Met up with a buddy on Saturday morning at “the deer woods” (near Itasca State Park) to do some scouting. We started our trek at 8AM and didn’t make it back to the rigs until about 5PM. We had no specific agenda other than to get to some spots that have caught our eye on the topos and see what kind of sign could be found.
The weather was perfect – temps in the mid 40’s, cool and overcast – it was a great day to be in the woods.
Although we were secretly hoping to find a shed or two (we dared not even mention the word “shed” in fear of jinxing our luck), we didn’t find any. Plenty of rubs and scrapes to be found though – and a pretty decent amount of wolf sign. We came across two deer kill sites. All that was left was hair. Not even a bone fragment left on the ground.
By only taking 3 quick breaks throughout the day, each of which was about 20 minutes long, we figured that we logged between 16 and 18 miles…and only about a third of that was on any sort of trail. I was a whole different sort of tired by nightfall. After gorging on brats, we crashed for the night (we camped out in the back of my Expedition – it’s more comfortable than a guy might think) and hit the woods again Sunday morning for more scouting.
It was a great way to spend a spring weekend. Covered a lot of ground, found a few new areas for still hunting and even brushed in a couple of simple ground blinds for this fall’s bow season.
I’m seeing this as a new annual trip.
