Life in Alaska

Day 10

Drove to one of my few spots I hunt on the road system today, as a gale was coming today and supposed to last a week, along with lots of rain.

I saw many vehicles on the road from Craig to Control Lake, and thought someone might already be in my spot, but luckily, no one was there. A doe ran across the logging road in front of me as I drove to the parking spot.

I got up to the top of the trail to the muskegs in about 45 minutes. I found a package of large-sized underwear I bought for Pat this summer when his luggage was delayed, and he ended up not needing them. Been a long time since I wore larges, and they fit and didn’t fall down.

It wasn’t raining in the muskeg, but there was wind and foggy mist rolling through the forest. I headed for a nice little perch in a muskeg, and a ptarmigan flushed in front of me, cackling. I’d seen one up here a few weeks ago, and it was still mostly brown. This one was well on its way to winter white.

As I settled in on a little mound in the middle of a muskeg, I heard a very weird sound. Like a squeaky hinge. First I thought maybe it was a tree in the wind, then realized it was nearby and moving. Didn’t sound like any bird I’d ever heard. Was it a bear cub? Then the animal making the sound was 8 yards below me: a deer yearling. Wow. It looked up at me for awhile, decided I wasn’t a problem, then went on its way.

I waited 15 minutes and then called. Almost immediately, a doe was standing about where the yearling had been. She was a bit agitated. She looked at me, decided I wasn’t a threat, settled down, and walked out in front of me in the muskeg. Ooo! There’s another deer. But nope, not a buck trailing. Another doe. And another yearling! I’d already seen 5 deer – counting the doe on the road – and it was my first spot to call. The deer eventually worked their way up the muskeg and into the timber. I called every 15 minutes for an hour and saw nothing more.

I moved and called similarly in a few more spots around the muskeg complex, and didn’t see another deer. I checked my phone to see I was right on my past track as I worked my way up hill to try in the timber, then would work my way back down to the truck.

As I climbed up into the timber, I selected a perch where I could see through the timber. As I went to take off my pack and settle in, my left leg went right through the root was covered by moss I was on, right down to my crotch. I wasn’t hurt, but if the hole had been big enough, I would have gone right down to my armpits. I worked my way out of the hole, and moved to another perch 10 yards away.

I duffed my pack, chambered a round, and got ready to call when I realized…my phone was gone! I frantically went through my pack, hoping I’d put it in there, but no dice. Then I went back to the root wad and got a stick and a head lamp and moved all the dirt under there where I’d punched through to see if the phone had somehow got buried, but again, no dice. I remembered the last time I’d checked the phone to see where I was on OnX, sort of, so I back tracked as best I could. I have a hot pink phone case just for this reason. Try as I might, I couldn’t find it. Luckily, I’d checked the compass heading at the last muskeg I called in – the closest muskeg to the highway, and saw I would need to go due south from there to get to the road.

Well, another day in the life. One problem with the electronics we have now, of course, is what was happening now. I’d been in and out of this spot many times, but always by the electronics. I felt naked without it. I wandered around the mountain. Luckily, I could hear the planes at the Klawock airport, and a vehicle on the road once in awhile, so I headed in that general direction. When I got to a big creek, I followed it a short ways and there was the highway.

I climbed up on the road and looked both ways. There was a side road going up the mountain. That must be my logging road. As I turned into the road, I saw a stop sign at the juncture with the highway. Huh, never noticed that before. I got up the road about an eighth of a mile and saw another road veering off to the right. That’s not right, I thought. I’m on the wrong logging road.

So, I hiked back to the highway. Then, here comes a US Forest Service Truck. Great, I thought. They’re from the government. They’re here to help me! I waved them down…and the sole driver just kept going! He waved and didn’t stop! Here I am, a hunter out in the middle of nowhere – what did he think I was doing- walking the 20 miles to Thorne Bay? I couldn’t believe it.

Another vehicle comes from the opposite direction. A surplused Forest Service green truck. This driver pulled right over. Nick was a bus driver for Hollis School on his way to work (I think). A retired logger who lives in Klawock. A local. Yeah.

When he told me where I was – nearly 2 miles from the bottom of the logging road I’d driven up- I realized just how turned around I was. He had time to take me back to the bottom of the logging road, but not the rest of the way up, and that was more than fine by me! I duffed my pack and gun in the weeds at the highway, grabbed my water bottle, and started the 3/4 mile walk of shame up the mountain to the truck.

About half way there, here comes someone road hunting from up the same road. The road is barely wide enough for me to stand to the side so he can pass. As he passes, the driver has his window down, but doesn’t stop or say a word! Who passes by someone in the middle of nowhere and doesn’t ask if they are ok? Or if they saw any deer. Or how their day is? Bummer. I continue on the walk of shame to the truck, change out of my rain gear and cork boots, and head home. I enjoy the hot coffee in the thermos on the way.

Alaska has changed, I think. Or maybe it’s just me.

Late October Deer Hunting and Going Commando

Slept in a little bit this morning, but I got up before sunrise to watch Chris preach at Broadstreet Methodist Church down in North Carolina, where he’s subbing for a pastor. Glad to hear him again. I miss his sermons but glad he’s retired like me and can really enjoy his kids and grandkids.

I took my time to get my gear, food, and clothing together, then headed down to the boat mid-morning. I took off about 10:45 from Craig, headed out to an anchorage I found this summer. It’s a good 3-hour run from town in my boat. I figured no one else would be coming out here, and the muskeg I can see on OnX works for the north wind that’s in the forecast for the next several days. It looks like I finally got the battery system on the boat dialed in. We’ll see how everything works, with the heater on at night and that kind of thing. (I saw a You Tube later in the week, by chance, that showed me one last adjustment to the battery charger that finally solved the problem of low charging through the charger from the tugs adequate alternator).

