North Dakota, Land of Ducks and Missles

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One thing North Dakota is well known for is their waterfowl hunting. Hundreds of thousands of potholes and endless acres of nesting areas make for outstanding bird populations. Barb and I arrived at our friends Dan and Jeannie’s on the 29^th. They own/operate Prairie Smoke Ranch outside of McClusky North Dakota a waterfowl/upland bird lodge. We had not seen them in almost a year and it was good to catch up. Waterfowl season opens the following weekend so they were busy getting the ranch ready for the first group of hunters, cleaning the bunkhouses, setting out decoys and fixing the ducks blinds. We had one interesting sighting while staying at their place, while out for a walk we saw something large and dark in one of the pastures. A cow? A large bull? That is what one would expect to see in a pasture. Well, it was a bull all right, a bull moose! One thing North Dakota is not known for is their moose, but here was one 100 yards from us! A rare sighting for sure!

 It rained part of the day each day we were there and one thing you learn quickly up here is that you cannot travel the gravel roads in this area during or just after rain. The mud is so slick up here that even 4 wheel drive vehicles have a hard time staying on the roads. With a mile long driveway and over 10 miles of gravel to the nearest blacktop road, we had to wait out the rain and give the roads time to dry before we headed to our next destination.

Dan and Jeannie's Ranch

Our next destination was about an hour away in Douglas and happens to be a nephew of Dan’s and the son of my good friend Bob who we had supper with the week before. So, how does a young man born and raised in the suburbs of the Twin Cities end up on a farm in North Dakota? Although Chris has always been an outdoors person, living and working on a farm was probably the last place he thought he would end up when he was growing up. That is until he went to the University of North Dakota and met the woman of his dreams, Holly, a farmer’s daughter from Douglas North Dakota! They married in 2013, built a house on the family farm and just had their first child, Gavin, in September. He is a cute little guy with a great smile! Chris' story is so unusual AGWEEK even did a story on it!

Holly’s parents Bob and Deanne farm several thousand acres throughout the county. Chris took to farming like a duck to water (get it?) and could not be happier. There is always plenty to do and they even put us to work when we were not hunting. One of the funniest things we got to do was till a few hundred acres with the quad track. Even with huge equipment it take hours and hours to till the fields. It was interesting work and I can see why Chris loves it.

Getting ready to till!

Something very interesting/scary happened to us on our way back from the field the other day. After Barb picked me up from the field and were heading down the gravel road to the blacktop, a helicopter started circling us very low. Once we got to the blacktop a hummer, with a machine gun on top drove up and asked us to pull over for a convoy that was coming. As the helicopter hovered over us a convoy of similar hummers surrounding a semi-truck flew by us. I was able to snap a few pictures from inside the truck as they went by.  There are a number of missile sites in the area and they were obviously moving one of them. I told Barb she should have gotten out and acted like a crazy person to see what would have happened! Once they were by us the helicopter turned and zoomed ahead of the convoy looking for the next person they can scare the crap out of!



Hovering, waiting for the convoy to pass us

The lead vehicles

Here it comes!

So much going on and I have not even talked about the main reason we came out….duck hunting! The non-resident waterfowl opener was on October 4^th.  Cold, wet and windy conditions make for some great duck hunting. Opening morning we woke up to frost and temps in the low 20's, the temps have been running 20 degrees lower than normal. We got out on both the 4^th and 5^th and had two days of outstanding hunting. We saw thousands of ducks getting our limits both days. We will get out a few more times this week, but in the meantime we are having some tasty duck dinners!

Brrrrrr!

Ready for the birds to come in!

A nice flock over the water

The results of a good days hunt

Back in "The States"

It is good to be back in Wisconsin! Our trip from Jellicoe to Dairyland, Wisconsin was just how we like it, uneventful. Barb drove the big rig while I trailed behind in the Jeep with the 4 wheeler and the canoe.

