Short weekend at Camp Chicken

Last Friday it rained so hard here it was like a monsoon. Arlene, Mary and I decided to do something different since we couldn't go to camp. We went to Mackinaw City for the evening. We went to the new Mackinaw Outfitter's store, a Bass Pro Shop outlet. It is beautiful!! It has a large aquarium with native fish like brook trout and perch and a beautiful 40 ft. tall mural of the Mackinac Bridge painted on the wall. The store is all done in knotty pine. After browsing for a while we went to Darrow's Family Resturant for dinner. The food there is just awesome and they have about 25 kinds of homemade pie served in slabs. We stopped at the new St. Ignace casino to check that out on our way home. It was a fun evening.


Saturday, the rain tapered off so we packed up a few things and went to Camp Chicken. It was pouring here in the Soo but as we got closer to Camp it stopped and actually cleared up. We did some chores and checked the deer cam at Arlene's shack and it was full. I hadn't emptied it from the last weekend so 80 pictures must be the max with the settings I have it on. It only took photos on Monday and that was it. We finally found a lid for the corn bucket feeder that the gray squirrels can't pry off so we set that up.




That night we went out for a "deer ride" and there were quite a few deer out grazing in the fields. We got back about dark and put a frozen lasagna in the oven for dinner and played Attack Uno while it baked. It was delicious with garlic toast.


Sunday, I got up at 6:00 am and went bowhunting while Mary, Tiny and R slept in until 10:00 am. They must have been really tired. Sunday was unusually warm, 65 degrees and sunny. What a beautiful day. Mary and Tiny left about 2 pm and R and I packed up everything, then about 3:30 went down to the spot where Dan saw the wolf and hunted. R rattled and I sat and waited to see what might come in. We had something very interested and it was circling us until someone on a 4-wheeler stopped out on the road and spooked it. Darn. We'll have to try that technique again.

Deer are back at Camp Chicken

Last weekend the deer returned to Camp Chicken. Dan's encounter with the wolf must have scared it out of the area and when we checked the deer cam we had 46 pictures and all of the deer feeding stations were empty. There were lots of deer tracks at each spot and it was obvious that they had been in eating quite often.

Here is a Mom and Baby that came in on Tuesday for a early morning snack:

This doe got upclose and personal with the deer cam:

I thought this was a really pretty pose by this alert doe:

If you look closely at the bottom of this photo you can see that we had "Midnight Bandits". I just wish I had positioned the camera to point a little lower:

I love the deer cam. It is like Christmas each time I go get it and download the digital pictures onto my laptop. I wish I had two or three more cameras to put up around Camp Chicken. It's like having a secret window into the world of Camp Chicken wildlife.

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.

No Camp This Weekend

Since it was my birthday weekend, September 29th, we decided not to go to camp. Arlene is leaving Thursday for a trip to North Carolina and Virginia with her sister Judy and she needed to get things ready for that. Arlene, Mary Sue and I went out to the casino for dinner on Saturday night and it was really good.

We did go to camp on Saturday to check the cameras and replenish the feeding stations. The clever squirrels had pryed the lid off the 5-gallon corn feeder at R's shack. I don't know how they did it as I have a hard time getting the lid off. While we were filling the feeder, a little red squirrel was waiting for us to finish and scampering around our feet. At one point, he was about a foot from my leg and I thought he might use me like a tree to climb up to the feeder.

I did have some new deer on the digital camera at the Taj Mahal but the film deer cam is still not working right and the 4 pictures that turned out are terrible. I'm not sure what the problem is.



This little spikehorn came in eat. If you look really closely, you can see he is still in the velvet.

Last weekend, we discovered a strange track at Skyview's feeding station. Dan thought it might be a wolf but I'm not so sure. I got out my track book and it almost looks like a big racoon track.




The Shacks are all set for hunting season now. I took some photos of them so that you guys can see what they look like and what their names are:

This is Dan and my shack, "Skyview":


This is Arlene's new shack, "Cadillac II":

This is the small shack that we mounted on a platform and attached it to the old skis that Dad had on his big fish shack. Dan can haul it around with his big 4-wheeler. We call it "The Cube" because before we changed the roof and made it a little higher, it was 4 feet wide, 4 feet long and 4 feet high. We have it on a little knoll to the northeast of camp facing the edge of the balsam swamp. There are several good runways there so we hope to see some deer.