I got to the anchorage about three and a half hours out of town, dropped the hook, and launched the punt. I put the little electric outboard on that I bought several years ago and I just love it. The outboard (EP Carry) plugs into a removable little lithium battery. The motor only weighs about 15 pounds, and the battery weighs about 10 lbs. It’s great for motoring back and forth to the beach.

I got some lunch on with some deer breakfast sausage and mushrooms and a few peppers. I threw an egg on top of it when it was all cooked down, and then I made a burrito for lunch. A few hours later, I had left overs of it on a salad for dinner.

I listened to the Packers give the game away to Detroit, and thought well, it’s still light out and still warm in the wheelhouse, as the sun was beating in and the solar heat was nice. I found my friend Don Jackson’s new book. I hadn’t started reading it yet, and thought – this is perfect book for this trip. I think there’s 24 short stories in it, so if I limit myself to six stories a day, that’ll get me through my four days of deer hunting.

The sun got down over the trees, turning off the free solar heat, and I turned on the diesel heater. The clear days and nights would bring temperatures down into the 30’s at night. I check my new house batteries, and things look good. The starlink mini is running great, and I enjoy drinking coffee and listening to the evening Seahawks game.

I was up well before first light. Jesse and I went up to this spot when he was here in August fishing, and I called in a couple does. That, and the numerous deer tracks on the beach, and a deer sighting on the beach this summer, indicated this island was, indeed, large enough to hold a few deer. At first light, I took the punt to the beach and headed up to the muskeg. I found a perch on a rock outcrop on one side of the muskeg, and settled in for 15 minutes or so. I’ve taken to timing my calls at 15 minute intervals on my phone. It’s forcing me to be more patient. Then I blew the call.

A few minutes after calling, I see a large buck on the opposite side, coming my way. It looked like a 4 point, although I could only see the antlers from the side. It had a huge body. The wind was blowing from him to me (perfect) and the sun was behind me, in his eyes (double perfect). He could not see me in my position (triple perfect). And then he held up on the other side of the muskeg – I’d guess 150 yards away. He turned and trotted up into the woods on his side. Maybe he didn’t like the stiff breeze. I called again when he got to the woods. He stopped hard and looked back at me, but it was too far of a shot for me in too short a time. But oh, how exciting on the first few minutes of the day and the first buck of the season.

As would happen every day of this week, the skies were clear and sunny. Easy to sit in the sun and just see what happens, rather than eventually getting chilled and wanting to move on. This muskeg was big enough to call in two or three spots at most, so I knew I could make a morning of it in this spot. I enjoyed the sunshine and called every 15 minutes. A small flock of Canada geese flew by in a V, right overhead, within shotgun range.

About an hour later, here comes another buck on the other side, on the same trail the first buck was on. I don’t know if he was just wandering around looking for love or coming to check on the call. He didn’t seem to want to come over to me for a shot, but he didn’t leave, either. I’d see him now and again through the bullpines, ground cedar, and stunted hemlocks in the muskeg and the timber above it on the other side. I changed my tone on the call, and that seemed to do it. The buck came my way. And like I seem to do on every first deer of the season, I wasn’t patient enough. The buck was out there maybe 75 yards. Coming straight to me. I had a clear, head-on neck shot. But most importantly, I didn’t have a good rest, and shot from my sitting position. I rushed two shots. Both clean misses. And he just turned around and walked back into the brush and out of my life. You’re never too old to repeat the same mistakes, it seems. Shoulda waited til he was closer. And shoulda set up where I had a good rest. Same old sad story.

Didn’t see another deer that day. Or the next day. I had to go back and try again after seeing 2 bucks, but didn’t see a thing in the gorgeous sunny fall weather.

I moved that evening. I decided to run to the next island over. I went the long way around to the anchorage, because I remember going in the nearest entrance to the channel between the two islands seemed very sketchy when I went through there with Pat and Sean in August. I bucked the northerly getting over there, but nothing too bad. I anchored behind an island in the channel, and got ready to go hunting in a brand new (to me) spot tomorrow.

I found my way up to a huge muskeg complex. There was lots of ground cedar and bullpine and rock outcrops and brush. Lots of places for deer to feel like they have some cover if they come to investigate a fawn bawling.

I a deer working off to the left of me, just as I got to the muskeg proper, coming my way, on the move. Looks like a doe. Then it turned it’s head….oOoOO! a buck! I nice medium small fork horn. I found a tree snag for cover and a rest, duffed my pack, chambered a round, and watched. He’s still coming my way, off to my left. I blew on the call….here he comes!. I get a rest and wait for him to emerge up the slight incline through some brush to me. Wind is blowing in my face. Sun is at my back…. And he never showed. He must have kept going and got behind me into the heavy brush to get downwind. He was the only deer I was to see today. The muskeg was spectacular in fall colors in the sun, but walking in the ground cedar and muskeg really wore me out.

After not seeing anything on the first island when I hunted a second day, I decided to head to the next island over, rather than hunt here a second day. I got down to the beach at about high tide – and the tide was a neap tides, so extra high. I realized after I anchored yesterday that I’d recorded my track on the chartplotter out the channel entrance with all the rocks when I went through here in August with Pat and Sean. So, with the extra high water and a track to follow, I felt a little better motoring the short distance out into open water, and made it through without incident. I drank hot coffee left over from the morning in the big thermos Julie thrifted for me. It’s so big it holds the whole lot of the coffee in the percolator. Nothing like hot coffee at the end of a long hike deer hunting. I paired the coffee with a bowl of raisins and almonds and a few chocolate almonds.

I ran way up into a bay of the next island, where a point of land divides the upper reaches of the bay into two smaller bays. A muskeg parallels the two bays, and I could anchor on either side. I chose the left bay, as I thought it provided a little better break from the north wind. I will try the right side next time, as it’s about half the distance to hike into the muskeg from there. I got anchored, read a few more chapters of Don’s book, and hit the rack.