Before we left we spent a few days with our former neighbor Brian and his friend Mark. They came up for a long weekend for some fishing. Having never been here before they did not know what to expect. Although the weather did not fully cooperate it was not horrible either. The first day they were there we went to Onaman, it was windy and cold but the fishing was good. We caught dozens of walleyes with the largest being 26”. The average size for the day was over 20” but we did manage to come home with a limit of fish between 17-18”. The next day was not only windy and cold but also raining. After taking some bear hunters out I met them at Northwind where we again did real well. Barb and I fished until we could not feel our fingers any longer but Mark and Brian stuck it out a little longer. On the way back we got a flat tire, luckily a fellow bear hunter came by within 10 minutes and gave us a ride back to camp where we got the equipment to change the tire. After getting it back to camp, I put a plug in it and it was good to go.

Monday Barb and I spent the day packing up the trailer while Brian and Mark went back to Onaman. It is amazing how long it takes to pack up stuff after being parked for 4 months. Luckily, the rain held off and things were able to dry off before we packed them up. Brian and Mark came back with tails of monster walleyes again the biggest being a pair of 26’s.  

Our first stop in Wisconsin was just outside of Dairyland where some good friends have some hunting property. Our goal for the next couple of days was to just relax, talk to no one and sleep as long as we wanted. For 4 months we had been getting up every day at 6am and were looking forward to no time tables or commitments. Well…… that did not work out so well. We did relax and went for walks, what did not work out so well was the sleeping in. We are were so conditioned at waking up at 6am that it was impossible to sleep in, only now that we were out of the eastern time zone and now in the central time zone it was actually 5am! On top of that I kept dreaming that all the bear hunters from Canada had come down and set up camp around us! I am sure it will take some time to get adjusted to no schedules or time commitments.

We were able to have dinner and a “bump” with our gracious hosts, Mike and Mary Jo. The dinner was awesome and conversation was great. The “bump” is a tradition that has been in their family for years where you have a shot to toast family, friends or other special occasions. This is definitely something Barb and I are going to have to incorporate into our travels!

From Dairyland we traveled to my brothers place in Taylor’s Falls where we stayed for the week. We visited with friends and family almost every night. We had not been out to eat at all since May and now, since we have been back, we must have gone out a dozen times! We satisfied all our cravings; pizza, burgers, steaks, corn on the cob, ribs, pasta….all those things we missed over the past few months. It was great to get out and have a variety of foods. One thing we did not have was fish……I think we will take a little break from them for a bit! We also took care of some doctor/dental appointments, cleaned the rig both inside and out, replaced the water pump and Barb went into work for a day to make some much needed cash!

Daisy is already in her perch and ready for the road

After a few days we headed out on the next leg of our adventure, making our way to North Dakota for some waterfowl hunting! First we had to head over to Spring Valley Wisconsin where we spent the night at Greg and Gloria Anderson’s farm where we are storing the Jeep and Ranger for the winter. Barb and I call their place “home base” as this is where we have started each leg of our journeys this past year. You will not meet two nicer people, a special thanks for Greg and Gloria for letting us stay there and storing our stuff for the winter. We were able get out to dinner at Jake's Supper Club with them before we started our journey west towards North Dakota. We only made it about two hours the first day before stopping in Rogers Minnesota where we spent the night in the Cabela’s parking lot and had dinner at Maynard’s with our friends, Bob and Sue, who had just purchased a home in the area.  It was great to see them and catch up on our summers. The next morning we headed northwest towards Fargo but not before stopping by a barrel race in Fergus Falls where Barb’s former horse Scout was competing. There is no doubt that the hardest thing Barb had to do in the past year was to sell Scout. Having been born on our farm, he has been Barb’s companion for over 15 years and the best barrel horse she has ever owned. She had not seen him since she sold him early this spring and has never met the family that purchased him either. Although she did not show it, I know it was an emotional time for her. The family that bought him are pampering him and it was good to see that he was in great shape and being well cared for. Jillian, the 13 year old girl who now rides Scout, is an awesome rider, you can tell she loves Scout and he is in good hands. She also had some great runs getting in the money as well!

