This has been a long hunting season. I’ve spent more time up there than any other year. Junior’s used to going every weekend during deer season, but it’s been my habit to only go every other weekend. I couldn’t juggle two kids by myself, one who definitely isn’t into hunting, and actually get any hunting done. We’ve taken three of them up a few times now, four the weekend we got married. While it’s easier to manage three kids with two parents than two kids with only one parent, it’s still exhausting. Now that deer season is over and the big camp full of lovely distracting things like grandmothers and piles of sand to play on are gone, I don’t see making many more trips up with the whole family. It’s just too wearing on me, and I’m working way too hard during the weeks to be able to cope.

It’s not just emotions that are getting ragged. We’ve each had a case of poison oak and I’ve somehow tweaked my knee. Junior’s been clean exhausted after some of the really difficult hikes to get dogs or bears or whatever.

The equipment is suffering too. We moved my trailer down to bear camp when deer camp shut down, flapping tarp on the roof and all. It’s a good thing we had it, because the next two weekends it poured and the trailer stayed nice and dry. Dry enough for a family of mice to find it irresistible; they’re all over the place in there. Friday night, I kept waking up to the scritching and scratching, thinking I could catch one out in the open.

Something’s up with the electrical system too. I have brake lights but not trailer brakes, turn signals but no running lights. That’s not something we wanted to mess with up there too much, so we pulled it home on Saturday afternoon during the daylight. We’ll work in the roof and the electrical and the mice this weekend, clean it up, and take it right back up there the next. We’re not done with this season yet.

The trucks aren’t coming out of it unscathed either. Junior’s been very careful with his Ford, but he took it down a narrow spot that scratched it up. It’s nowhere near as bad as the Dodge, which needs a major buffing out. I hadn’t even buffed the racing stripes off one side from the year before yet. The brakes on the Dodge went out, and Junior replaced them in camp in the rain. One of my mirrors popped off and that had to be replaced too. Both trucks are filthy and we’re not keeping up with the trash on the interiors very well. I shudder to think what we’ll find in late December when we call it a season. Or possibly late February – we would like to go varmint hunting after all, and that sounds like an excellent excuse to procrastinate on the truck cleaning.

 

It’s been a fun year though. I’ve really liked being able to spend so much time up there, and it’s been incredible to do it with Junior. I like it so much that I was going on my own, but having a partner is squaring the fun. We only hunted for a day this weekend, but had a great time doing it.

I was the last one to the tree as usual on Saturday morning. It was a great setup for photography; no branches in the way and a clear shot of the bear. It was low enough in the tree to get detail without the giant lens, which I hadn’t packed down the hill. But just as I got there and aimed the camera, the bear looked straight at me and decided it had had enough. Despite there still being a ring of dogs baying around the base of the tree, that bear was coming out of there. Maverick was right there, trying to pull dogs off, and didn’t hear us shout that the bear was coming down. He must have noticed the rain of bark or something, because he ducked out of the way a second or two before it landed claws-out on his head and used him as a springboard.

The bear took off down the hill and the dogs followed. We kind of all stood there and listened for a minute, and then made our way back up to the trucks and went on to where they’d treed it again. This time, it didn’t come out until they told it to, so it was a successful hunt after all, and I got some great pictures out of it.

I was pretty ready to go home and try to get an evening of relaxing in, before I had to go do some jobs on Sunday. I’ve got a load of stuff to do next weekend too, but I’m already planning for the weekend after Thanksgiving. Even if the houndsmen don’t get up there until Saturday, we’re going up after work Friday night. We have to get our fix in of the mountains while we can, after all.