The next morning, I went to the beach a tad later than I had the first 3 days. The woods looked pretty dark at first light, so I let some more sunrise happen. Then up the hill I went. The going wasn’t particularly nice, but it rarely is. Patches of nice open old growth rainforest with periods of deadfalls and brush in between. I got to a spot in the big woods below the muskeg, and thought I’d try calling here for a short time, as I wasn’t seeing a whole lot of deer out in the muskegs so far. Nothing showed.

I hiked on up to the big muskeg. It was another great complex of bullpine and ponds and muskeg and stunted hemlocks and dead snags, with substantial timber parallelling both sides of the muskeg. As I got into the muskeg, I saw the ground frost was still present where I was, out about 75 yards, and there the frost had melted as the sun was up that far, and the muskeg was in full fall colors. A pretty scene. I was in the shadows and upwind, although there was very little wind today for a change. Before I started calling, I picked some cedar bows, crumpled them in my hands to release the fragrance, rubbed it on myself from head to toe, then put the bow pieces in my pockets. A little cover scent couldn’t hurt.

I waited 15 minutes for things to settle down, and then called. A doe popped out to my left, coming from back in the frosty shadows. Why wouldn’t she want to be out in the sun? She came right up to me to investigate, decided I wasn’t a fawn and wasn’t a threat, and then slowly walked back out along the other side of the muskeg. I waited til she was out of sight. I checked the clock. Thirteen minutes had passed since I’d called. I waited two more minutes and called again.

This time two does came in from the same side of the muskeg as the first doe, but from further out in the muskeg where the sunshine was. They did the same routine as the first doe, although they did not come as close to me, then wandered back out along the timber on the other side of the muskeg, just like the first doe did.

I called a couple more times over the rest of the hour+ and no more deer showed. I moved on to the next muskeg section. The overall muskeg was broken into 3 or 4 sections, with some timber in between the sections.

I set up in a tighter spot than the first muskeg. I was on the edge of the timber to my left, with brushy areas that stretched out and down the muskeg. I could see distances from about 40 to 100 yards. I blew the call and waited 15 minutes. Nothing showed. I blew the call again, and here comes a deer out of the brush. And it’s a buck. Having learned my annual lesson earlier, I was set up where I had a good rest against the trees I was hiding in. The deer sensed my movement when I raised my gun, and it quartered and started walking away. He stopped and looked back at me from about 30 yards. I didn’t think much. I just got his neck in the sight picture of the scope hairs and fired. After the recoil I looked up. Nothing. Uh oh. I hope he’s down over there in the high grass and brush. In an adrenaline rush, I started gathering up my pack to walk over there and here comes a doe, right by me. She was with the buck, but not in the lead. Just like two of the bucks I harvested last year.

I let her get on by and then walked full of anticipation and dread over to see if I had hit the buck. He was right there in his tracks. He was dead when he hit the ground. A perfect shot right through the neck. A quick death. Little suffering, I hope. It was about noon.

I got my deer tag out and punched it. Then got all the gear out of the pack to field process. First I cut off the forelegs at the knees, and made slits under the hide from the knees to the center on the fore and hind legs. Then I cut a ring around the neck, right under the chin. I have a knife that has both a regular knife blade and a gutting blade. The gutting blade allows you to get under the hide and not cut the muscle when skinning, and allows allows you to cut through the thin muscle over the stomach, without puncturing the stomach, when removing the innards.

The tool is super lightweight and inexpensive. It replaces a somewhat dangerous job of cutting around the anus to remove the intestine. It actually works, every time. I tried it on a moose once, though, and you need a bigger one for a moose, which I don’t know that the company makes. I’m sure I could make one, but don’t get enough moose to worry about it.

I slit the hide from the butt up the center of the chest, connecting the two slits I made between the knees to the center of the chest on the rear and for legs. I go back and make a slit between the thin muscle covering the internal organs from the butt up to the chest, then roll out the guts and move them to the side of the carcass. Next, I cut through the diaphragm and cut out the lungs and heart. I find the heart in the pile, and put it in a bag.

I then put my 4 pulley hoist up in a tree. It always takes a little more time to sort out the hoist lines the first time I use it each season, and I eventually get it set up. I put the loop of soft halibut gangion line hanging from the lower double pulley around the antlers, then pull on the line coming from the top double pulley, and hoist the deer, little by little, till it’s hanging at a good working height for me. The hoist system is physics magic at work. I can lift the largest deer I’d ever get here with it alone, and with not alot of effort.

I start skinning the buck at the neck and down to the shoulders, which takes a bit of cutting the hide away from the muscle with the knife. From the shoulders on down the rest of the way is mostly pulling with one arm while using my fist where the skin meets the muscle to push the hide off. I harvested this deer several weeks earlier than the deer I got last year, and it has a nice layer of fat. The bucks I took last year had little to no fat, as they were full on into the rut.

The hide comes off in a few minutes, and now I pull up a game bag up around the carcass. Somehow the deer doesn’t fit in the bag like it did last year. I have a cheese cloth type, store bought bag, rather than my homemade bed sheet bags. I lower the whole deer on the hoist into my pack. I lower a little, then pull the pack up around the deer a little, until I have the deer into the pack. I can’t seem to get the deer down into the bag and into the pack right. Alot of the neck is still above the top of the pack, and the bottom legs are not folding to let it settle into the bottom. When the deer is in the pack as best I can get it, and it’s sitting on the ground, I cut off the head using a small saw to get through the bone, and my knife to cut the muscle.

I get the deer cinched into the pack, get all my gear back into the pack, and then try to lift the pack. It doesn’t take long to say out loud: “Mark, this ain’t happenin”. The pack is way too heavy to pack down the hill through the toolies.

I put the hoist back up in the tree, pull the deer carcass back up off the ground with the hoist. I remove the front quarters and the neck and put those into pillow case game bags. I lift each of the bags and think: much better.

I hang the front quarters and neck in the heavy cover of a cedar tree a ways away from the gut pile, make sure the spot is marked on my OnX, and then place the deer head in the tree I hung the deer from as a visual marker. I’ll come back for the bag of meat tomorrow, and hunt my way here.

