Sports

 My toughest client is my teenage son, Coleman- his friends call him Cole.  Now, you might say taking a kid fishing doesn't count as guiding, but you couldn't be further from the truth.  Taking a teenaged kid fishing is the best practice a guide can get, especially when its your teenaged kid, as they know pretty much everything and don't need your help.

I don't know what the biological mechanism responsible for this is called, but my parents call it karma.  

The spring sucker run is going in full force, and I figured it would be a great way for Cole to have some fun catching fish while I practiced teaching a new nymphing technique I learned from John.  He picked it up quick and put a half dozen suckers in the net. There was a group of bait fishermen walking down the bank while he was releasing the last and I could tell he was being overly dramatic with his movements and sounds to make sure they knew he had just caught a fish.  Smirking, I asked, "What the hell are you doing?"  He knew he was busted and laughed.   

On the drive home he said, "Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I bring a friend fishing with us sometime?"

"Sure!  Just make sure they think we're fishing the Au Sable."

"I know, all my friends at school already think thats always where we go." 

Insert proud dad emoticon face here.

The arrival of bugs means I'm on the water every day now.  I started out the other morning getting skunked chasing steelhead.  After losing a couple dozen flies to submerged timber, I reeled it in and swung over to the Au Sable to see if the brook trout were finished hibernating yet.  They were, and despite not having any significant bug activity, they were looking up.  Sometimes they'd take on a dead drift, but most fish would chase the fly down after I gave it more cow bell-- a small twitch, or a big twitch that would actually pull the fly under momentarily before the albolene made it slowly resurface.   

I took my daughter's prom pictures that evening, went grocery shopping with my wife, and then put the boat in on the mainstream for the first mousing trip of the year with Chad.  Mousing is best in late summer, and other than the date on the calendar, it felt exactly like a summer night- minus the mosquitoes.  Air temps above 50-degrees.  You could smell campfire smoke in the air- possibly from the forest fire north of St. Helen.  We drank a summer micro-brew and listened to spring peepers.  Every now and then, you'd hear what sounded like a nice fish rise.  I'd drop anchor and we'd sit and wait for the fish to go again so we could pinpoint its location, but there just weren't many bugs on the water for the fish to feed on, so that second rise never came.  

Chad did end up missing a fish blind casting a stimulator, and had one fish just below a log jam go after his mouse.  Go after is kind of an understatement, that fish just plain blew that mouse up.  Everytime a fish takes a mouse is an adrenaline rush, but the first mouse attach of the year is always the best.  We've been waiting 8-months for that fish.  Under the light of the full moon, I could see Chad's eyes explode open as he set the hook and yelled, "Holy shit!"  

"I never felt him!" He said.

"I'm gonna bring you back around for another shot." I said, while circling the boat away from the fish and back upstream.

"You ever get them to go again?" He asked.

"Usually no, but sometimes."  But not this time.  

We finished out the float and I got home about 3:30am, simultaneously wide awake and so tired I felt drunk.

Do all the Good you Can: Remembering Dave Smethurst

The following story was first published in winter 2022 edition of The Riverwatch, the quarterly newsletter of The Anglers of the Au Sable.

I’m sitting in the passenger seat of Dave Smethurst’s minivan. We are cruising through a series of sharp, bumpy curves in the heart of the Pigeon River Country State Forest. It hasn’t rained in a week, and when we stop at Hardwood Creek a plume of dust from the dirt road catches up to us and envelopes the minivan. Dave offers me a pink wintergreen lozenge, you know, those cheap candies you get at the gas station that come in a clear bag that proudly proclaims they’re two for a dollar. They taste like Pepto Bismol and Dave loves them.

It’s within this dissipating dust cloud that Dave points downstream at the creek, maybe 10-feet wide, and tells me the story of catching his first trout.

“One of my fondest memories was a time that my dad and I came here about a month after we moved here from Indiana in 1969. My dad was a lifetime bass fisherman and we were just riding around- to some places I had never been- and we saw this little flicker of water through the woods which turned out to be Hardwood Creek. We walked down to it where what I later learned were two of the holding ponds for a fish hatchery that Blue Lakes Ranch operated back in the day. I flicked my spinning rod with a rubber plastic night crawler in and caught a fish, not very long, and had never seen one before. I asked my dad, “What’s this?” He said, “You know, I think I’ve seen that on the cover of a sporting magazine like Field & Stream. I think that’s a trout!” It was, and so my first trout we didn’t even know was a trout.”