And last but not least, "The Taj Mahal" which is a bow hunting shack, regular deer shack, muzzleloading deer shack, and Ross's playhouse:


Our last shack and the first we ever hunted in up here when we began to deer hunt was Dad's old hunting shack, so it is named, of course, "Dad's Shack":


This photo was taken last year as I didn't get time to get up there yet this year. She's getting pretty rough and the mice have been busy in there chewing at the insulation but it has always been a great shack location. We have taken a lot of deer out of there: 2 bucks and about 9 doe and the doe are always really big ones. Last year I took a monster doe there. I may hunt out of her one last time just for tradition's sake during hunting season as I think the elements will take their toll and this will be the last year it will be usable.

I am getting my gear ready for bow season which started Oct. 1. Dan bought himself a new bow so he is excited about his first bow season. It will just be the two of us at camp this weekend as R will be away and Mary and Tiny can't come either. The forecast looks iffy with chances of rain all weekend but we'll give it our best shot, no pun intended.

Bird Season Opener at Camp Chicken

Small game season opened this weekend so we headed to camp Friday night with our shotguns to hunt the elusive partridge. It was raining really hard when we left the Soo but tapered off near Pickford. We got unloaded and shortly after we arrived Dan pulled in and then Cindy and Dave came in for dinner. R cooked pork chops and fried potatoes on the grill for us. Mary Sue and Tiny arrived shortly after dinner. It was raining and very cold outside so we all played Attack Uno until about 10:30 pm and hit our beds.

Saturday was cold but clear so we got an early start on our chores. We set up a corn feeder at R's feeding spot to get the deer coming in there. R and I changed the bow shack window and made it smaller so that it will be warmer for me this fall. After our chores were done, R and Dan went partridge hunting while Mary and Tiny and I went to town for corn, deer feed blocks and to get my small game license.

Since the governer lifted the fire ban, we were able to finally have a campfire after a three month absence. We kept it going all day and it was great. Camp is so much better with a fire.

I downloaded the pictures from my deercam, a digital camera that you mount on a tree that takes photos of whatever comes into the feeding station. No bucks yet but a few deer are coming in.

This is our "resident doe". She is kind of thin, but has been coming in to the Taj Mahal feeding station on a regular basis.

We aren't sure where this little fawn's mom is, but I'm sure she isn't far away.

About 3:00, R, Mary and Tiny took a nap and Dan and I went hunting. We didn't see anything or even flush up a bird. R woke up about 5:30 and cooked chicken breasts on the grill and we had a feast for dinner. Dan went to lay down right after dinner as he felt pretty tired. Mom and Dad stopped in just as I finished the dishes and brought maple sugar cookies. Yum, Yum. Dad says you can get diabetes just looking at them. She is making treats to send a box of goodies to Clifton in Iraq.

After dinner, R, Mary, Tiny and I went to look at deer. Mary had seen a wolf cross the road on her way up Friday night, just down the road towards the oat field. He must have spooked the deer because the oat field was totally empty. We saw many does and fawns in the other fields but few bucks. They will be getting more solitary now as they rub the velvet off their antlers and begin to establish their territories.

R, Mary and I played attack uno and went to bed early. It was too cold to sit outside by the fire.

Sunday, we were up at 7:00 am and had our coffee. Mary and Tiny left early to go to the Soo. R took some darker paint back to her shack and redid her camo job. Dan and I went hunting and scouted out a spot to put the "Cube", our small shack on the sled that we can tow around to different locations.

Dan left shortly after that and R and I packed up and headed into town about 2:30 pm. We were going to Janet's for Steph's birthday party as she turns 17 on Monday.

A New BBQ grill for Camp Chicken!

Arlene, Mary Sue, Tiny and I went to Camp for the weekend. Arlene bought a new BBQ grill for camp as the old one is just worn out. We had thought to put it together when we arrived, but as we pulled into camp the rain came pouring down. So instead we stayed inside and cooked pork chops and fried potatoes for dinner. Dave was going to the car races at Kinross, so Cindy came up for dinner and a round of Attack Uno. We had a blast and played until 11 PM.

