Bach'ing it in North Dakota

Well,….Barb left me. Gone, just a cloud of dust down the gravel road.... Most of you are thinking; “It’s about time!”. It’s not like she has not done it before, but this time she took the truck, the rig and Daisy. She just left me with the Jeep, a pile of clothes and hopefully enough food to get me through a few weeks. She is on her very first solo trip to Rapid City where she is going to meet up with our daughter Jessica and two of our grandkids Dylan and Kendall. Jessica is flying into Rapid City then the four of them are going to spend a week in the Black Hills and traveling back to Salt Lake where I will HOPEFULLY meet up with her in a few weeks. I have heard from her a few times, it sounds like they are having fun and she has gotten good at setting up the rig all by herself. I told her to take lots of pictures so she can blog about her adventure.

Meanwhile back at the ranch…… I have moved into a 5^th wheel they have in their shed. By shed I mean airplane hangar, this thing is huge! You could probably fit a dozen of our rigs in here and both end walls lift up just like airplane hangars.


My new home for the next couple of weeks

There are dozens of things to do around here at a given time. I have a lot of respect for these guys and what they do day in and day out, literally working from sunrise to sunset no days off. You can tell they have passion and love this lifestyle. I have been helping where I can. The other day we had 60+mph winds that knocked a bunch of trees into their fields so I spent a day on the tractor pushing them back into the woods.

On another day, I had a “harrowing” experience.  Harrowing is a method of tilling up a harvested field. In this case I was harrowing and dumping flax stubble. When the flax is harvested, the combine separates the seed from the rest of the plant (stubble) and drops it back on the ground. Flax stubble is not used for anything else so once it is raked into rows it is burned so the field is ready for the next planting in the spring.

 

The harrow itself is 70’ wide and one thing I learned pretty quickly is that you have to watch the outside tires when you are turning corners. Many of the fields are bordered with trees and Bob’s parting words after he showed me what to do were; “Don’t hit a tree”…….Well you can probably guess what happened. About half way through my 3^rd field, I was turning around….. I thought I had enough room, really I did….next thing I knew the outside wheel was sideways instead of facing forward! If you happened to hear a lot of screaming swear words in the wind last week, well that was me. I did not take any pictures as at the time it was not funny but after a few hours we had removed the wheel, welded the mount back to the harrow and I was back in business.  Both Bob and Chris said that #hit happens and not to sweat it…..ya right.

We proved that analogy true again a few days later when we burned the stubble rows. We picked a nice quite day with no wind and everything was going great. There were about 24 rows approximately 1/4 mile each, we would light the rows in several places and they burned hot for 15-20 minutes then they settled down and you just had to watch the edges and put anything out that crept near the ditches or swamps. We had one area spread and was heading towards a ditch which took about 20 minutes to control when we were done with that we saw another area on the other end of the field had made its way into a cattail swamp. We rushed over there with the water truck but quickly ran out of water and the swamp was still a blazing! Luckily one side of the fire was heading to an area with water so we concentrated on the other end so it would not spread the other way. After about 45 minutes we had it under control but were covered with soot. No pictures of the actual fire as we were a little busy.

Flax row

Drone view

This is what happens when the fire gets away from you.....

I continue to be amazed by what shows up on the trail cameras that we put out. In addition to deer, we have gotten pictures of coyote, fox, skunks, raccoons, pheasants but by far the most unusual thing we have gotten on camera so far…..a moose! I find it bizarre that this historically woodland creature is wandering the flat farm country of north central North Dakota but they often see moose in the area.

Farm country moose!

Another nice buck caught on camera

Life without Barb has been pretty lonely. There is no TV in the trailer so I have been reading a lot. A good friend of mine gave me a series of books by William Kent Krueger. He writes predominantly about crime mystery based in northern Minnesota and is very good. The problem is I only grabbed 4 books thinking I would read one a week but I am burning through one every other day. I did notice a 2016 Legacy Seed guide in the office, I might read that next!

With luck Barb will still be in Salt Lake when I get there. But if you happen to see a white GMC pulling a Cardinal 5^th wheel with a beautiful woman driving and a funny looking puggle next to her anywhere south of Salt Lake please shoot me an email…..she is probably trying to ditch me!

Fall in North Dakota

With scenes right out of a Terry Redlin painting, there is something magical about north central North Dakota in the fall. There are no significant parks, monuments or rock formations, no scenic overlooks…….just the raw beauty of the land, the never ending farm fields, abandoned homesteads scattered across the prairie and skies and potholes filled with waterfowl. 

