A Wild Weekend at Camp Chicken

Arlene is off on her trip to North Carolina and Virginia so it was just Dan and I going to camp this past weekend. So of course, when left alone without supervision, we got into trouble. It started early Saturday morning when a thunderstorm dumped about 3 inches of water on us in just minutes. Although we had the trailer awning tilted so that the rain would run off, it wasn't tilted enough for that kind of downpour. So sometime between 6 am and 8 am the awning filled with water. Dan saw it when he got up and tried to get the water out but it broke the awning. I was so upset and so was he.

It rained hard all that day until about 3:30 pm. During breaks in the rain, we checked our cameras and deer feeding stations. The film deercam is not working at all now for some reason. There were a few deer on the digital cam but just the same ones we have been seeing. Most of the deer feed was uneaten. The squirrels had pryed the lid off the automatic corn feeder again and it was empty. We scouted a spot for Dan to hunt on the ground as we only have one bow shack, the Taj Mahal. We found a good spot on our road back to Skyview just opposite the Old Spring in the thick spruce, balsam and poplar. He could see three very good runways there. So we used brush to make a three sided hideout for him.

At 4:30 pm we went out to hunt until dark. I didn't see anything at all but Dan saw one deer running really fast just at the curve of the road.

Cindy and Dave came up and they brought subs for us to have for dinner. After dinner, we played Attack Uno until about 10:30 and went to bed.

We were up early and out to hunt. I didn't see any deer but did have a neat thing happen. A big Barred Owl appeared right in front of the Taj Mahal and sat on a limb of the big fallen log about 15 feet in front of me. He/She was so cool looking but I wondered why it was out hunting at 8:30 am instead of at night. She passed up three fat gray squirrels right in front of her and seemed to be looking for smaller prey. She kept twisting her head around and looking right at me with those big black eyes like she was trying to figure out what the heck I was.

At about 8:50 am, I heard a shot from down near Arlene's shack where Dan was hunting and then the radio crackled but I didn't hear his voice. I was a little concerned about that. Shortly after that, his ATV came speeding into camp and I knew something was up. I climbed down to go see what had happened. He had seen a wolf. He was pretty shook up too. The wolf had come from behind him and popped out on his right at about 10 - 15 feet away on a deer runway. If it hadn't been for a sassy little red squirrel who spotted him, Dan wouldn't have been alerted to something behind him. He said the wolf didn't get alarmed until he racked a shell into his handgun and the wolf took off. He fired a warning shot to speed him on his way. That is way too close for comfort.

We spent the rest of Sunday sighting in a deer rifle Dan built for his Dad and I sighted in my little Ruger 10/22 to do some squirrel hunting. I shot my handgun and found that I am in need of practice.

Dan left to go to his Dad's about 1:30 pm and I stayed and cleaned up the trailer. I headed home about 2:30 or so.

The presence of the wolf explains the lack of deer and other wildlife around Camp Chicken. We have seen no partridge or rabbits at all this season and instead of the usually 10 to 20 deer on the property, there are only about 7 different ones showing up on the camera.

Perhaps, he'll move on and we'll have better luck next weekend.