Barb, Jillian and Scout

While we were there Barb was also able to see several of her friends she has not seen in quite a long time as well as catch up with Greg and Gloria’s daughters, Ronda and Rachel, who were also there competing. Both the girls ran well that weekend and Barb was able to see Ronda’s new grey Appaloosa!

Leaving Fergus, we headed to Fargo where we spent the night at the farm of two more friends of ours (it is good to have friends!) We had not seen Dan and Bonnie in about 10 years but they are the kind of friends that you feel like you just saw last week. We went to dinner that night and breakfast the next morning catching up and having a good time. I was also able to get a “dirt skirt” installed on the truck thanks to a metal worker friend of Dan’s. The next leg of our trip involved over 20 miles of gravel roads and I did not want to do it without some protection for the front of the trailer.

It has been a whirlwind of a week, we are truly blessed with great friends and family. We will not see most of them until next spring when we come through again and they will be missed!

One week left!

We had more visitors! Three months with no visitors, in the past 2 ½ weeks we have had three different people come and see us. After my brother survived his week, my sister Judy and her husband Mike arrived for a few days followed by my friend Joe.

I was a week of firsts for Judy while she was up here……. she caught her first walleye, went on her first bear adventure and went on her first geocaching adventure. We fished with Judy and Mike on three occasions catching a number of walleyes and northerns. The biggest walleye was 24” (caught by Judy) and the biggest northern was 36”. Mike is an accomplished fisherman having been on several out of state fishing trips. He said he has never had fishing this good on any of his previous trips where he caught the number and size walleyes that he did. Every time I looked over at his boat all I could see is Mike with a big smile on his face. Judy on the other hand has not been fishing very much at all but she was catching them like crazy!

Mike and Judy heading in from fishing

A nice limit of walleyes!

 The funniest moment of the week occurred one day when we were out fishing. You see, when we got to the lakes I would drive around and find the fish on the fish locator, drop a marker buoy and tell Mike and Judy to fish by the buoy where they would immediately catch fish. Each location we would go through the same routine, find fish on the locator, drop a buoy, they would fish there and catch fish…. This went on each day and on the third day Judy says to me……”Why do the fish like the buoys so much?” I was like……excuse me? And she said, “What attracts the fish to the buoys?”  Mike and I were laughing so hard, we about fell out of the boat! You could almost see the light bulb go on above her head and she said….”I am so stupid!”

Judy and Mike fishing by the buoy

Another first occurred for Barb and I while we were fishing the other day……while we were fishing, we both hooked into a fish at about the same time. Now this has happened several time before and is not really a big deal, but in this case…..we had hooked the same fish!

Two jigs in one fish!

After hearing my brother Bob’s tales of prepping the bear hunting sites, both Judy and Mike wanted to go with me. Judy went once while Mike kept me company twice. Although we never saw any actual bears, Mike got to go on one bear recovery and we saw lots of sign of bears, moose, wolf and grouse. We also got some really nice trail camera photos of moose at two different sites and the first ever bear-selfie!

 



Bear-selfie

A couple of nice moose caught on the trail cameras

On one of our non-fishing days, Judy and Barb decided to try and go find a geocache on a nearby lake. So Barb loaded the coordinates into her GPS, hooked up a boat to the 4 wheeler, put on a motor, got some gas and away they went out into the bush. They came back a couple of hours later with tales of their success! Once they launched the boat into the lake they motored in the direction the GPS told them to go, once they got close they rowed along a rock wall looking for signs of the geocache. Judy was the first to see an unusual rock on the wall. Once they rowed closer they saw that the rock was covering a hole and sure enough, behind the hole was the geocache container. Inside was a pen and paper, it had been placed there in 2008 and last found in 2012. Barb and Judy added their names to the list, replaced it and motored back to the boat landing. There is one more in the area that we are going to try and it before we leave for the year.

Searching for the geocache

What's hidden behind that rock?



A geocache!!!!