We arrived at the Finken/Sobieck farm on September 30^th anxious to catch up with old friends and hit the fields for some waterfowl hunting and field work. Bob and Deanna Finken and Chris and Holly Sobieck own and operate 4,000+ acres outside of Douglas North Dakota. We have known Chris since he was born some 28 years ago and met Bob and Deanna when he married Holly a few years ago. It has been a full year since we have seen them and time to catch up.

Our home for the next few weeks

See our rig way in the back along the grain bins?

We love visiting them this time of year and there is no shortage of waterfowl or work and we got plenty of both! We duck hunted the first 4 days with Chris’ brother-in-lay Dylan, his dad Bob and his good friend Brian. We ended up getting quite a variety of ducks; mallards, widgeon, pintail, teal, red heads, scaup, and gadwall. We also put up some trail cameras and set some stands for bow hunting….they have some monster bucks in the area!



Sunrise in a ND wheat field





Looks like we are having duck for dinner!



This deer wanted to take a selfie!



I would love to see this one in person

While the boys were in the fields, Deanna invited Barb to the local theatre in Garrison to see the band
"GreenMan" out of Minot, ND.  Their music is in the traditional Celtic music of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Brittany.  That was something that she had never been to before!

We also took an hour drive over towards Kief, ND to visit our friends Dan and Jeanie Sobieck (Chris' uncle). They own and operate Prairie Smoke Ranch, an upland bird and waterfowl hunting operation. We last saw them when we visited them last February in Dunnellon Florida where they have a great winter home. With waterfowl season in full swing they had a full camp with 9 dogs and hunters from across the country. Although the visit was way too short, it was great to see them.

When the fun is done, there is work to do…. The great part about this work is that it is fun as well! There is plenty of field work to do. They raise of variety of crops on the farm; wheat, canola, pea, flax and barley to name a few. They had harvested pretty much everything before we arrived but there is still plenty of work to do in the fields. Barb and I spent hours in the tractor working the fields getting them ready for next year. I absolutely love being in the tractor! You see a variety of wildlife while in the field; deer, coyotes, fox, partridge, pheasants, grouse as well as hawks which see the tractors and an opportunity for an easy meal. The hawks have learned to hover right behind the tractor waiting for mice that are exposed after the field is worked over. They dive down and grab the live ones as they scatter or feast on the ones that were not quick enough to get out of the way of the equipment. It is amazing how they learned that the tractor is an opportunity for an easy meal.



Looking forward..........



.....and back



Tractor Selfie!

Not everyone appreciates the beauty of this landscape, some people just see fields and abandoned houses but there is  beauty and wonder everywhere. You cannot help but look at the abandoned homesteads and wonder about the early settlers, what life must have been like and what it must have been like to live in such a raw environment.

 

We are looking forward to our time here, spending time in the tractor, in the duck and deer blinds and visiting with our North Dakota friends........more to come!
 

Our 506 Mile Journey

When we last left you we were “Feeling Minnesota” depressed and frustrated with ongoing issues with the emissions system on our 2013 GMC diesel dually. Our truck is in the shop for the 7^th time in less than 2,500 miles and it seemed like the service dealers were throwing fixes at it to see if something would stick. Don’t get me wrong, they are all very nice and were working with GMC engineers directly to try and fix it. This round the truck had been in shop 5 days and we were anxious to hit the road. We were already 5 days late on our journey to North Dakota to help some good friends of ours with farm work along with some duck and deer hunting. Barb tenaciously called GMC Customer Service and worked with local dealer to find us a new truck if it came to that. We did not expect great or immediate results from GMC but we at least wanted to get ball rolling.

On the up side this delay afforded us the time to see more of our family. We were going to miss seeing my sister Judy as she was out of town but she returned last weekend and we were able to watch the Vikings game with her on Sunday. Go Vikes, they won! Then on Tuesday we were able to get together with two more of my sisters Carol and Becky for lunch. So in some ways this delay was a blessing in disguise.

Determined not to let this delay get us down Barb and I spent one afternoon doing some adventuring around the area. Taylor’s Falls is the home of Interstate Park, a beautiful park along the bluffs of the St. Croix River. The park boasts glacial pot holes. These potholes were formed as the glaciers receded and a truly magnificent wonders of nature with holes up to 60 feet deep.