I hike straight down to the beach from my location, rather than back tracking to the first muskeg and down the hill. The distance negotiating the woods from the muskeg to the beach would be shorter that way, but overall, the distance directly to the beach from here is shorter, so I chanced it.

About half way down, I came to a spot deep in the timber that had about 10 piles of black bear scat, all in a 5 yard circle, under a tree. Most of the scat was red berries – huckleberries, which were still around – and one pile looked like skunk cabbage roots. None of the scat looked like recent deposits. I walked a few steps further to the other side of the tree, and there saw three or four huge piles of scat. The piles were about 18 inches wide by 8 inches high. And this scat was fresh – containing salal berries – which were full on in season now, and I’d been grazing on them all week. That sight was enough to make a guy with a packful of meat on his back a tad nervous.

I got to the beach without incident, other than a few hard falls. I sure am glad the rainforest floor is mostly soft. I was a good distance down the beach from the punt. and the tide was so high there was no beach to walk back to it. So, I put my pack and gun where I stood, and hiked back through the woods on the beach fringe back to the punt, and motored over to retrieve my gear.

Back at the tug, I tied a line from the galley roof handle down to the stern rail across the back deck, and hung the sack of venison to cool overnight.

The next day, I got going a little earlier. I beached the punt and carried my gear up into the beach fringe to change out my boots. I looked down at the punt and realized I forgot to bring the tie-up line from the punt up the beach and tie it to a tree on shore. Yikes. What if I forgot. Too far to swim back to the tug if the tide took the punt away. Note to self: tie the tie-up line to something you have to take to the woods so you don’t forget. Dang.

I got up the hill. No deer in the first muskeg where I saw 3 doe yesterday. Alternative entertainment included a Stellar’s jay that landed right near me in the brush, then a woodpecker put on a show out in front of me for awhile on snags in the muskeg.

I worked my way to the second muskeg, got off track. I realized I needed to get back over to my left more. And, I finally got tired of my underwear falling off from my weight loss, and it’s a chore to keep pulling them up under my layers of rain bibs over my Carhartt overalls. I stopped in the sun in the muskeg, removed the underwear, and continued commando up into a really nice muskeg I hadn’t hunted yesterday, thanks to going off course today.

I got to a place in the muskeg where there were woods on 3 sides of the field, put my pack down to call, and…..WHERE’S MY GUN?!?. I left it at the changing room! First a heart attack, followed by panic. Could I find my way back there? Luckily, I remembered that I stopped in a little depression on the edge of the woods before I came up to the muskeg, about an eighth of a mile or so back. I marched back that way double time. There was my gun against the tree, right where I left it. I immediately turned on the tracking tool on my OnX app in case this happened again. I recapped the day so far: first, I almost lost my punt from not tying it to something on the beach, and second: I lost my gun. Yikes! Age 63 is almost here.

I returned to the muskeg, and called in the sunshine for half an hour or so. Nothing. Wow, this looked like a good spot. I headed out of the muskeg back towards where the meat was hanging, and ran into a doe in the section of muskeg that was behind me when I called She wasn’t overly alarmed by me as I walked by her at about 30 yards. As I continued up to the other muskeg, there she was again, parallelling me. Almost like she was following me. I didn’t see her after that.

I’d come to the end of this huge muskeg complex. This was the last third of it. I set up and called in the midday sunshine. A doe charged in right away from the woods to my left. She came over and checked me out, then wandered back where she came from and out of sight. I called again when she was gone, and another doe charged over. At least I think it was a different doe. And this time, I saw another deer behind her that held up, right at the edge of the woods. I thought that was Mr. Buck, but it was another doe. I let the doe check me out. It gave off one snort as it turned and trotted off. Sometimes the doe snort and snort and run all around, sending warning out to all in the area. This this one just gave the one quick snort and that was it.

When she and the other doe went back into the woods, I called again, and now the same deer came back. This time she came right over to me, trying to understand what, exactly, was the problem with this creature that sounded like a fawn bawling, without any underwear, mind you, but which did not look or smell like a fawn. Eventually she went back out the same way she came in. I left her alone after that and hiked to yesterday’s kill site.

Everything was as I left it. Even the liver in the gut pile had not been found yet. I usually worry that a marten might get to the meat overnight, rather than a bear (I’ve never heard of wolves bothering meat), but nothing – not even the birds – had even started in on the gut pile.

I pulled the deer head down from the tree and placed it alongside the gut pile and the hocks. Then I walked over to the meat sack, got it into my pack, coiled up the hoist set up, and off I went.

I went back towards the first muskeg this time, rather than heading straight down, after seeing all the bear scat on that route yesterday. I got down a little easier than yesterday, I think, but still with some hard falls as usual. Neither the replaced hip nor the replaced shoulder seem affected by the falls. What a time we’re living in.

I got back to the tug and decided to head to town, since I hadn’t seen another buck here. I could have stopped at spots between here and town, but I like to leave the spots closer to Craig for the hunters who still work for a living and only have the weekends off.

I pulled up the marine weather on my phone and saw a big blow was on its way tonight! Dang. I didn’t see that coming. I had only checked on the rain forecast recently, and not the winds. I coulda been stuck out there for a few days, which wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world.

It took about 4 hours to get to town. As I turned the corner at Fish Egg Island for South Cove, I was completely out of daylight, and lucky to have the Craig City lights to help see on the last 20 minutes of the run to the harbor.

I got tied up in South Cove, and offloaded my gun and a few other things to fill the folding cart up, and headed for the car. I’d get the rest of the gear and the meat, which I’d put in a cooler, tomorrow.

First thing I did at home was to weigh myself. I dropped another 5+ pounds. Nice. That takes me to about 80 pounds lost since end of January 2025.

