PLENTY OF SNOW IN THE WOODS

PLENTY OF SNOW IN THE WOODS

Saturday, 8:30 AM.  25 degrees F at the ferry dock, 22 on the back porch. Wind SW, calm with occasional gusts.  The humidity is 88% and the barometer is falling, now at 29.6".  It is a gray, shapeless morning.
   I went out hunting yesterday afternoon from 2:30 to 4:30 but saw nothing.  There were no fresh tracks in the recent snow, which was an accumulation of about 4".  Added to what was already on the ground it made for tough going for me along the logging road, particularly on the way back to the truck after sitting two hours in the 18 degree cold.  There was little wind at ground level but there was an obvious tussle of opposing weather systems if one looked skyward; white clouds advancing from the west across blue sky clashed with a broad black band of Lake Superior clouds that covered the east half of the dome of the sky.
   I heard no shots yesterday, and have heard none since opening weekend.  I don't think there are many hunters in the woods, and I hear no coyotes, much less wolves, as evening approaches.
   My friend CG Jonson, the owner of the property I hunt on, called last evening to see how I was doing and to check on the progress the logger has been making.  I reported on both subjects, and he informed me that he had bagged a spike buck near Spooner, about an hour and a half southwest of Bayfield.  He had no luck there last year and said the deer population appeared to be rather low but the deer in good shape in that area.
   Eventually the northern deer herd will recover, given a few easier winters, as there has been so much logging everywhere that there will be plenty of browse to support a larger population.  But there will never be as many deer, or as large, in the north woods as in the farm country in the southern half of the state, where they have more food, warmer winter temperatures and less snow. That said, there is an aesthetic attached to hunting in the big woods that is missing elsewhere.