My trail camera sent me a picture of a big, wide 6 pointer that was in the area where I was headed. I wondered how far he might have traveled between then and when I would be in the woods. It was an off morning. My son wanted to hunt but was complaining about his extra layers of clothing and how tight it made his boots. I had on 3 of my 5 layers (remember, I sit for hours and hours!) and was rushing to get him out of the door along with packing all of my stuff. I knew as soon as I walked outside that I was in trouble. I was sweaty. I walked to the same stand as I had sat in last week and again, I jumped a deer. It was dark and I tried to listen to figure out how far and in which direction the deer was moving. When I reached the...
Week two of rifle season was completely different than week one. I changed stands and jumped a deer as soon as I got into the woods. I've been hunting for almost half of my life now and for the first time, as I walked into the woods alone, the sound of something so close that I could not see did not send my heart beating out of my chest. Instead, I listened to see if I could keep it from running too far away by slowly continuing on to my stand. It was warmer than the week before which meant sitting for 12 hours would be much more bearable. I settled into the stand quieter than I normally do, knowing that the deer was not too far away. There was a slight breeze coming from behind me and I shifted a few inches to use the wall to block...
Jesse Phillips had no intention of bear hunting. He was along for the ride with friend and host of Blood Origins, Robbie Kroger, who was on his annaul bear hunt with Grove Hill Outfitters. Being convinced that he should go hunt, Jesse grabbed the 45-10 and headed into a treestand. He wore his cowboy boots, jeans and flannel, "the only thing I didn't do was put on deoterant" Jesse laughed. Climbing up into the stand a little before 2pm, he held no expectations for seeing his first bear in the wild. He was doing this just to apease the guys in camp. At 4:02, a bear appeared. "He was about 40 yards away," explained Jesse, "and he was just walkeding around, sniffing and eating. He wasn't interested...
I am technically an adult-onset hunter. I started when I was twenty after watching Dad hunt every fall and deciding that I wanted to see what it was all about – and that killing your own meat was not a bad thing. If you had asked me (or dad) to imagine what the next decade and a half would be like, I guarantee you neither of us would have pictured this! As I write this, I have just hung up the phone with Taylor and Mark Drury. Throughout deer season, I will be writing up all of the Drury family hunts that will be featured on DeerCast (make sure you have the app or the website bookmarked!) I am also going to continue interviewing hunters from across the country and Canada that have taken amazing deer. Just like last year when I got to...
I woke my son up at 1:40 in the morning so that we could be in Millinocket by 4 AM. I have made it a point this year to take advantage of local Maine guides who are struggling because of the cancellations from out-of-state hunters and anglers. Many guides and outfitters have great discounts on trips and as a local, I am happy to take advantage! We had been in quarantine for 12 weeks at that point and it was leading up to my son’s birthday. So at 4am, we met up with Paul Sannicandro ofMoose Woods Guide Serviceto go on a moose safari. The weather called for rain but we were determined to find a few moose before the storms rolled in. With bug spray, binoculars, cameras and face masks, we headed out on the Golden Road to find...
We have known since we bought the house, that there were owls around. I frantically flagged down Hubs when I was on the phone being intereviewed and saw one land on a dead tree across the backyard, so that we could get some pictures. We hear them at night calling to one another and occasioanlly, we hear them in the morning when we take the dog out. There is two, maybe three nearby. Since we have been at home for weeks, I have found myself going for walks during the naptime. On this particular day, the sun was shining and I was headed towards the mailbox when I heard an owl hoot. It was close. I spun on my heels, ran inside and grabbed my camera. I told Hubs to come with me and help me find this owl. We did. He spotted...
I noticed the black against the white trees, "moose!" I called out to Lee. Eating along the side of the logging road, she was spooked by our approaching truck and disappeared into thick sapplings before I could take a picture. I took it as a good omen that today would be productive. Snow in May is not unheard of in Maine but the few inches that had fallen the night before, would not make shed hunting an easy task this morning. I was still excited and the break from quarantine life was welcomed. The fresh Maine air can reset anyone's state of mind. We walked down old skidder trails and split up to cover more ground. Snow fell from the higher branches as the sun began to rise. I had been walking for...
If you had asked everyone in the room to vote right then and there, I would bet that supplemental feeding of deer would have been made illegal. The room was packed with people at the Augusta Civic Center, listening to a presentation by Dr. Krysten L. Schuler, Wildlife Disease Ecologist at Cornell Wildlife Health Lab about her research on Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) and what is being done in the 26 states currently impacted. CWD is caused by a mutated protein that are found in prions. Deer shed prions through bodily fluids and once in the soil, CWD can stay there for months if not years. The worst spreaders of the prions are those big, adult bucks that we all covet. CWD is fatal and in the same family as Mad Cow Disease. The...
Reason number 3,657,935 why my Dad is the best: As we were snowmobiling, we approached a bog and three eagles with about 20 crows took off. It could only mean one thing in my book - something was dead. We circled back and walked around in the snow but the birds had left and we couldnt find anything that would resemble a meal. A part of me thinks that we were in the wrong piece of land and should have been on the other side of the bog but in our snowmobile gear, we were not going to cover a lot of ground. I was disappointed that we couldn't find what the birds were eating but I was able to get some good pictures of one of the mature eagles and the immature eagle that were flying...