Then a hot shower, and a feast of canned deer burger, onions, mushrooms, Mama Lils and my favorite Kirkland Coastal cheese I cooked together and then put that on several tortillas with salad left from the boat and sour cream I bought on the way home. Then I hit the rack. Best sleep I’ve had in a long time.

I spent yesterday butchering the deer after it had hung in the cool temps a few days. My friend asked my how much meat I’d get, and I thought: you know, I don’t know. So I weighed it all this year. I got 50 lbs of meat from the deer, and the remaining part I packed off the hill – basically the backbone from neck to tailbone, plus the leg bones and miscellaneous trimmings – weighed 20 lbs. So 70 lbs packed down to the boat.

When I got done vac packing all the meat, I took the scraps down near the beach for the birds. The birds cleaned up 20 lbs of bones and scraps by this morning. It’s interesting to watch them feed. The ravens will gather as many scraps as they can in their mouth, fly off to stash it, and come back for more. The eagles will sit and watch in the trees, and for some reason not go down to get the scraps because, I think, they can see me in the cabin. They will take off to chase a raven with meat to see if they make the raven drop his prize. The crows will come in and sit and eat and gorge themselves til I’m surprised they can fly away. They are the least nervous of the scavengers, it seems. A couple sea gulls came in and tried for a share, but the ravens and crows, while they tolerate each other at the scrap pile, will run off the gulls if they try to join. The bigger bones were gone this morning, so I’m guessing the eagles at some point went in there and carried them away, as they were too big for the smaller birds.

Deer Hunting Day 3

Bob Bang was here earlier in the week. We got in two days of hunting from the tug, then ran back to town in front of a big blow that came the next day. Back at the cabin, Bob helped me do the final design on the house build for the windows and walls and rooms and kitchen and woodstove locations. Bob took off yesterday morning back to Juneau.

After I dropped off Bob, I had coffee with a young troller here in Craig who has started direct marketing his own fish (spiritbearseafoods.com). I shared with him what experience and advice I could. Happy to see someone this young getting an early start in direct marketing. He seems to be doing well already. I send his smoked canned coho to people as thank you gifts for having us overnight on our travels, etc.

I replaced the house batteries on the tug awhile back, and struggled to get them charged properly. I bought the charger and shunt from BlueMarine.com, They’ve got customer service like I’ve rarely seen in recent times with so many layers of AI and clicks and phone trees I normally seem to face. I finally figured out there were some settings wrong, the batteries were never getting fully charged, and now I think we’re there and fully charged.

Today, I headed out in the truck to a favorite spot on the road system. I went there twice last year. Both times I saw a buck. Both times I did not get the buck.

I got to the parking spot at sunrise, changed into my cork boots, and headed up the mountain. I feel in even better shape this year, a year and a half onb the new hip and 70+ lbs lighter. I remembered the climb taking about an hour, but I was at the top of the trail before I knew it. Only half an hour hike. I slunked around to a little hill in the middle of a bunch of muskeg patches.

I shucked my pack, got out my ear muffs, chambered a round, took off the scope covers and wiped the scope lenses. and settled in. I called for about an hour, and had one doe come in. There was a foggy mist up there, and I could see the sun trying to burn it off, but the sun never came out by itself as I’d hoped. It was classic rainforest weather. I love it.

I crept further around the mountain side. I called another doe in little higher up in a section of big timber. Eventually, I worked my way back in a big circle back to the top of the trail, and headed back down to the truck about noon. I called in the big timber on the way down and saw the third doe of the day.

Back at the truck, I shucked my corks and rain gear and put them in the truck bed so they wouldn’t steam up the cabin, then poured a cup of coffee from the thermos. There’s nothing like hot coffee after hunting all morning.

So, three days of hunting in this fall. Don’t feel discouraged at all that I haven’t seen a buck. I know it’s early yet. And the older I get, the more the point of fall hunting is the hiking around. Haven’t felt this good since Peace Corps. Even my knees don’t ache at the end of the day. Decent.

It’s gonna get Bad, before it gets Worse…

I only had one thing left for the season on my boat to do list I started in the spring: check the zincs on the boat. After seeing that the bottom didn’t really need to be painted when I had it painted in Juneau, I decided to skip the bottom paint this year. But zincs- you wanna check the zincs to keep your boat metal from eroding.

The weather and tide looked okay on Thursday, so I figured now was a good time. I headed to the harbor a little after 5 am and got the boat over to the grid about 530 am. About an hour after high tide. There was 3.5 feet of holdover water, and the high tide was only 8.5 feet in 6 hours.

I was maybe a tad late. The bow sat on the forward grid cross member already, but all seemed fine. I made sure I didn’t have the prop shoe over a grid member, and started tying off to the pilings. I hadn’t done this in 20? years when I’d paint and zinc my troller the Dutch Master, and Kurt always either helped me or advised.

The thing I most remembered that I didn’t want to have happen was for the boat to tip over away from the grid pilings when the tide went out. We used to fill garbage cans with water on the side of the boat tied to the pilings to be sure it leaned that way. The tug is a lot smaller than the troller was, and all looked okay in the dark.

I felt the boat tilt towards the pilings as the tide continued going out, and I thought: all is well. None of the lines were over tight or slack. Then, the boat heeled hard over. Uh oh. What I hadn’t remembered to do was to square up the boat parallel to the pilings, and to keep the boat snug up to the pilings by adjusting the lines as the tide went out. Eventually the boat heeled over to the pilings at a cockeyed level. Then I smelled diesel in the dark.

Dawn was coming and soon Daniel from the harbor dept. was looking down. He started telling me what I shoulda done, and I stopped him mid-sentence to ask if I was in peril now, as we could go over the proper technique later. He said “I’ve seen worse”, which actually gave me some comfort. He then saw the diesel dripping out of the vent for the starbard tank – the side we were leaning in on. So, that was the smell. He said get a stick and put some electric tape on it and shove it in the little vent hole, which I did. I also shut off the valve on the little hose that goes between the tanks so the port tank wouldn’t keep draining down to the starbard tank. Problem solved for now.

As the tide continued to go out, I heard a crack. The starbard rail was now leaning hard over on the piling (instead of the piling just keeping the boat straight up and down, if it was tied up right), and I could see a bend now in the side rail. And a crack in it. Yikes. Dan said it would probably be a good idea to get off the boat and stay off so I wasn’t making anything worse: more sage advice.

I think we were both thinking the only real issue was if the keel skidded underneath, over towards the port side of the boat, on the slimy cross members, and kicked the boat away from the pillings and all the way on its side….. which would be a disaster. I hoped that wouldn’t happen..

The tide was now below the keel on the grid, so I could get to work. I got a little relief when I saw that the boat tilt was really worse than it looked – the keel was sitting almost fully on the grid, and not just on the keel’s edge. Whew.

I put on my ancient waders and as I expected, they leaked pretty good. But not so bad I couldn’t work in them. I looked over the situation and worse case scenario described above, and thought the boat would clear me if it kicked sideways, as long as I dove down below the level of the grid members… Not exactly textbook safe, but the keel sitting pretty flat on the grid gave me a little more comfort. Still, I wanted to spend as little time as necessary under the hull.

Luckily, I’d got the tools and new zincs all together last night, so I was ready to go. I replaced the prop shaft zinc and the rudder zinc in less than 10 minutes. The teardrop zinc looked okay (as Louie at the yard in Juneau told me it did last year, so this will now be a third year on it), but something didn’t seem right. The zinc was screwed horizontally to the keel below the prop shaft. Just what was it deflecting electrolosis from? The thought passed.

I removed barnacles at the waterline along the stern among the swim step stays, along with a handful of barnacles in the exhaust coming out the stern. Then I scraped the moss at the waterline along either side of the hull with my fingers. This was another 10 minute job. All done, I thought. Now just to monitor the boat and wait for the tide to come back in. It was now about 20 minutes before low tide.

I went home and had coffee and did some errands and checked on the boat periodically. About an hour and a half later it hit me: I’d seen a bonding wire in the photos I take of the haulout every year down to that teardrop zinc, and the wire was gone! But good job in my older age to know photos are important! Let the scrambling begin….

I dashed back to the boat. The tide was rising, but it looked like I still had maybe an hour to work, albeit working up to my armpits. I saw where the nut below the propshaft housing had held the wire before. I backed it off and pulled out the remnants of copper wire. I ran home and grabbed some copper ground wire I had for the house electric, and some copper brake tubing from a brake job on the truck, then back to the boat.

I backed off the nut and tried the copper wire. Too thick. Then I tried the copper brake tubing, and it looked like it might work because I could mash it down and get a good bite with the nut. I backed off the nut to mash it….and dropped the nut! I was up to my chest in water. I finally thought I saw it and dived down for it….but only came up with mussels and a waderful of water. Panic time.

I assessed the situation and thought: go get a nyloc nut, get a battery-sized starting wire with crimped eye ends made, and hope for the best. I set the crescent wrench to the size of the nuts still on there for size, and headed to the hardware store. They had nyloc nuts that looked about right, and I bought one. Next to the auto store to get wire with eye ends. They had wire, but no eye ends big enough for both the bolt and the thick wire. I dashed out with the wire and on to Chets, where I should have gone first! They had the eyes, and Karl crimped them on for me, and out I dashed again. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a better business than Chet’s.

Craig is a great place for an “emergency” like this, since the stores are all about a block from each other. And, everyone understands if I tell them I’m racing the tide.

I got back to the boat and didn’t bother with the waders. I was already soaked from diving for the nut, so just walked in up to my chest again and got to work. The nyloc nut fit (my first real win for the day!), and I cranked it down with the eye of the wire under it against the forward nut on the stud bold. Unfortuately the nut was too thick for the nyloc part of it to bite, but I’ll hope for the best. (I ordered the right width nyloc nuts as soon as I got home, as I didn’t see any at the hardware store, before I forgot – another bonus of maturity).

The screw holding in the zinc had a big phillips head – and it looked a little stripped. I couldn’t back it off with the screw driver, and only had dykes pliers with me, but luckily they worked! Win number 2. I backed it right out. Next, though, I saw I’d measured from the wrong end of the scrap of wire I’d used to measure for length before I took off for the store, and the wire was way too long. So, I wrapped it first under the, gap in the zinc to the rear, and then wrapped it around the forward tab, to shorten it up so there wouldn’t be slack in it as the boat ran. I started the screw in. Uh oh. I only got it in part ways with the dykes, but then it didn’t want to turn anymore. Next, I grabbed the pipe wrench I’d brought, and that wasn’t much help. I couldn’t turn it with the screw driver, either. Water was rising…

I decided to go for broke, and try the battery drill driver with the fattest phillips bit I had for it. It might just strip out in place, but worth a try. It cranked it right up tight….before it stripped like crazy. Win number 3!

So, back to the ranch. I put the tarp in the back over the front seat, jumped in and drove home. I stripped off all my wet clothes at the door and right into a hot shower. Oh, that felt good.

I headed back awhile later, and the boat was already starting to float. It had righted up just fine, and the “wow” in the side rail from leaning on the piling returned to normal! Just plain lucky, like I generally seem to be. But I need all that luck when so many jobs seem to go sideways.

family on georgian bay standing on rock with water in the background

Georgian Bay 2026

Got to go to the cousin’s family cabin in the Georgian Bay of Ontario again this September, and lucky to have Sara go along, too. My cousin Christine and her husband John were there again this year, along with one of their daughters, Allison, from Chicago.

Sara and I flew to Seattle in the afternoon, and overnighted in Seattle. The next morning we flew to Milwaukee, where another of my cousin’s daughters Aileen lives with her husband and 2 young kids. We dropped a suitcase of Sara’s at the daughter’s house, and took off for Canada late in the afternoon.

Last year we overnighted in Blind River. This year, we stayed at Bruce Mines – a really quaint-in-a-good-way town on Lake Huron. I went to the town cafe the next morning to get my thermos full of coffee. The waitress happily made a pot of coffee and filled my giant thermos, and then wouldn’t allow me to pay the $20 I offered – she insisted I take the $10 change she offered. I got a really nice vibe about that town. Seems like we were there post-tourism rush and the town’s people were breathing a sigh of relief to get back to school and the rest of the year routine. Like winter for me in Juneau.

On day 2, we shopped at a store in a little town south of Sudbury for groceries, and got to Camp Dore’ in mid-afternoon. We bought a couple Culligan water kegs for drinking water, launched and loaded the boat to overflowing, and ran the Key River. We stopped at the Key River Lodge and Chris dropped off a couple Iowa steaks for the couple that runs the marina, where we get propane, boat fuel, Canadian candy, ice cream, and fishing gear. We charged on to Cash Island. This was my second season captaining the boat through the rock piles. I followed my Garmin Boating app track laid down last year, while starting to memorize the navigation markers as well. By the end of the week and another two trips back and forth to the river mouth, I got to feeling comfortable making the trip.

We arrived late in the afternoon with plenty of daylight left. We got the 80 year old log cabin opened up. John and Allison got the window covers off. Sara and Chris got the linens on the beds. I got to getting the water system charged. I hauled the water pump down from the cabin, hooked up the intake line and threw it into the Georgian Bay. Then connected the discharge line up to the cabin some 100 feet uphill of the water. The engine started after I primed the pump, and I headed up to the cabin to wait for the water tank to overflow. The engine quit after about 5 minutes. I restarted it after awhile, but could not get the engine to run longer than 5 minutes. I looked up the symptoms on the University of You Tube, and diagnosed a bad coil. We carried buckets of lake water up for the bathroom and hand washing and dish washing for the evening.

On day 3, the big forecasted blow rolled in, and we had rain all day. And not just light rain. A real downpour. What luck! I filled all the buckets and coolers with rainwater off the roof, and that saved us a lot of uphill water hauling from the lake! There’s a fire pump set up at the cabin I’d never tried to run. They bought it the year of the big wild fires in the Henvey that luckily spared Cash Island somehow. The fire pump uses cam lock fittings and roll up discharge hose, and I was lucky enough to cobble together fittings from the spare plumbing parts bin to marry the fire pump hose camlock fittings to the ½ in hard plastic water pump lines up the hill to the water tank. I got it all set up, but the fire pump engine would not fire. When it started to rain again, I quit that project for the day, assured that with all the rainwater, we were set for cabin water for awhile.

Day 4 dawned clear and sunny. It would stay that way the rest of the week. I changed out the old gas in the fire pump engine with fresh fuel, then pulled the spark plug and soaked the electrode in gas. I reinstalled the plug, pulled the starter cord, and it fired right up! When it started pumping water, I saw after a short while that water was squirting out of the base of the plastic Pacer pump housing. Uh oh. When the pump was fully primed and maxing out flow through the discharge flat hose, the water blew out a crack in the bottom of the pump. But it kept pumping! Maybe water got left in the pump over winter some year. I scurried up to the cabin and could not hear water going into the tank. I thought water wasn’t pumping up the hill somehow. I returned to the pump and turned it off. I moped back to the cabin, again defeated by engines. I met Sara this time – she said the tank HAD filled with water and water was gushing out the overflow pipe. So, it was working after all. Now we had water covered for the week. We’d take the pumps back with us to the states for repair, and keep taking them back from now on at the end of the season so they could be tested before each season.

While the tank was full, no water was now coming out of the faucets somehow. The only place I could hear water moving was from the big overhead tank into the empty propane-fired hot water tank. We left that mystery for now and let the tank fill up. John and I went fishing.

We lost our first two smallmouth bass on the jump, and a nice pike that flipped out of the net. The next bass we landed. It seemed kinda like a slow day fishing at the spots that were so productive last year, but really wasn’t that bad. We just lost 3 out of 4.

When we got back to the cabin, we got more good news. Water was flowing in the faucets. More like a trickle than a flow, but they were working. The 80 year old iron pipes are likely caked nearly closed now with mineral and rust build up. But they made it one more season.

On day 5, John, Allison and I went fishing. We caught a bass and small pike. Slow fishing again, but beautiful fall weather again, with a high in the 60’s. Nights were down in the 40’s, so great sleeping weather. Lots more mosquitoes this year than I remember last year.

On day 6, Allison fished with me in the morning, as her dad (and mom) are not early risers anymore as they enter their 9th decade of life. We tried trolling rapalas near the bottom, using propane fittings as a drop sinker a few feet in front of the lure. Not a bite.

After breakfast and a short nap, John and I ran up the Henvey further, and tried the deep trolling again. Nothing. Then we tried casting off some grass beds at a few places, and scratched a couple bass. We also did some trolling in the shallows with the rapalas and got a small pike. A dinner for 5 was now secured with today’s catch and the previous two-days-worth. Fishing certainly humbled me this year. We caught enough for dinner every day last year, and took some surplus fish to my cousins. Not this year. But lots learned. The crew gobbled up the fish I fried for dinner, and there was lots left over to cook for the next evening’s dinner, too.

We didn’t fish on day 7. With plenty of fish left to cook from yesterday, we puttered around and did some preclose-up chores. We stripped our beds. The sheets go home for washing and blankets into the pest-proof bench. John and Allison started putting up the window covers. I filled all the buckets and pots with water from the tank, and then started draining the water system, as it took hours to drain it last year. With the 80 year old iron pipes almost choked tight, it’s time for a new system. The tank finally drained dry after a good while.

Allison and John took a kayak trip around the island and just missed catching me taking a bath when they passed at the end of their circuit. Sandhill cranes that they kicked up flew by as I was bathing. A first for me here. We saw a bald eagle or two, a mink, mergansers, loons, and other puddle ducks this year. No large mammals like bears, moose or deer that we saw last year.