Speaking of leaving for the year, after 4 months here, we are planning our exodus. The weather has started to turn, today it was a high of 37 and rained all day….time to get out of here. We are leaving next Tuesday and headed to northern Wisconsin for a couple days before we spend a week in Minnesota visiting friends and going to the doctor/dentist. Before we leave, we are having one more visitor, a former neighbor from Wisconsin is coming up to fish for a few days. We are really looking forward to seeing him and showing him some of our fishing hot spots!

First visitor to Canada

This past week I had one edict, the funny thing was that it was a request from more than one person. What is it you ask? What is this request that not only one person would request of me but two? Well it ended up being a quite simple request but there were a few touch and go moments. The request from both my wife and my sister-in-law………don’t kill my brother! That’s right, my brother Bob came up for the week. He was a great help with prepping the bear sites each day as well as lots other things around camp. He went with me each day as we visited each of the bear sites. He was sore and tired at the end of the days but had a lot of fun, by the end of the week he said he could feel a difference and was not getting nearly as sore at the end of the day.

 

It was a busy week for him to come up as bear season opened last Friday and we had 11 hunters in camp. If you were to ask Bob I think he would tell you there were about 5-6 times he was not sure he was going to make it through a given day. Whether it be from exhaustion, my driving on the logging roads or the close call we had with a pack of wolves.

Of the 11 hunters in camp this past week, 9 harvested bear, 1 missed and 1 had an opportunity but did not want his hunt to be over in the first 20 minutes and never got another opportunity the rest of the week. There were groups from West Virginia, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois.

The most intense moment of the week came when we went to recover a bear for one of the West Virginia boys. He had come in and said that he had gotten a nice bear and needed help getting it out. So Bob and I jumped in the 4 wheeler and headed out to help him get his bear! His stand was 10 miles down the road and about 4 miles down a logging road and by the time we got to his stand it was well after dark. When we arrived and turned off the 4 wheeler the first thing we heard was a wolf howl, it sounded close but not that close, maybe 100 yards. Soon after that another 2-3 howled much closer, maybe 50 yards. Then another howled and it sounded like it was right next to us! I asked the hunter which direction his bear was and he pointed in the direction of the last howl…..oh oh, that’s not good……Armed with flashlights we headed towards the sound of the howl. As we were walking I was thinking…….well, I know can outrun at least one of these guys if things turn ugly, the problem is that was my brother and I kinda promised to keep him alive this week. Fortunately, a few guys armed with flashlights is intimidating to the wolves and they vacated the area. Unfortunately, they had done a number on the bear in the short time the hunter was gone. They had eaten much of the stomach area, they had not gotten to the meat or the hide so we were able to recover the majority of the bear.

The group from Illinois had an intense moment as well when they went to recover a bear that one of them had harvested. Again, it was well after dark when they were looking for their bear. As they were walking together in the dark they heard a noise close to them and they scattered and screamed like little school girls in different directions! Once they got back together they had no idea which way the road was. They argued which direction to head in order to get back to the road. They determined that the road was to the west…..wrong… it was actually to the east…. After walking a while to the west they determined that they must have went the wrong way and turned around and headed east where they eventually hit the road. We had sent out a search party who found them on the road…..they all made it back to camp at 3am.

Barb is continuing to run each morning, she had her fastest mile (9:58) and fastest 5k (32:00) this week. She has also been going crazy in the kitchen making an awesome blueberry pie, some Morning Glory muffins and a huge batch of monster cookies that we got addicted to after an attorney at her old job had given us some a few months ago. She also continued with another one of her favorite pastimes, she loves to find the stupidest fishing lures and see if she can catch fish on them! Actually……she usually picks out what she thinks is the prettiest lures, buys them and tries them out. This week, it was a silly looking pink crank bait and she out-fished both Bob and I with it!

All in all it was a great week, it was great to see Bob and spend some time with him and he made it home to Minnesota no worse for the wear with a and gallon of blue berries and a limit of walleyes and northern pike. Not a lot of pictures this week but those who are interested in seeing pictures of the successful can click on this link to the Pasha Lake website.