This is the 60' hole

You can see the water at the bottom of this one

A shot of the river, the leaves are just starting to change

We also went to Dancing Dragonfly one of the local wineries with Bob and Greta for Greta's birthday! We had never been there before and we did a tasting of 5 of their wines. I tried several of the reds while Barb opted for the sweeter whites. We ended up buying two of the whites, one of which was a dessert wine that tastes like chocolate covered cherries.

Happy Birthday Greta!

Shot of one of the vineyard areas

On Tuesday afternoon we received a call from the dealer saying that the truck was ready. This time they replaced the negative battery cable connected to the diesel exhaust fluid system. Who knew one even existed! With high hopes we hooked up at 5:00pm and drove 70 miles to the Cabela’s in Rogers Minnesota. We at least wanted to be on the outskirts of the Twin Cities and avoid the rush hour traffic the next morning. We made that 76 mile trip without warning lights coming on, further than we made it in our last couple attempts!

The next morning we continued our journey to the Douglas ND area. Let me tell you, there is a lot of anxiety driving a truck that you have lost confidence in. Barb was tense and almost sick to her stomach as she drove the truck just waiting for the inevitable….the dreaded warning light. Mile after mile we drove northwest on I-94. 100 miles, 200 miles, 300 miles, we just might make it! We typically try to keep our travel days to 4-5 hours max but we just wanted to get there so we decided to drive the entire 8 hours if it would let us....400 miles, finally.... 506 miles!. Physically and emotionally exhausted we pulled into our friends farm about 5:00pm, we made it! No one was home when we got arrived, they were all at work or out in the fields. They slowly arrived throughout the evening, it was great seeing everyone again and we are looking forward to the next few weeks with them.......I don’t think we have ever been happier to arrive at a location!

Feeling Minnesota

For you non-Minnesotan’s "Feeling Minnesota" is defined as “Feeling Depressed, Humdrum and you can now add frustrated to this definition. When we started our RV’ing adventure we wanted a truck and 5^th wheel that we could rely on and hopefully have few and minor mechanical issues which is why we bought both of them new. Over the past 18 months we have only had minor issues with the 5^th wheel and no issues with the truck……that is until recently. Over the past few months Barb has taken two trips down to Minnesota to visit friends each time she had truck problems. Warning lights came on indicating the Diesel Exhaust system needed service. When this happens the system limits the trucks speed and warns you the message 99 Miles to 65mph Max Speed. After 99 miles the message changes to 75 Miles to 55mph Max Speed. This is usually taken care of by adding DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) but this did not take care of the problem.  Luckily Barb was close to her destination both times this happened and she was able to get the truck into the dealer and have it worked on. In both cases they replaced sensors and glow plugs and took care of the problem……or so we thought.

With everything packed up we left Pasha Lake when a few miles down the road…bam Service Diesel Exhaust System 99 Miles to 65mph Max Speed. Oh crap, here we are on a 400+ mile journey in Canada with truck problems. We made it to Thunder Bay with several miles left on the first warning and decided to keep going. Soon the 55mph hour max speed warning came on but we were committed and kept on truck'in hoping to get back into the U.S. and find a GMC dealer. We had never seen the warning after the 55mph one…..until now. 75 Miles to 4mph Max Speed. Luckily we were only a couple miles outside of Two Harbors Minnesota and there was a GM dealer in town. We pulled the rig into the dealership, unhooked and they took the truck into the garage. A couple hours later they told us they took care of the issues by “Regenerating the system” and clearing the codes. After hooking back up Barb was driving through the parking lot when…..70 miles to 4mph Max Speed. Ugh!!!! Since it was already late in the day, we found a campground, unhooked and headed back to the dealer and dropped off the truck. Since it was Wednesday we hoped they could fix it before the weekend as we had plans to visit friends and family.

Our Pasha Lake home.....see you in '17!

Thursday morning we received a call from the dealer saying they think it is the glow plug monitor and have ordered one which will arrive in 3-5 days…..unless we wanted to pay $35 for overnight shipping…..ah yeah!

We had driven through Two Harbors dozens of times but never stopped so we figured we may as well do a little exploring. It is really a cool little town!  We drove down to the harbor, as luck would have it there was a huge freighter pulling. The Cason J. Callaway was built in 1952 and is 767 feet long. It was very impressive to see this behemoth pull into port and the way they maneuvered it into the dock. I don’t know what they were picking up but my guess is taconite which seems to be the prevalent industry in the area. There were piles (hills really) of taconite pellets along the shore way which and is used to make iron.