Dave takes a swig of Pepsi and smiles, “And I caught it on a plastic worm.”

*

Dave was an Indiana native who landed in the Gaylord area by accident. On the way to an interview for a teaching job in Saint Ignace, Dave and his wife, Sue, stopped at Sue’s hometown of Hillman, Michigan to visit with her family. Dave was reading the local paper one morning and saw an ad for a caretaker and cook at the Blue Lakes Ranch, a 3,500 acre hunting and fishing club, in the heart of what would later become the Pigeon River Country State Forest.

Dave was intrigued by the job and so he and Sue decided to take a break from the teaching world and give the caretaker gig three years. “Three years turned into twelve, and it was a wonderful time,” Dave once told me. He got to raise a family in paradise.

In-between his caretaker duties, Dave honed his trout fishing, taking up fly fishing and teaching himself to fish for brook trout in the Black River, which formed the eastern border of the property.

At the same time, a storm was brewing. Shell Oil Company had drilled several exploratory wells in the area and was making plans to drill. Oil and gas development began in the forest in July 1970 and a heated series of legal battles followed. A group of concerned citizens, outdoorspeople and environmentalists came together in 1971 as the Pigeon River Country Association (PRCA), of which Dave was a founding member.

At the time, the Pigeon River Country State Forest (PRC) didn’t exist. What we now know as the PRC was, at the time, four separate forest areas, with four managers, and four different management ideologies. Oil companies were damaging the area, so the PRCA began doing presentations, started lawsuits and attended hearings.

As the fight progressed, Dave got a tip from a member of the Michigan legislature that the oil and gas companies were likely going to win the battle, as there was an oil embargo, and it was politically unpopular to restrict drilling. It became clear to Dave that drilling was inevitable.

That’s when Dave and his team switched strategies. Instead of fighting to keep the oil and gas operations out of the PRC entirely, they reached a compromise which allowed drilling under tightly regulated conditions. These conditions were eventually adopted throughout the state and are still in effect today. Among them were regulations and orders that allowed only the southern one-third of the Pigeon River Country State Forest to be explored for oil, while the northern two-thirds cannot be drilled. Restrictions were also placed on how close to a stream oil companies could install wells.

The legal battles lasted around five years and went all the way up to the Michigan State Supreme Court where Dave testified. During his testimony, he read Robert Traver’s (pen name of Judge John Voelker) “Testament of a Fisherman” word for word in its entirety.

Dave felt very strongly that the compromise paid off. Surface impact was reduced by 75-percent. You can drive through the PRC today and you don’t know you’re driving through the middle of an oil field. Even today there are people who think Dave and his team should have never compromised, but that would have likely led to a complete loss, and to unregulated oil exploration; for Dave, that wasn’t an option. It’s a modern wildlife success story, the way I and many others look at it.

Perhaps the greatest victory of those compromises was the creation of the Natural Resources Trust Fund, currently valued at over a billion dollars, which uses royalties on the sale and lease of state-owned minerals, primarily oil and gas, to provide a source for funding for public acquisition of land, as well as resource protection and public outdoor recreation.

A few years after the legal fight was over, Dave was at a conservation event attended by Voelker. Voelker was ecstatic when he learned Smethurst was in the building and cornered him to get all of the details of the Pigeon River case. Voelker was on cloud nine when he learned that Dave’s testimony included “The Testament,” particularly because it meant that his essay would have been recorded in the official court record. After Dave recounted everything, Voelker leaned in close to Dave and whispered, “Boy, we sure got those son of a bitches, didn’t we!”

*

Dave went on to Chair the Pigeon River Advisory Council. His newfound love of fly fishing brought him to Trout Unlimited Meetings in Petoskey with the Miller Van Winkle chapter. Not long after, at the suggestion of former The North Woods Call editor, Glenn Sheppard, Dave started efforts to center a new Chapter of Trout Unlimited on the PRC. Headwaters TU was born, and Dave moved up through the TU ranks, eventually becoming the State Chair of Michigan Trout Unlimited, as well as serving as the President of the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy, and the Executive Director of the Headwaters Land Conservancy. He shared riverboat time with George Griffith, the co-founder of Trout Unlimited and one of Dave’s heroes. Somehow, even while wearing these many hats, he founded the Otsego Wildlife Legacy Society and Otsego County’s recycling program.