Saturday dawned clear and cold so Mary and R began to assemble the new grill. They thought it would take about and hour, it took three!!! I watched the fun and used Ronnie's wood splitter to split up some maple that Dan had cut 2 years ago after the big windstorm. The air turned "blue" several times as the girls struggled with about 20 pages of instruction and lots of small parts but they met the challenge and now camp has a great new grill.












We hauled the wood splitter back to where R's new hunting shack is to split up a bunch of wood that Dan had cut 2 years ago after the big wind storm. We worked until about 4 pm and quit for the day.

R cooked petite steaks and fried potatoes on the new grill for supper and man, was it good. About 6 pm we took a ride to go and look for deer.



Sunday, we finished splitting wood and packed up early to head home. It was a really nice weekend.

Arlene's New Hunting Shack, Part Two

We spent a great Labor Day weekend at Camp Chicken! Our plan was to finish Arlene's hunting shack. We arrived late Friday night and had just finished dinner when Dan and Anthony came in. We had a nice visit and Dan, R and I talked "hunting" until late and turned in.

We were up early Saturday morning and Dan, R and I started cutting the holes for the shack windows. It is a tricky thing to do and luckily, Dan is pretty darn good with the skillsaw to cut them freehand. Once all five were cut, Dan and I cut the trim for the outside and attached it around the windows.



Arlene gave us the "boot" as she needed to do the inside frames herself. Dan cut down two big dead maples that were in her sight-line. Then he and I set out on our 4-wheelers to our hunting shack, "Sky-View" to repair the roof. R had bought a half package of shingles at the ReStore for two bucks and they almost covered our roof.

When we got back, she had actually finished the windows and started staining the shack. In the meantime, our good neighbor Ronnie Leach had dropped off his big wood splitter for us to use for the weekend.









Mary Sue and Tiny arrived at camp also. Tiny had been really sick with an infection on Friday and Mary wasn't sure they were coming. So it was nice to see them.

Arlene grilled supper for us and Mary, Dan, Anthony, R and I ate outside at the big picnic table. After dinner, we went for a ride to look at the deer, our favorite pastime in the late summer and fall. We went down to an oat field near the river and there were lots of deer there. We noticed that one had nice horns and our spotting scopes confirmed it was at least an 8-point. Turns out there were two large bucks in the field together, one a perfect 8-pt and the other a 9-pt. WOW! Biggest deer I've ever seen around here.

My sister Cindy caught up with us about dusk and came back to camp for a game of Attack Uno. Dan and Anthony had to go home so we sadly said goodbye to them.

Sunday morning, R went back to her shack to work on insulating the inside and Mary and I started to split wood. We split a bunch and Tiny watched from her favorite chair with my old camp shirt for a pillow. Mary and I went back to check on R and she was almost done insulating so we started building the shelf she wanted inside her shack. Mom walked back for a visit and to see the progress. Tiny decided that since we were all too busy to pay attention to her, that she would cuddle on Mom's lap.

We finished the shelf and by 4 pm quit for the day and loaded the trailer up to haul everything back to camp. Mom had brought treats for us and boy were they good. We all laid down for a nap before dinner and when Mary and I woke up it looked like rain coming so we worked like crazy to unload the trailer and get all the leftover wood and our tools piled in the old trailer we use for storage. We just finished when it started to really pour. R woke up as it started to rain and made dinner for us. Grilled pork chops and potatoes with garden tomatoes and cucumbers, Yum Yum.

The rain finally quit and we went out for a ride to look at the deer. No big bucks tonite, just spikehorns and one nice 4-pt. We called my sister Cindy and she came up for a game of Attack Uno.

Monday morning found an intruder in camp, a big skunk surprised Mary when she took Tiny out to go "potty" at 6:45 am. Yikes. I grabbed my gun but he hustled away. I made coffee and cinnamon rolls for breakfast and R went back to put the finishing touches on her shack. It really looks great!!!






Mary and I split wood all morning and then she and Tiny headed back to the Soo. I rode down to see Ronnie at his "camp" to see when he needed the splitter back. When I got back, R had cleaned up the trailer and loaded the car and was staining our steps. It was getting late so we headed home.

See you next weekend, Camp Chicken.