 

About 2:00 on Friday we received a call from the dealer saying that the part had arrived, we should be on the road within the hour and it is again covered under the emissions warranty. Great news! A little after 3:00 we were hooked up and pulling out of the campground when…..yup ….99 Miles to 65mph Max Speed…..you have got to be freaking kidding me!!!!! Well if everything holds true we should be able to make it to the 160 miles to my brothers in Taylors Falls without hitting the 4mph limit. On the drive down Barb called the GMC dealer in Stillwater to get an appointment for Monday morning while I called our favorite car dealer to see what it would take to get us into a new truck.

We arrived at my brothers without incident and got set up in his cul-de-sac, said a quick hello and retired to our trailer. Barb did some research on diesel exhaust issues with GMC trucks and found 135 pages of people having the same issues that we are….none of which had a definitive solution…..great (now feeling even more Minnesota).



There are certainly worse places to be stranded!



With the truck in the shop we spent a few days visiting friends/family as well as dentist, doctor, hair (Barb) appointments and our financial guy. Good news, we can keep on truck’in! One of the highlights was meeting our friends Kevin and Cathy at the Wolf Creek Bar in Cushing, WI. They were on a trail ride and met us at the bar with their horses. When we were done with lunch Barb and Cathy rode the horses back the hour and a half back to their trailer while Kevin and I had a few more beers.

Finally we received the call we had been waiting for….the truck is ready. This time rather than replacing the glow plug monitor they replaced the connector pins and wiring harness, all covered under the warranty. This is really the first vehicle issues we have had while on the road learning how it can stop you dead in your tracks and bringing on a new level of frustration. Hopefully this does the trick! So with our fingers crossed and no longer feeling Minnesota, pointed the truck NW and headed to North Dakota but not before stopping along the way to see our good friends Tom and Shelly who live on the western edge of the Twin Cities. We had a great visit with them with some killer ribeye’s and ended up spending the night in their guestroom.

The next morning we were off to ND with vision of ducking hunting in our heads! About 20 minutes down the road all of those dreams fell from the sky when the display on the truck read “Transitioning to 65mph Max Speed”. We had made it about 100 miles since picking it up from the dealer….so we turn around, head back to my brothers and Barb gets on the phone with the dealer. They cannot see the truck until Monday, 4 days…. To be continued…….



Farewell to Canada

Our Ontario adventure has come to an end and we are back on the road! Actually it is bittersweet, we really enjoyed our summer at Pasha Lake Cabins and will truly miss Chad, Michelle and all our other local and “weekly” friends up there.

Bear season ended on a high note going 8 for 9 and 9 for 9 the last two weeks, one of which was a monster topping the scale at 513#’s! Needless to say there were a lot of late nights skinning and processing bears. One of the last groups was the Herman crew from Illinois. They are a great group of guys who own a resort/campground and produce the TV show LakeLife on the DIY network. Everyone in their group got a bear but in my opinion the highlight was Norm who shot his out of a ground blind at 3 yards. He did not even know it was there until he heard it breathing 6’ away from him!

Barb even got in on the action! 

 We had to track a couple of bears that the hunters did not find right away, this can be both scary and dangerous. I can tell you from experience you do not want to walk up on an angry black bear after dark armed only with a flashlight! I had suggested to Barb that we could use Daisy as a tracking dog, we could just put her on the scent trail and if she came back we knew the bear was dead and if she doesn’t come back…….well, you get the picture. Barb failed to see the humor….

Before we left, my friend Joe and Greg came up for a few days of fishing. Joe has been up several times while this is Greg’s first time to the area. They spent their first day on Onaman Lake, I was not able to join them as I was fishing with a group from Toronto. When they got back to camp the smile on Greg’s face said it all. The first words out of his mouth were “I have never caught so many walleye’s over 20”’s!”. Day two of their visit was spent on Northwind Lake, although we did not catch a lot of big fish, the numbers were there. The next day we booked the “Pasha Lake Dream Trip”. This takes place on Lake Nipigon for monster walleyes and northern pike. Lake Nipigon is huge, 70 miles long and 50 miles wide! This is not a lake you take a 16 fishing boat with a 15hp motor so we chartered with one of the local guides. After a 40 minute boat ride we arrived at our first location on the Jackfish River. I am not exaggerating when I say you caught 18” - 20”walleye as fast as you could get your jig in the water. Too be honest it gets a little boring after a while as there is no challenge so when Gus asked if we wanted to move and try for some trophies we were all in!

