Marshland Bucks, Lots of Them

[Mustangs Rule]

It was the fall of 1970. I was walking on water, mostly, plodding across a Northeastern sphagnum bog. Also called Quacking Earth. With each step I felt that plant mass compress and move under me. It was a raft of botanical life over an invisible pond. I was using ash snowshoes with leather bindings and LL Bean Maine hunting boots, leather upper, rubber bottom.



On my back was a well-used Adirondack pack basket made out of woven ash strips. Inside was my field journal, in which I detailed all my nature observations. Sticking out of the open top was a shotgun barrel and the long thin upper half of a small fishing pole.



Getting close to one of the open pools near the center, I would put my 20-gauge Ithaca model 37 shotgun together. So nice that they made the 20 gauge with a sleek trimmed down receiver.

Approaching the pond, ducks might take to flight. I have always done well with that shotgun. If the ducks fell in the water, I would put together my small fishing pole and reel and with a big floating lure with multiple treble hooks and cast and reel my ducks in.



If there were no ducks. I would still put my small rod and reel together and fish for native brook trout where rippling clear oxygen rich creeks flowed into the bog.

By this time most of rivers in my home state had been heavily polluted with an invasive species, rainbow trout.



Fast forward almost 60 years.



This time my snowshoes were the magnesium framed military surplus with wire webbing and rubber bindings. Still was wearing LL Bean Leather Upper and rubber bottom boots. This western bog was so much bigger than the ones back east. And way out in the distance were these half dome shaped mounds. On the biggest mound, there were aspens.



I went there in the summer, saw what I needed to see. It was fall now and the Aspens were in bright colors, but I would not see that till the sun rose. I had come here under starlight, downwind from the mound. I had snowshoed quietly across the sphagnum bog mixed with sedges and shrubs.



I waited for sunrise on my knees; motionless. Sun was coming up behind me and it’s light penetrated the mound. Anything looking my way would be blinded. As the light got brighter, I could see shiny “White sticks” moving this way and that way in the tall grass, antlers. Lots of them. With better light I saw ears.



With even better light some deer were looking at me. Then more were looking and they stood up. I lifted my rifle and shot one with my little Sako Finnlight carbine in 308, but downloaded for 30-30 bullets. Simple 2.5 x fixed scope.



Lots of splashing as they ran, bounded, sunk, then leaped up again, all going to the next mound. All but one. I had chosen a middle of the road buck, some were smaller, some bigger.



I gutted him out, then unrolled a thick black plastic “Deer Sleigh-er”. I put him on it, tied him put, grabbed the ropes and plodded back to solid ground dragging him behind me.



As I got to a grove of more aspens, two grouse flushed. I wished I had my Ithaca 20 gauge with me.



MR

 

[longbow51]

Very nicely written. Kudos.

 

[Mustangs Rule]

Very nicely written. Kudos.

Thank you. The western bog was much more supportive. Could mostly walk on top without snowshoes, but suddenly one leg would go real deep. Not fun felt stuck, got all wet. There was a central channel with beaver damns. Poor fishing. Going all around these mounds I could see the deer had a food paradise browsing on the heather and sedges. This was their hunting season hide out.

A botanist taught me about travelling the Quacking Earth bogs back east. Snowshoes were an absolute must. This was a truly a floating island,,,no deer. The bog water was way too acidic for trout, but they collected well right where these creeks entered the bog. Brookies are the fish of my youth. Bull trout, Dolly Varden's are the PNW cousins, all char really. In their southern ranges all char are doing poorly with warming weather/waters. They need more oxygen, and colder water holds more oxygen.

I fished and hunted more solid marshland with a cold crystal stream flowing through it. Really filled with non-native brook trout. No limit. I had turned to a fly fisherman by then. Brookies it seemed did not strike till later in the afternoon when long dark shadows allowed them safety from osprey, and bald eagles. I might catch three dozen, most small. Best way to cook small trout was boiling them then and forking off the meat to make a "Char Chowder"

As per a mandate from my youth, I brought along a single shot 20 gauge when fishing here. Grouse and Brookies, it just does not get any better.

This valley was extraordinarily remote, an honest 50 miles from electricity. Saw my first and only Lynx there.

This place was a gift really. An old logger in very poor health, chose me, picked me out and wanted to show me all his favorite places of his youth. Except for a tour early in the Vietnam war he had never left this area of vast forest. It bothered him that he spent his life cutting down the forest he loved so much as a kid.

He spent the last year of his life taking me to all his most favorite places then he died.

 

[Stretcher_Jockey]

Really enjoyed reading that. Thanks for sharing.