Bear and Berries

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Bears and berries go hand in hand as the berries are one of their favorite foods.

I have been spending my days getting the stands sites ready. With the season opening this Friday and almost 35 hunters coming during the season, there is a lot of work to be done. Bears must be located, sites prepped and stands set. Trail cameras are a huge asset when determining where to set stand locations. If the cameras shows no bear activity or a sow and cubs in the area, we move to another area. It is really interesting to see what shows up on cameras in addition to bears, so far this year I have captured pictures of wolves, skunks, rabbits, weasels, eagles, vultures and countless flying squirrels. The interesting thing about these squirrels is that they are most active at night. At some sites there may be over 1000 pictures with 980 being squirrels and the remaining 20 being bear and other critters.

I did have one melancholy moment while reviewing some of the data on the trail cameras from last season. While clearing and deleting the pictures from last year I ran across a picture of my dog Bailey who passed away in April. She was my constant companion last year while preparing sites, she would ride in my Jeep and 4 wheeler wherever I went and I have really missed her this year. Not a day goes by this time of year that I don’t think of her and miss her companionship.

My best friend Bailey on a bear site last year

 In addition to trail cameras there is a lot of other signs one can look for when looking for bear. The most obvious are seeing a bear either in person or on a trail camera but there are several other ways to determine if there are bear in a particular area. Tracks, seeing their scat and scratching posts not only tell you if there are bears in the area, they also can tell you the general size of the bear. The other day when I was driving down a deserted logging road I came across a very fresh scratching post. Big boars will often use scratching posts to mark their territory and warn other bears that this is their area and off limits to other bears. This particular post was a poplar tree about 16’ tall and 12” around. This bear had actually broken this tree in ½ about 10’ above the ground. Whatever bear did this was one mean bear with a bad attitude! I stopped to take some pictures of the tree and when I got back into my Jeep to start it up, all I heard was “click, click, click”….. I tried for 10 minutes and nothing….I thought, oh great, here I am out in the middle of no where, no one knows where I am , parked next to a mean bears territory marker. I either had to get this Jeep running or start walking the 5 miles to the main road that is rarely traveled. I was able to determine that it was either the starter or the battery……….I used my leatherman to disconnect the battery terminals and used a knife to clean the battery and terminals. I reconnected the battery, crossed my fingers and tried to start the Jeep. Whew, it started! I still have 6 more sites to check but I left the Jeep running the entire time. Ends up the rough roads loosened the battery terminals and they had a poor connection to the battery. Ended up being an easy fix for what could have been an intense situation.

A dominant bear's territory marker

He chewed and clawed up this tree

 

These two were dancing for the camera

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Probably the ugliest bird ever!

This guy was growling at something outside camera range

 

A sure sign a bear has been in the area, the bigger the better!

Another close call occurred the other day while I was looking for more bear sites.  I was driving though the bush next to a river when I drove over an underground stream or drainange. On the surface you could not see a thing but just a about 6” below the soil there was an underground channel and when I drove over it with the 4 wheeler down and over I went. It happened so fast there was nothing I could do. Luckily I was not pinned or injured and was able to crawl out the top of the wheeler. I tried uprighting it by hand to no avail but was able to use the winch on front of the wheeler, attach it to a tree and get it on its wheels again.

Well..... at least I got to inspect the under carriage!

Barb made it back on Sunday and it is REALLY good to have her back! Two funny things happened in the first few minutes of her being home……first, Daisy walked right by her and pretty much ignored her when she got home. The second thing was that when Barb walked into the rig and looked around, she turned around, walked out and said she would be back in a few days after I got it cleaned up! It took me about 5 minutes to convince her that I had cleaned up and she should have seen it before! What’s a guy gotta do to have all his hard work appreciated?!?!?!? She had a great time with the kids, put a few hours in at her old job and was able to see a couple of friends while she was in town.

The blueberries are peaking right now, Barb and Michelle have been picking buckets full for pies, muffins and pancakes! So far this I have only seen the pancakes but I think there is a pie in my future!

