

Darkness came and I quietly packed up while waiting for the boat.  It was a very peaceful night.  With no noise from wind I could hear the creek and all those other wild sounds that the wind took away during the day.
Matt was already in the boat and hadn't seen anything all night either.  The ride back to camp seemed to go quickly and ours was the first boat back in.  In the next boat, Doug had shot a wolf.  It was much smaller than I would have thought and it looked really skinny - almost emaciated, but Vance said that is typically how they look in the summer.

The last boat in had a bear that Scott had shot.  The bear was unusual in that it had really short hair but down the length of its back it had a tall wispy mohawk which was also slightly chocolate colored.  It almost looked like the hair on a razorback hog.

Dinner was good, but I was more than ready for bed by the time it was over.

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