It seems fitting, doesn’t it, that Dave should serve as the hero of “The Pigeon River Opera,” an original production based on the fight against Shell Oil. “I’m pretty sure there is no other conservationist that can say they had an opera written about them.” Said Greg Walz, former State Chairman of Michigan Trout Unlimited.

*

After his time as caretaker on Blue Lakes Ranch, Dave taught social studies — history and law — at Gaylord High School and held several administrative positions in the school system for over the course of three decades.

“Dave was a natural born leader,” according to Ned Caveney, the first manager of the newly formed Pigeon River Country State Forest. “Dave never lost his cool or let his emotions get the best of him, and he had great people skills. He was a great listener and always tried to find a way forward.”

Paul Rose, current Chairman of the Pigeon River Advisory Council said that Dave, “was also skillful at “bringing people along” to an idea or a position without most people even realizing it. Most of us who encounter someone with a differing opinion or perspective, our tools are limited to those of argument or debate. Dave, on the other hand, would tell you what he believes, and why, without suggesting that you were wrong. Even if he was unsuccessful in changing another’s opinion, this civil manner of discourse was solely grounded in ideas and never became personal - a rare thing today.”

“I feel Dave’s biggest accomplishments were that of an educator-mentor. I’ve combined those two words because in the case of Dave, there was no way to separate them. If he was imparting counsel or sharing his knowledge on a topic, he was doing so to either help you become a better person, better at life or to become better at your passions.” said Rose.

Dave was a mentor for Rusty Gates who Dave knew since Rusty was a teenager. During the fight with the oil and gas industry in the PRC, a young Rusty was instrumental to the team’s success. Dave said, “Rusty was usually the source for getting information we needed to fight the excesses of the oil companies in the Pigeon River Forest. He understood the scientific and legal issues as well as the scientists and lawyers.”

According to Josh Greenberg, “Rusty had these very few people that would come through the shop that he would actually listen to when it came to conservation matters, and Dave was one of them. When Dave walked in, Rusty would always be like, ‘Get this man a coffee.’ Rusty would always reach out to Dave for his thoughts on important matters, and there weren’t many people that he had that level of respect for.”

John Walters was also a protégé of Smethurst, and was introduced to Dave by Rusty. In the early 2000’s, John was going down to Gates Lodge regularly to pick Rusty’s brain about conservation. When John started having questions about Trout Unlimited, Rusty pointed him towards Dave Smethurst.

Walters said of Smethurst, “Dave was always there when I needed him from a mentor perspective, he had a vision for me, and he shared some great leadership tips and skills that I was able to utilize. I had two significant mentors in my life, Rusty and Dave. They gave me the tools to do the great conservation work that we’ve all been able to do in a variety of capacities.”

*

For me personally, I first knew Dave as the vice principal of my school. I was not doing well, scholastically-speaking. I forget the exact numbers, but my junior year I had something like 54 detentions, twenty-something days of in-school suspension, and thirty days out-of-school suspension. After barely graduating, I was thinking about joining the Marines and the recruiter took me up to the high school so we could look at my transcripts. Dave was the guy we talked to, and he said something that changed my life.

After pointing out my grades were either A's or F's, he said I always excelled at whatever I was interested in. If I wasn't good at something, it's because I wasn't interested in it. That made me realize I could be successful at whatever I wanted, almost at will.

Five years or so later I got the fly-fishing bug and went to a fly-tying event hosted by Headwaters TU called “Tie One On,” a cornerstone program for Headwaters TU born from the mind of Dave Smethurst. Of course, Dave was there and took me under his wing, offering to teach me to cast at his house a week later and putting the conservation bug in my ear. Dave was a master of making you think his ideas were your own.

A few years later I was getting a degree in environmental science. A few years after that I was in Dave's passenger seat driving around the Pigeon River Country-- there was nothing better than driving around out there with Dave and listening to his stories, even if you'd already heard them before.

He would drive me around and teach me all about the history of the PRC. Cool stuff like where the last passenger pigeon was seen, and best of all, his secret fishing spots.

I remember asking him why he would share his most secret places with me, and he said he was showing me all of that because he wanted me to be successful on the water so I would love those places as much as he did, ‘cause I was gonna be the Headwaters TU chapter president someday. It was like he just told me I was going to be an astronaut, but ten years or so later, it came to be.

In a very literal way, the Black is my favorite river because it was Dave's favorite river. The Pigeon River Country State Forest is my favorite place in the world because it was Dave’s favorite place in the world.

Dave’s best friend, Dr. Bob Slezak of Gaylord, said that Dave was a jack of all trades, master of most. Dave was not only an expert trout angler, but he also coached golf. One of his biggest passions was fly fishing for bonefish in the Bahamas where he and his wife, Sue, vacationed each year. Dave made ice cream that Ben and Jerry would have tipped their hat to -- and it went really well with Sue’s cherry cobbler.

Dave loved upland bird hunting, particularly behind a good Llewellin setter. He loved daylilies, reading, cooking, traveling, Indiana University basketball and key lime pie. But more than all of that, he loved his family, and he loved the advice of John Wesley, theologist and cleric, which he kept on his desk as a guide on how he wanted to conduct his life.

“Do all the good you can; By all the means you can; In all the ways you can; At all the times you can; As long as ever you can.”

Man did Dave do some good. For me, and – even if you don’t know – for you too.

Dave Smethurst lost his battle with cancer at the age of 74 on November 9th, 2021. During the last 54 years of his life, there wasn’t a major coldwater conservation issue that he didn’t have his fingerprints on. Michigan Trout Unlimited Executive Director, Dr Bryan Burroughs, once told me that Dave was the heart and soul of Michigan Trout Unlimited.

While remembering Dave, Paul Rose said, “From a personal perspective, Dave helped me see that no matter how much you love a place which must be shared with others you must also respect the ideas and opinions that these others bring with them. Dave understood that welcoming new people to a wild place you love was not a threat, but an opportunity – an opportunity to recruit more advocates for this collective vision.”

When you attended a Michigan Trout Unlimited meeting, or a Pigeon River Advisory Council meeting for the first time, Dave would always be one of the first to welcome you and introduce himself. One of those first timers was Greg Walz who went on to become MITU’s Chair. “I think the biggest takeaway I have is that Dave always treated everyone with respect and listened to their arguments, no matter how deeply he may have been opposed to their position. He knew that not only did you have to do the right thing, you had to do it the right way.” said Walz.

Another former state Chair of MITU, John Walters, told me that he would not have been state chair of MITU if it weren’t for Dave. “Dave was a great communicator, there were times when his knowledge, voice and history were needed, and he always delivered. It just impressed me how he was able to time his message.” remembered Walters.

Writer and owner of Gates Au Sable Lodge, Josh Greenberg, said of Smethurst, “Dave is like a quiet little pool in a trout stream.” You know, one of those spots that just looks ordinary until you fish it, “and all of the sudden you’re like, this pool is freaking good! Adding, “He didn’t give that off, which made him really approachable.”

There is a sharp bend on the upper Black that flows through an ancient beaver meadow. It’s a place Dave showed me on one of our PRC adventures. He once told me it was his favorite spot on the whole river.

You sit on an old beaver hut on the inside bend and wait. And while you wait, you will get to see deer and elk browse through the meadow. You’ll see all the big-name trout stream insects depending on the time of year. You’ll hear a kingfisher with its dolphin-like laugh, mocking your fishing abilities as it cruises down the river channel. Once, I had an old, grumpy, one-eyed beaver swim by. And through all that, brook trout will rise, usually two or three at a time. Big ones.

The sun sets to your left over a tree line of mature aspen. And before you know it, the night is over, and you never remembered to cast.

After Dave’s wife Sue passed away in February, I would call him or stop by his house a little more often than normal. He would tell me that he was lonely but doing fine. “I give myself a 15-minute pity party each day to feel sorry for myself, and then I move forward.” Since Dave passed, I follow my mentor’s advice. My pity party always ends with a smile because I know Dave lived his best life.

DS20 Part 15: Hidden Hills

Scouted a hill country spot yesterday. I’ve never physically been to this section of land though I’ve driven past the area a million times to hunt nearby. Despite being somewhat familiar with the area, I was kind of surprised by how big the hills were once you got away from the road. It was like a slightly smaller version of southern OH.

The woods had been select cut at some point in the past. It was more like a park than a forest and I went up the ridge with the heaviest stem count. Even being the thicker ridge, it was fairly wide open. This area might be a heck of a squirrel hunting spot- big trees, lots of oaks. As I neared the top, I found my first bed and decided it was from an elk. Some of the hairs in it were super long and elk colored, there was a big pile of elk scat nearby, and there wasn’t a whole lot of cover around it.

I unknowingly veered off course onto some nearby private land as I followed the ridge. There were no posted signs or fences, but I knew something wasn’t right when I saw an old steel bath tub laying upside down on the side of a hill. I walked up to it, kicked it right side up and a dang porcupine was just inches away from my legs, puffed up and ready for battle. I jumped back about 5 feet, laughed at myself, and got some video of it climbing up the closest tree. I flipped the tub back over so it could have its home back and got myself back on track towards the public.

There was a long north facing point that drew me to the area in the first place cyberscouting. From what I could tell, there were multiple spurs and ridges coming together on it. I found a rub, then a bed, then realized that what I saw on the topo was right, it was a crossroads. Still not a ton of cover though, but possibly a decent spot to catch a buck cruising during the rut. There was a dead materials ground blind a little further north, looked like a gun setup. 100yds north I finally came into some thicker cover, and it was littered with rubs. Some of them were really high off the ground and I had to really study them to figure out if they were from a mature deer or a smaller elk. A couple were really tough to decipher. I’ve found the easiest way to make this call is to look at the branches higher up on the tree- when present. If they’re broke off over chest high, its probably elk. Conversely, if the low point of the rub is below knee height, its probably whitetail. I think these rubs were all made by a mature whitetail.

I couldn’t find any beds in this area of thicker cover. There were a few spots that were kind of iffy, but nothing that was a for sure bed. I felt like there had to be a buck bed in the area, I just couldn’t find it. I have no clue if the deer that made those rubs is still alive. I’m tempted to throw a trail cam up somewhere nearby to this rub cluster, but not so close I blow the spot. Still scratching my head on where the best place for that would be. I’d rather not have a camera up and hunt it blind than have a camera, find the buck is still alive, and blow it. I think this is a good spot for a easterly or southerly wind. The south facing and east facing slopes were basically wide open. No water anywhere I could see. Still a lot to learn about this section. Despite all of the oaks, I didn’t see a ton of leftover acorns which makes me suspect last year was an off year, and this year could have a good crop.

DS20 Part 14: Eagle's Nest

Had a long day planned scouting that big marsh/swamp with the points and islands from a few posts ago. The original route was about 6 miles, I had to end early to help a bald eagle I thought was injured and ended up around 5.

I made a batch of biscuits and gravy for breakfast and hit the road first thing in the morning. I wasn’t able to drive in as far as I planned and had to park about a mile north of where I wanted to get. After I hiked the road in I realized my car probably could have made it but it was still nice to walk the road and look for fresh tracks crossing. The light blue dotted line was my planned route. The yellow dashed line was my actual route. Getting around the marsh wasn’t too bad, but it helped a ton that I brought trekking poles with me. Probably would have taken a fall or three if I didn’t have them and now I’m not sure I’ll ever hit a swamp or marsh without them. The ones I have are carbon fiber so they’re really light. They weren’t too expensive for a pair, I wanna say like $40 and worth every penny. They are especially nice when you’re packing a deer out, takes a lot of wear off your knees. They are nice to have when going up and down big hills, too.

From almost the start, this place felt bucky but for the whole day, I really didn’t see a lot of buck sign. Which surprised me cause I didn’t see a lot of hunter sign either, just one treestand- a hang on that someone carried 25 or 30-foot TV antennae to for use as a ladder! The other hunter sign I saw was a full out elevated blind on one of the marsh islands. It kind of floored me that someone carried that much wood in and constructed it there. The good news is both looked like they are from gun hunters. The blind was definitely a gun blind and as far as I can tell it hasn’t been used for several years. I think it will be good for a mid-day or evening sit when the acorns are on the ground. To get from the gun blind island to the next island on the way to the mainland, I followed a waist deep channel along the length of a 100yd beaver dam. I’m sure that’s the way deer are getting out to that island. There was even one tree along the way with what looked like antler scratches- not really a rub.

I jumped a group of about 5 bedded does and marked it with a balloon and noted the wind direction. No idea if it was a regular bedding area for them, didn’t appear so, but they picked that spot for a reason. I’m not sure 100% why they chose it, but it was where the woods went from being moderately thick to a little more open. The wind was blowing from the thick to the open, which makes me think they were keeping tabs on potential threats from the thicker area with their noses and more open area with their eyes.

I had lunch on a big pine stump in a recent clearcut not far away. PB&J, a pudding cup, a cup of banana baby food, a granola bar and water. My phone still had 50% battery life but I plugged it into my anker charger and got the battery back up to 60% while I ate. After I started working my way back up the west side of the big point where I left my muck boots. There was a bowl along the way I was excited to check out and it had a few rubs around the edge. As I got to the north end of it, I see a huge bird drop out of a tree about 30yds away. I thought it was a heron at first and started walking towards it to flush it while rolling video on my phone. I was blown away to see it was a bald eagle. I couldn’t see anything obviously wrong with it, but it wasn’t flying away, just hopping through the brush. I backed out, took GPS coordinates, and bee-lined it for my car so I could drive to a place with cell service and call for help. It took about 45 minutes to get back to my car, another 20 minutes of driving before I got a small bar of service. I texted Michigan’s Report All Poaching line and explained what I saw, gave them the GPS coordinates, and told them I was driving to the nearest town so I could get a strong enough signal to talk on the phone with them. A CO called me while I was in that town and after listening to my story, he said he thought the eagle was fine, and that sometimes they overeat and can’t fly right away because they’re too heavy. He said he would go out to the coordinates I provided tomorrow and check that the eagle wasn’t still there. Pretty exciting, to say the least. First time I’ve ever been that close to a wild bald eagle. Such a gorgeous bird!

I definitely want to throw a trail camera or two up in this area for a few weeks and see what I see. I think this is definitely an early season spot and I will hunt it this year regardless of what the trail cams say. I think the islands are good for almost any wind, best wind for the deer will be out of an easterly or southerly direction.

For anyone who just started reading, I'm keeping track of my 2020 deer stats. Not to brag, but to see just how much time and money really goes into a whitetail season. I'm adding a new stat, time n stand vs time in-season scouting, just for my own curiosity...

DS20 Part 13: The Big Hill

Last night was a great scouting mission. This was my first time going to this location, I initially found it by cyberscouting the mi-hunt website. From what I could see on the computer, it was in an out of the way, overlooked place with an oak ridge that borders a small wetland that has a small trout stream running through it. People from other regions would probably call it a creek. The creek bottom is extremely dense pine and cedar with some aspen mixed in. The oak stand was supposed to be small, only about 100 acres, but as I was driving towards it, I realized it was much, much bigger. The whole surrounding area was oaks mixed with pines, flats mixed with steep up and down hill country. I drove into the area on a two track that doubles as an ORV trail. My plan was to walk the transition between the oaks and dense creek bottom.

I parked a half mile or so away from where I wanted to cut across to get a feel for the place. The top of the ridge was rolling hills of mature oaks and immature pine trees. Plenty of cover for deer to move around and feel secure in the daylight. When I got to the oak ridge I was kind of shocked by how tall and steep the hill was going down towards the creek. It was more like southern OH hills and I decided to replan my scouting route. Going in, I was certain the best bedding was going to be in the creek bottom, but seeing the size of the hills, I started thinking about possible hillcountry bedding, too, and realized this place was going to need at least one more scouting trip this spring to cover everything.

I decided to go from a south facing point on the topo and work my way north and scout the bottom first. I know, I know. Hill country bottoms are notoriously difficult to hunt. But I was really torn. The best bedding cover is down in the wetland around the creek. There is also water there. I’m sure these deer use both the hills and creekbottom as bedding areas based on various conditions. I worked south along the ridge towards the point and marked an area that had a good amount of doe scat. When I got to the south facing point, there was a monster rub that was probably 2 or 3 years old. The kind of rub that screams mature whitetail.

I looked all around but didn’t see any sign that a deer was bedding on the point. Which made sense, the rub was old, but, I was hopeful. There was a faint runway going down the spine of the ridge. I followed it down until I hit the transition line to the creek bottom, and then followed the transition line back north. It was open, but not open, if you know what I mean. The Oaks and pines came right down the hill to the edge of the thick cover. In places I could hear the creek, which is at high water, gurgling over rocks and logs, but I couldn’t see it. A deer could safely eat acorns along the edge and dive into the cover or run up into the cover on the hillside if danger came. There was another large, old rub. The kind of rub height that I would think was elk, but it wasn’t elk. A little way on I had three pileated woodpeckers fighting or doing some kind of mating ritual. That was cool. And then a scrape. I felt rushed at that point and was losing light due to being down in the valley and didn’t take the time to inspect it for tracks. 50yds later, I found another monster rub with three smaller rubs nearby. Losing light fast, I hiked up the ridge shortly after.

This is definitely a place that can grow a nice buck. I can’t imagine many guys are going to go down in that valley to hunt deer. The packout will scare 99.999% away.

The thing I’m struggling with now is how to hunt a deer down in that bottom? Gonna need to search the forum archives to find tips on hunting lower elevations. Maybe if I get close to the creek and let it pull my scent away from the woods? Definitely going to throw a trail camera up at this spot to see if anything survived to the coming season.

DS20 Part 12: A New Swamp

Scouted a cedar swamp marsh last night after work. The blue dotted line is my planned route, the yellow dashed line is my actual route. Parked on the side of the road at what turned out to be 20yds from an old logging trailhead. The logging road is the solid red line. I didn’t know it was there and decided to check it out after I did my scouting loop if I had time. Accidentally, I came to the end of it on my way back to the car and walked it back. Overall, there wasn’t a ton of deer sign. Typically in cedar swamps you will see a fair amount of tracks and some muddy runways. I didn’t see a lot of either. The tracks I did see were smaller. There was a TON of deer scat. Pretty much everywhere, which I attributed to deer who had yarded there this winter. It was challenging to find beds, but I did find two for sure beds and one that is probably a bed but I’m still going back and forth on it in my head. I also found a couple tall rubs, one that was mid thigh high to about the bottom of my sternum. I’m 6’ if that gives you some scale.

The surprise of the evening was a large island in the swamp. The topo showed a small hill, but in person it was much larger, maybe three times longer and twice as wide as the circle on the topo. The hill is shown on the map by the white shaded oval. Trees on the island were small and medium aspen/poplar, pines and cedars here and there. I saw a few ash and maple here and there, too. No oaks. Other than natural browse, I’m not sure what the “hot” food source in the area for deer here would be. There is some hill country a mile or so away to the east and a small farm a mile west. There wasn’t a lot of people sign. There was a small creek crossing on the logging road that someone laid some cedars across as a bridge. There was a trail along the NE side of that hill island that someone had discretely cut circles of bark off of trees as trail markers every 10yds or so. There was a pair of chest waders hanging in a tree that someone forgot or left there on purpose after they sprung a leak. And of course, there was a ladder stand.

This was the most photogenic of the three beds. The good thing, I think, was that the best deer sign wasn’t near the human sign. I feel like the area with all of the rubs would be a good contender for a trail camera. I may put one out there looking south over the north transition between the marsh and cedar swamp where most of the rubs were. That is definitely the best place for a stand, and there were a few trees that would work well for that area. Definitely a good place to hang a stand this fall for a hunt or two.

DS20 Part 11: Swamp Oaks

You hear that? You hear angels singing that hallelujah song? I can. They’ve been on full blast in my head since I found out that the big point that goes out in the marsh I talked about in my last post has an island of mature oaks in the center of it. There is also another island across the marsh on the other point that was kind of cut out of the screenshot I took.

Definitely gonna to need to scout that other point, too, while I’m out there this weekend. I’d really like to hit both points in the same day, dial in where bedding is, and then knowing where the oaks are, start thinking about different stand locations for different winds.

So I changed my scouting plan, basically doubling the mileage to 6 miles. That will be a full day, gonna need to pack a lunch.

This whole area of the marsh feels like its ideal for a South or Southeast wind based on the terrain and the nearest two tracks for access. It could definitely work for a west or east wind, too, as deer could move to either side of the islands or points. The islands seem like they should be the place to bed for a northerly wind. It will be interesting to find out if the sign matches up with all that. Either way, it will be a great learning experience.