Barb and Daisy with their bounty

The wolf that had been stealing the garbage here in camp has not been seen for about a week so hopefully it moved on, the rest of this week Barb and I will be putting the final touches on the bear stands in preparation for the first of the hunters who will be arriving over the next couple days.

A family of ducks that posed for us on Northwind the other day

 

 

Wolves, Bears and being Barbless

Where to start……..so much has happened. Well, a good place to start is to mention the fact that after two months in Canada Barb has had enough and she left me……….Not only did she leave me, she left Daisy too!!!!! Before you get too alarmed, she will be back as she is spending a few weeks with our kids in Salt Lake. She has been gone about 10 days and has 10 more until she returns. I have come to the conclusion that I would not make a very good bachelor. The trailer is a mess and it is starting to smell like a locker room. Luckily she will never know what a mess it is as I will have it cleaned up before she gets back!

My meals have been somewhat lacking, two nights ago I had some Dorito’s and beer for supper, it does not get any better than that! Well actually it does, as last night one of the groups that come up every year invited me over for a rib eye dinner with baked potatoes and corn on the cob! In addition, Chad’s wife, Michelle has been kind enough to make me dinner and breakfast a few times

Last week a friend of mine, Tom Mabry, came up camping with his wife Sandy for the week. Although I was not able to get out fishing with them, it was really good to see them and hang out with them in the evenings (and eat dinner with them!). They had another couple with them along with their son and two daughters ranging from 19-11.  They had a great week and caught lots of fish. Daisy made a new friend in Reagan who was nice enough to watch her while I was out during the days.  I was really impressed by each of the kids, it was cool to see such good kids and a truly great family.

Raelin and Colton with a nice stringer



Jim with a Northwind walleye

Reagan with a 13" perch

 

Before Barb left she and Michelle had been getting up at 6:30 every morning and running 3-4 miles. They have been very devoted running weekdays for several weeks. This is a pretty big feat given the fact that Barb is deathly afraid of bears. Although they see bear sign while running they have not seen any actual bears but there was a bear sighting by a fisherman on the driveway two weeks ago. Since then Barb has been wearing her bear bell while running so any bears hear them coming. We have been teasing her that the bear bell is actually like a dinner bell for the bears so she is more likely to attract bears rather than scare them away!

Speaking of bears, the bear season opens in two weeks and we have been ready putting up trail cameras and getting stands ready. Bears as well as other creatures are starting to show up at the stands. It is amazing what you will catch on cameras out in the woods!

A bear with a stripe down it's back????

A young collared wolf at one of the bear sites

I was able to get out fishing twice with two couples; one from Minnesota and one from Thousand Oaks California. It is always interesting to meet new people, especially those from so far apart and learn how they are connected. These two were high school friends who were separated due to their careers and had a Canadian fishing trip on their bucket list. We went to both Northwind and Onaman and had two great days of fishing. One of them also had a goal of catching a 25+” walleye which we were able to cross of his list during our trip to Onaman

During a recent trip to Thunder Bay Barb and Michelle stopped by the suspension bridge. They said is was pretty interesting and took some beautiful pictures.

CJ at the suspension bridge

Probably the most interesting thing of the past week is a wolf that has decided to take up residence in camp. He has made several appearances over the past few days stealing garbage out of the trash cans and leaving piles around the camp marking his territory. There is a reason for concern as wolves typically want nothing to do with humans and this one does not seem to be afraid of us.  It is a pretty big wolf that appears to be an older and probably is not able to hunt on its own. As a result the kids and dogs are not allowed to wander the camp until it goes away. I tried to take a picture of one of the tracks with Daisy’s to the right of it. It is hard to see but you get an idea of how big the track is. Daisy on the other hand thinks she is bigger and wanted to run into the woods when she smelled the tracks and got on it's scent. We have keeping her on a short leash as she would make a nice little appetizer for this guy!

Garbage Stealing Wolf!

Wolf print on left, Daisy print on right