Tracking without a trail
Over the last few years we have been really spoiled with spring coming in so early in the year on. Some of those years the lake season could have started in April as the ice was off the lake, then there have been the years when the ice is still on the lake during the May long weekend. I recall one May long weekend when the ice was just starting to break-up, there were channels of open water large enough to run a boat in. I headed out to fish for walleye in the shallow water of Indian Bay, on my return the wind had been blowing which subsequently pushed the ice closing the channels. Unknown to me the people back at the resort were taking bets on when I would be able to return. Attempting to deal with the situation at hand, I began stepping out onto the ice and pulling the boat on to the ice in order to drag it along. Occasionally the ice would open up and you could use the boat and motor as an ice breaker allowing some progress eventually arriving back at the house. With a late spring you also get more standing water in the bush and consequently accessing these remote area’s is made quite a bit more difficult. In our hunting territory we have several areas like this; the guides refuse to go there. It’s generally up to me to fi nd a candidate to hunt there and transport him in, which is not always an easy task. On this hunt we had several people from Texas in camp. Dewey a retired gentleman from Texas, always up for a challenge, opted for the ride from hell, while his good friend and long time hunting partner Joe opted for a less stressful hunting opportunity. As it turned out Dewey was indeed successful although the recovery would have to wait until morning. Joe wished to accompany Dewey on the recovery so we were on the quad pulling the wagon, at the tough spots it was like a tag team, take one over come back, this happened several times, but we eventually arrived at the site. Dewey pointed out the last sighting he had and off we went. Within a shot distance we picked up the trail although it was not showing up as clear as one would expect, however we did manage to follow the signs left by its hasty departure. We followed along for a good hour and a half when suddenly the bear stood up looking directly at us no more than 60 yards away. On a recovery like this I always carry my trusty 30-30 Winchester with open sights, it gives you the ability to respond quickly and that I did. We all headed over to make the final recovery and while Joe and Dewey took a few photos I headed back for the bike and wagon. I crashed my way into the location loaded up and headed for home. We were now three on the bike and a good sized bear in the wagon. We had only gone a short way when Joe said he thought something was wrong with the bike. I jumped off to survey the situation and, sure enough, we had a fl at rear tire, but that was no problem as we always carry a 12-volt compressor for such emergencies. I got the compressor out only to discover the end which goes on the valve stem was broken and unusable, all we really had was a compressor with a hose and no way to get the air into the tire. All we could do was try and fashion a way to put air into the tire so what I did was found a larger hose than the compressor hose, which luckily fi t snugly on the valve stem and the compressor hose. The compressor couldn’t produce enough pressure to force air into the tire, however, so we made a slit in the hose and Joe cut a sliver from one of his credit cards to push through the slit pushing open the valve stem allowing the tire to fill with air. With the tire now full of air we once again headed for the house, returning through the trail from hell. Upon our return to camp both Joe and Dewey could hardly stop talking about their day in the woods tracking a bear when there was no trail, to repairing a broken compressor and actually with our joint effort making it work enabling us to pressure up the tire, not to mention anything about tough trail taking us into the out of the way area. Great memories for these gentlemen to take home with them and a reason to return on another occasion to this great province |
