Spent last Thursday and Friday bow hunting in camp Ripley. I was over there with my 13-year-old nephew Joe, my cousin John and his friend Jim. Thursday mid afternoon we were joined by my son Josh, he drove down from Grand Forks (where he attends college) for the Friday hunt.
We staked out an area up on the north end of the camp Thursday morning, and had many funny things happen but the bottom line is we didn’t stick any deer. Most of us were holding out for a nice buck. Joe had the green light to plug a doe if the opportunity presented it’s self.
To start off the morning we hit the woods and I got my Nephew set up on a nice scrape line. This was my 10th visit to Camp Ripley for this hunt and almost every year there’s been one in this area. I had barely got seated in my stand about 150 yards away and I could hear my nephew working the bleat can already. I was throwing a cotton swab of scent out and happened to look back over my right shoulder to see a doe and fawn walking down the trail under my stand, Man, 10 minutes in the woods and seeing deer already! Just then Joe’s on the bleat can again, the ears on those deer stood up and turned for him up on the ridge. I almost laughed as they turned, walked right under me heading for that sound. Next he’s on the grunt call. Those 2 came back down that ridge almost as fast as they had left me. 
What I didn’t realize is that Joe had 3 other deer to the west of him he was trying to bring in anyway he could think of. He was in heaven, he saw 10 deer by noon, but never got a good opening for a shot.
Mean while Jim had a very interesting morning. Jim and John had never hunted this area so they were exploring new territory. Jim was getting his stand ready to hang when he hears a twig snap behind him. As he turns around he’s face to face with a 250 lb. Black bear at about 5 paces. Needless to say the bear didn’t want anything to do with Jim, fortunately. Jim commented later when telling the story, that if he wasn’t an experienced bear hunter too, he would have been back changing his camo pants and washing out some smelly stuff, if you know what I mean.
Later that day my cousin John had a nice 10 pointer come in on him that he could never get a good shot at.
I had a total of 4 deer walk under me all day of which none were bucks. It was a wet, windy, drizzly day, but beat being home working.
Upon checkout that evening there had been over 200 deer checked in of which only 78 were bucks, so a lot of management tags appeared to have been used the first day. This was the first time this was allowed during this hunt.
Friday we woke up to dead calm and rain. We were in the front of the line to get back in so we were in the woods at 6:30am. As dawn occurred the wind came up slightly making it very noisy and the haze and overcast made it very hard to see.
We saw a few deer this morning and decided to move to another area for the afternoon. We headed west about 2 miles into some high ridges. My son and I found these spots years ago and have always wanted to get back into them again. We spread out quickly and my son headed up into a saddle behind a old clearcut that he found previously. About 2 pm he had a buck chasing a doe come running through and that was that. I spent the afternoon scouting the area and walked up on a fawn and 2 doe grazing in a logged off area. I got to within 20 yards before they caught me, just wanted to see how close I could get in the rain before they’d bust me.
The boys hung around the weigh station and commented on seeing a couple nice bucks but didn’t see any giants.
We had another fun hunt with nothing but great memories and a few new stories to show for it. I am grateful that my nephew has developed a passion for hunting and fishing like my son and I, his enthusiasm reminds me why I love the outdoors and makes the aches and pains of long days in the field much easier to forget. He’s full of stories as we were when his age, and his, I’m sure are never exaggerated either. 
Here’s to our hunters and fisherman of the future. 