We moved to the mouth of the river where the walleyes were not only bigger they had a beautiful blue tint to them. If fact, Greg caught his personal best at 27 ½ “’s! Next it was time for big pike! Being guys we had to try and outdo each other and see who could catch the biggest fish. Joe started it off with three in a row all over 36”’s. Greg took the lead with a nice 37 and then it was my turn with a 39 ½ . We each caught several more fish between 35 and 38 and it looked like I was going to have bragging right until Joe boated at 40 ½ ! Oh well, even if I don’t have bragging rights we still had a great day on the water.

Greg with a 27 1/2

Check out the blue tint on Joe's walleye

I had the lead for a while with this 39 1/2

 

So with our adventures behind, us Barb and I spent our last day there packing up while Joe and Greg went fishing. It is amazing how much stuff you amass when you are in one spot for several months.

Next up…. Ducks, bucks and working the farm fields of  North Dakota…..

Black Bear Ontario Style!

Our adventure continues in the outback of Ontario. We have been camped at Pasha Lake Cabins for 13 weeks and will be here for a few more. The past few weeks have been all about the upcoming bear season with limited fishing. Clearing logging roads, getting bait sites prepped and getting trail cameras up for the much anticipated August 15^th opener! The trail cameras are used to determine what is coming into the site. If there is a sow with cubs in the area that site is abandoned and not hunted. This link will take you to Pasha Lake’s website for a view of some of the trail camera images. There are definitely some huge bear out there!!!!!

This guy will go well over 300#'s

The first week of the season found 18 hunters in camp and is somewhat of a homecoming for the regular hunters up here. Many of them have become good friends and this is the one week of the year we get to see them. The first night was hot and humid with temps in the 80’s. Typically the bear will be more active after dark when it is a little cooler so we did not have high expectations for the night. We could not have been more wrong when the first hunter returned to camp a little after 4:00pm reporting they had shot a huge bear! So Barb and I jumped in the truck (along with a few others) to go recover the bruin. The hunter was a teenage girl on her first bear hunt. She was set up in a ground blind (camouflaged tent) with her dad when the bear walked within 20 yards. She made a great shot which made for an easy recovery (if easy can even be used when talking about recovering bear). Father and daughter could not have been happier! In my opinion, harvesting an animal is secondary to time with family and friends....making memories, continuing traditions and just being out in  nature. Those two certainly have memories they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

One happy hunter!

We arrived back in camp to discover yet another hunter had been successful, by the end of the night there were 6 bears in camp (a new one night camp record) and a lot of happy hunters. The work does not stop once the bears are back in camp, due to the warm temperatures they need to be processed immediately. It is not uncommon to be processing bears until 2-3:00 in the morning and this night was no exception. The following night was equally has hot and equally has successful, another 6 bears down! For the week the camp went 18 for 18, not a bad first week! Follow this link for a peek at a few of the harvested bear.

If this keeps up we are in for some long days and short nights for the 3 remaining weeks!

Bear Tales

The black bear is often called the Black Ghost as they move through the woods in stealth like silence often seen well before they are heard. It is a wonder how animals this large can move through the woods in virtual silence while a tiny little chipmunk sounds like a freight train on the forest floor.

The bear sightings here seem to at an all-time high which leads me to believe that the bear population is very healthy this year. Most of the sightings are your typical see bear on road, bear runs off road while others are a little more unusual. Last week two of the guests here had unusual encounters; the first involved a group of fisherman who were preparing shore lunch on an island last week. Islands are usually great places for shore lunches as they typically have less bugs and usually void of wildlife to annoy you. The lunch itself went without incident and they went back to fishing but a short time later when they looked back at the island they had just left, there was a bear eating the fish carcasses they had left on the shore after cleaning their fish! Another group was in their boat fishing another lake when they heard some splashing in the water near them. They looked over to see a cow moose running into the water and swimming across the lake. The cow was followed by a calf and the calf was followed by a large bear. Adult moose are too big for a black bear to take down but the calves themselves are very vulnerable. Unless the adult moose is already down……..I encountered this bear feeding on a road kill moose the other day. It was feeding away as I drove by but once I turned around to take a picture, it backed off a little…… probably to see if I was going to steal his meal!

That is a pretty big meal!

All these sightings made me think of some of the more intense bear encounters Barb and I have had over the years. Barb is deathly afraid of bears and has only gone out hunting with me a few times. Most of her bear encounters are in her dreams. For more years than I can remember she has had repeated dreams where she attacked by bears. I wonder what a dream analyst would have to say about that. A few years ago we were in northern Wisconsin preparing a bear stand. As we were in the tree Barb thought she heard something in the brush. As we were sitting there in silence trying to decipher the noise we heard the distinct sound of a bear “popping” its jaws. Jaw popping is one of the tactics that bears use to try intimidate things (other bears, people, wolves……) out of a particular area. As we were sitting there, we never saw the bear but we could hear circling us popping away. I looked over at Barb and there were tears running down her cheeks! I felt so bad, I started making a lot of noise to scare it away.

Last year I wrote about a hunter who returned to camp saying that he had gotten a nice bear. Several of us went out to recover the bear after dark and we when pulled up on our 4 wheelers wolves started howling……(click here for the full story)

On another occasion I was helping another hunter track his bear through the brush. This particular bear had crossed a river twice and went into some of the densest brush I have ever seen. I had to get on my hands and knees and crawl into the brush to continue to track it. I was crawling through the brush looking for sign on the ground expecting to find a dead bear at the end of the trail but after about 20 yards I looked up and was face to face with a very alive bear at 10 feet! You have never seen someone back out of a brush hole as fast I did on that day!

But by far my scariest encounter happened while hunting with my brother Bob several years ago in northern Wisconsin. I was hunting with my bow while he was just along for the experience. It was just before dark and we were in tree stand watching and had several smaller bears within the sight when the woods exploded when a huge bear ran into the area and scared all the other bears off. Bob and I looked at each other wide-eyed not believing what we had just saw and knowing that this is the dominate bear we had been waiting for. It was just before dark and I released an arrow when the bear presented a good shot. After the shot the bear ran off. After a few minutes it was completely dark and I climbed down the tree, flashlight in hand to find my arrow and see what kind of sign I could find.

As I was searching the ground Bob yelled “Jim you better get back here, here it comes!” I ran back to the tree and scrambled back up as fast as I could. As soon as I reached the tree stand the bear charged the tree and pounded the ground with his front paws and let out a large “woof” noise. It was so dark at this point that Bob and I could not even see each other a foot away let alone an angry bear 10 feet below us. Terrified Bob and I sat in the tree discussing our next move while the bear sat below us “popping” its jaws. We decided to wait it out in the hopes that the bear would tire of this game and leave. We tried yelling at the bear, no luck. On two occasions he walked off a ways only to run back and charge the tree again pound the ground and woof. So there we sat in a tree in the dark with a pissed off bear a few feet below us.

Bob had brought a pistol in case we needed it and it was becoming painfully apparent that we were going to need to use it. The problem was that although we could hear the bear we could not see it to make a good shot. So instead of risking wounding the bear we decided to shoot into the ground near the bear. After all, no sensible bear would stick around with someone shooting at it right? Wrong……as soon as Bob shot into the ground the bear changed the tree and pounded the ground again! Resolved to the fact that we may be in the tree all night we sat back and waited for sunrise. We could still hear the bear circling us in the brush, sometimes close, sometimes a short distance off.

After about 2 hours we could hear him walk off and all went silent. Did he really leave or was he just waiting in the distance to see what we would do? After discussing our options we decided to get down out of the tree and head for the truck about ½ mile through the woods. I knew I could not outrun the bear but I knew I could outrun my brother if it came down to it! As soon as we hit the ground we started running. I had the only flashlight and I remember Bob saying that he could not see anything, so I ran with the flashlight pointed over my shoulder as we made our way through the woods. It was not until we were safe in the truck with the door closed that we felt safe. We sat there in the truck for a few minutes catching our breath and then started laughing and saying “Holy sh#t”.

You would think that is the end of the story but I two days later I was back in the same tree stand (alone, go figure) when I saw a bear walking through the woods. The bear circled the area and then walked directly up to my tree and looked up at me! It was him! I had my video equipment with me and was able to get some footage of him.  I started to question my decision to come back to this stand when he turned and offered me a shot. This time the arrow flew true and I breathed a sigh of relief.

This is the bruiser that had Bob and I treed two days earlier

Morale of this story……if you are going to go bear hunting try to take someone you can outrun…..just in case.

On the fishing front, good friend and former co-worker Rob came up for a few days this week. We got out several times and had very good fishing. Barb and I also made a video of our latest trip to Onaman which includes some of the best fishing we have had on this lake.

This guy stopped by the rig to say hi

Rob and a nice Northwind walleye