When Hunting turns into
“Just” a Trip…
John Day,
Oregon—what a beautiful area, and we were lucky to “have to” go there for 2
weeks in October this year since Chris drew an Elk tag for the Murderer’s Creek
area—we left October 15th, scouted a week, Chris hunted all 5 days
(23rd to the 27th) and then we made it back on the 28th…all
three of us (Shoppie the campin’ cat made sure we took her).
5 Mice Must Mean Good Luck…
Quite the
auspicious beginning, as we discovered that “critters” had started to nest in
one of our trailer’s drawers. Chris’ dad
lives in a gated community and rents out his RV space to us. It’s a beautiful little area and the parking
spaces are back along a wooded area—great for privacy…and the mice evidently
thought so too. So, packing took a back
seat as we dealt with that issue. After
setting mice traps and cheese, with peanut butter too, we ended up snaring a
total of 4 before departing. After the
first 3, I was able to clean up all of the “leavings” and we got our trailer
scrubbed and back into order so that we could pack it up.
Once
underway, we were awestruck by the beautiful weather and the drive over was
magnificent. We loved our campsite near
the John Day River (had a whole corner lot to ourselves the day we moved in and
it was covered with a canopy of bright orange and yellow leaves), and spent the
rest of the day getting set up, then fixed dinner. The only bummer was that we discovered our
satellite receiver somehow never made it onboard, so Jeopardy in the wilds was
out---dang!
In the
middle of the night, Shoppie woke me up with some intensity around the couch
area—she was poised and definitely alert.
Part of me went, “Uh-oh…” I woke
Chris up and we watched her watch the couch, then sure enough—out it came. Mouse #5.
Chris set another trap but scooted it under the arm of the couch where
it was out of Shoppie’s reach but still “snappable”. Sometime during the night, Shoppie got back
up on the bed and purred loudly the rest of the night—both Chris and I
commented the next day on how loud it was…we kinda slept in and around that
purrrrrrrr.
The Naked Truth
Day 1 of
scouting started off with a bang as we discovered the fifth mouse carcass and figured
that explained the quiet AND Shoppie’s purring.
She’s not really a mouser (we call her our “pointer cat” because she
doesn’t want to actually interact with them, just point them out to us), but
she’s definitely a satisfied “hunter” now.
We somehow
managed to lose power (Chris was trying to figure out if one of our fuses blew—it
hadn’t—so we figured it was a park-wide outage of some sort and took off to
scout bright and early. Cold at that
time of the morning (in the 20’s), so I had my layers on and carried coat/hat/gloves
for walking.
We started
out driving on the Ingle Creek road to get into the hunting area and were
remarking on how depressed some of the houses looked when, bang! I was staring straight at a naked man in his
kitchen window—he looked right at me, smiling.
I was glad we had already digested breakfast as he was NOT an attractive
site… Seriously. Potbelly hanging over, hair matted
here/there, teeth missing. I was
thinking of that “things happen in 3’s” quip and was thinking we had that
completed (mouse/power outage/naked man—got it!).
Scouting was
fun (lots of hiking through beautiful woodsy areas—my kind of thing!) and felt
successful as we got informed, saw some elk sign.
Back at
camp, Chris deciphered that the power outage was indeed on our end and then
discovered a defective circuit breaker, so into the town of John Day we went
and bought a new one at Ace Hardware.
Luckily, it worked (yay!) because we were contemplating what our day
might look like tomorrow if it didn’t.
Ahhhhh…time
for relaxing in our chairs outside, surrounded by the beautiful fall
colors. It was truly a beautiful day.
Stud Pile Education
Scout days
2, 3, 4 and 5 pretty much followed the same recipe. Up at first light, and back
after dark. We walked, walked, walked,
looked, looked, and looked. Many stops to
check the maps and see which roads might be good ones. We did stop to look at and film hundreds of
wild turkeys and teams of gorgeous wild horses.
As we hiked
and noted horse manure piles, it seemed like they purposely piled it on in
specific spots. It was after we inquired
about them back at camp we got our “Stud Pile Education”. Evidently, it is indeed like a “pissing match”
between stud horses—the bigger the pile, the better the chances with the
ladies. Chris commented, “Ya gotta
realize that they know this will really impress the girls. And what do THEY say (the females)—‘Oh, my
man…so full of crap he is…what a beauty!’”
That guy cracks me up.
Could it really be…??
Scout day
number 6…feeling pretty beaten up at this point as we had worked our butts off
to seemingly little or no avail. We
happened onto a road that didn’t seem like it was in the best of spots, but
what the heck…then as we hiked, we saw sign after sign, track after track. Chris had us stay really quiet, walking tai
chi slowwwwww…
Suddenly, I
spotted something ahead off the road in the woods. It definitely looked deer-like (not
horse-like, as we had become used to running into wild horses while looking for
elk), it definitely seemed bigger than deer to me. I kept watching the spot and saw movement
again. Agh!! The next thing we knew, an elk (cow) was up
on the ridge above us—wow! It was our
first siting—she was amazing. As Chris
was trained through the binoculars on her, I saw a flash out of the corner of my
eye…a huge animal running in the field to our right. “Chris!” I whispered, tugging on his shirt
sleeve. We both turned and saw the bull
(a 4-point) cross the road and bound up the hill. He stopped to look right at Chris (he had
binoculars on him now) and Chris said it was a sight to behold. No doubt, as it was a sight to behold without
the binoculars…whew! A most magnificent
animal…verrrrrrry exciting!
Be Careful What You Hunt For…
After some
driving about on our last scouting day, adjusting and re-adjusting plans/map
points, etc., Chris was ready for opening day.
He hunted every day of the 5 days, leaving at dark (about 3:30 a.m.) and
arriving at dark (about 8:00 p.m.), and I enjoyed sleeping in, reading books,
taking walks along the river path and watching a great heron fish in front of
me. Chris put in a great effort, but alas
no elk.
Luckily, we’re
both in that point of our lives where we have fewer expectations and more
affinity for the happy surprises.
It was a
great trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment