Well folks, this is what it looks like at our 2014 muzz camp.  For a lot of you this will look familiar as we used to camp in this very spot 5 or 6 years ago.  We were able to work Weasels trailer down into it from the back side.  We also got Dry Dogs and Trackers trailers down in there and set up.  It is a couple of camps above Joe B Pond….See you there on Tuesday or whenever you can come up.

Well the object was to establish our camp site and then do a bit of reconnoitering to see if maybe a buck or two made it safely through the bow hunt. We wanted to also drive on a few of the roads that are surrounded by trees to make sure we can travel on them with The Rack…without smacking the rack.  We had to cut and move a couple of trees and what better day to make all that chain saw noise than 4 days before the hunt begins?  Barring any storms rolling through with a lot of wind, we should be good to go come the season.  Just in case, however, we will have the chain saw with us.

With the camp established and a pile of fire wood cut, we kicked back and enjoyed the evening.  Tracker and Bones came in with Aricka and Kenzie just about dark and we quickly got them set up and settled.  I believe we called it a day just after 10 p.m.  Saturday morning came all too quickly and we had planned on taking an early morning “look about” to see if any of the bucks we saw during the bow hunt survived.  Well, the two young girls had other plans and slept through the early morning hours and into the mid morning hours.  That was just fine as it turned out and we decided that while they were sleeping we would make ourselves a bit of a breakfast.

Sausages, Bears Butt’s own venison bacon, hashbrowns and eggs!  It actually takes a whole lot to make this meal NOT the best of the whole weekend.

By the time breakfast was done and the cleanup finished, the girls and all of us were ready for our little trip.  We took everything we thought we would need for the rest of the day.  When you are on a reconnoiter trip you never know when you are going to arrive back at camp.  With the Rack loaded, off we went.  There seemed to be a lack of deer and so our attention took turns to other forms of entertainment, like wild flowers.

I have no clue as to what the flower is called, but it was pretty and among the rocks it looked even prettier.   Kenzie saw a small patch of flowers and named these “Purple Star Fish Flowers”….That works for me….

In our slow and methodical way, we continued to travel over roads we have all been on hundreds of times.  And as usual during the day it became time to stop for a roadside hot dog or something else.  Aricka and Kenzie wanted to make sure our meal was done to perfection.  So, with a special Bones tipi fire under the long metal sticks, they cooked our meal.

And they were delicious!  Thanks girls!

Along with this ride to do the reconnoitering, we were also testing out the modifications made to The Rack and as it would be, we still have a few minor fixes to make.  A work in progress you might say!  Come next Wednesday when people begin to occupy its interior, it will be nearly perfection!

Up the roads, down the roads, fixing some areas that were too close for comfort and sawing down trees that The Rack would no way fit under….soon we were viewing a scene rarely seen:

A small bull moose taking a dip in a catch basin pond.  We had commented earlier in the day as to whether or not we would see a moose, and sure enough….there you have it!  Most people in the world think moose have to live in the wettest areas of the region, but as you can see in this picture, the wettest region in this area is a small pond!

While driving around we could not help but see this unique outcropping of rocks.  It almost looked like it had been hand built.  We hiked over to have a look-E-see……

From the place this outcropping is, one can see for several hundreds of yards in all directions.  A great place to park your rear end on a hunting day and wait for a buck to come along.  However, it would not be too productive for a mountain man with a primitive muzzleload rifle in his hands, as most of the shots would be over 200 yards out.  Which brought my attention to this:

We will never know if the person who shot this one connected or not, I’d say he did.

Well, we finished our trip and made it back to camp in time to fix up some dinner before it got too dark.  Besides the side track things I have shown you we were a bit disappointed in the total number of deer and the very few buck deer we did see.  But, the camping will be fun anyway!  It’s not always about the filling of the tags.

After a nice nights sleep, we awoke to cloudy skies and a slight threat of rain.  We had to leave camp by around 8 a.m. in order to get back to home for some other appointments and so we were out of there early.  We chose to go the shorter route through the mountains, knowing also it would take the longest time to get home, but if you are not in the mountains you don’t get to see scenes like this one:

Or running into one of these:

We have talked about this before but I’ll mention it again.  In college I took a class in which the instructor asked these questions:  Have you ever made a good decision that turned out good?  Have you ever made a good decision that turned out bad?  Have you ever made a bad decision that turned out bad?  Have you ever made a bad decision that turned out good?

Well, this morning we made a good decision that turned out good!  We saw these scenes and this big old bull moose, made it off the slippery mountain before it got slippery and were home in plenty of time to make the appointments!  Life is good!  I can hardly wait until Tuesday when we get to load up and head back to camp for nearly a week of this stuff!  We may not fill any tags, but we will certainly be given a whole lot of opportunities to enjoy ourselves!  This weekend was just a small taste!

Bears Butt

September 21, 2014