Day 8 was leaving day. We finished closing up in what seemed like record time. I updated a list of items for next year on some lined paper I left on the table, and I took a picture of it for my files. Maybe we’ll make it back next year.

The run back through the rockpiles was the first time I kinda felt confident doing so, running the markers without peeking at the app track. We made it back without issue and were on our way early in the afternoon.

We got through the border and stayed overnight at Sault Saint Marie. I really liked breaking up the trip, overnighting each way, rather than a marathon 12+ hour drive straight on through. We don’t have to be in a hurry anymore. It’s enjoyable. We had a great dinner at the Applebee’s next to our hotel, and saw the photos of the area hockey teams, snowmobile races, and dog mushing. Looks like winter is a fun time here. My kind of place.

We got back to cousin Aileen’s place mid-afternoon. Sara and I ran over to Karl’s to get loaded up on Karl’s brats and Wisconsin cheese. The next day at TSA, the officer took my bag loaded with Wisconsin goodness to see what I had. Turns out the most dangerous thing was Vern’s cheese curds. She kind of blushed and thanked me for supporting the Wisconsin economy, and I thanked Wisconsin for making such great cheese.

We overnighted in Seattle, and I left Sara there for meetings when I headed for the airport before 4 am. We’d taken the light rail to our hotel downtown, but it didn’t start running til 5 am and I didn’t want to risk missing my flight due to busy TSA lines, so I took a cab. I had a nice chat with a Somali driver who was raised in Kenya and had worked out at the Unisea plant in Dutch Harbor once upon a time. We made it to the airport in light traffic, I breezed through TSA and was soon guzzling coffee at gate D3.

The flight was early into Ketchikan, and I was soon checked in on Island Air for the flight back to the Island. Fall is in the air and I scanned the rainforest on the way home for deer hunting spots I’ll never reach.

Battery Redo

I replaced the two, 65 pound each, 235 ah 6 volt lead acid batteries that were bought in 2021 by the former owner with two, 22 lb each 100 ah mini lithium batteries. Lithium batteries should give me 10 times the life of the lead acid batteries – which lived right up to their 5 year house battery life I found online. Much more useful power. And so much lighter.

I bought the batteries from Renogy and had them shipped to Lynden Transport in Seattle to come up on the barge. I note the shipping would have been $176 if the batteries were sent by Renogy in the same shipment, but they were not. The batteries arrived on separate days so I was charged $176 for the first and $85 for the second because, as the agent told me, Lynden does not consolidate shipments that arrive there. When I asked Renogy why they didn’t ship the batteries together as one piece, since that’s how I bought them, they said they could not do that due to hazardous material regulations. Tuition paid. Lessons learned.

I found Blue Marine, a Seattle business that seemed expert in lithium battery systems, online, and emailed to ask them what I would need to change from my old lead acid batteries to lithium batteries. I described my current system and said I mainly wanted to be able run my little 5 cu ft AC freezer overnight during the summer, as the lead acid batteries were at the end of their useful life and weren’t doing it anymore. I thought a 200 ah single lithium ion battery would work. They advised me to get two, 100 ah batteries instead – sort of for “backups to backups” system, which is my style. I’d written to them and didn’t hear back for a day or two, so continued searching for batteries when I found the Renogy mini batteries. Wow. 100 Ah each and so small. There were lots of cheaper batteries imported from overseas, but Renogy was a Canadian company with a US office, and I liked that. I found out at check out that the batteries were also on sale, so even better. I ordered two of the batteries. I then got a lengthy, detailed explanation and advice on the system I needed from Blue Marine.

I really appreciated their great information in layman’s terms, so I ordered the rest of the pieces they said I’d need to put the system together. For charging the battery bank – two 100 Ah lithium batteries connected in parallel for the boat’s 12 V system (the 6 V batteries were connected in series) – I’d need a DC-DC charger. This was because unlike conventional batteries, the lithium batteries would call for a lot of juice from the 80 amp boat alternator and likely overheat it. The charger meters the charge into the lithium batteries at a proper rate via the starting battery. Hooking up the wiring for the charger was the biggest chore. The 4 AGW wires were very difficult to get rounded to size to go into the little square compression clamp fittings of the charger. Two wires from the starting battery being charged by the alternator go into the charger, along with two wires going to the battery bank. I got three wire in tight, but one just would not hold and repeatedly fell out. So, I took a 4 AGW ring terminal, crushed the eye together by squeezing the sides of it with vice grips so it would fit in the square socket in the charger, then soldered the end of the wire into the other end of the ring terminal. That’s one part of the system I don’t like. The wiring sockets are right next to each other. You wind the stripped wiring as best you can and jam it into the socket and screw it down as tight as you dare. The + and – are adjacent to each other, and I worried a spark could jump across the bare wire that is slightly below each socket after you screw it it. I tried to make sure there were no stray strands sticking out, and used some heat shrink wrap up to where the wire insulation meets the exposed wire to make is safe as I could. I’d much prefer a ring terminal for a safer, more secure fit. These chargers would not take a 2 AGW or larger wire. 4 AGW wire was definitely the max.

I was a bit confused by the directions for the smart shunt gauge, but finally found it was simple after seeing an explanation on some facebook group: all your negative connections to the battery go to one side, and the other side has a single wire from it to the negative on the battery bank. It’s so simple, it sounded complicated. It’s like a single negative post that’s remote from the battery, except it has two posts instead of one, with a bar in between. The shunt is for monitoring the battery health. I’m not sure how useful I’ll find it over the battery meter on my plotter or battery guage on the electric panel, but Blue Marine said I should have it, so I got it.

There is a concern about fires with lithium batteries, and that was where the massive T fuses come in. I put one of these on each of the positive leads of the two batteries. From what I’ve read, traditional fuses blown in a lithium system can get so hot they actually fuse back together, and now you’ve got current and heat flowing unchecked and a fire can start. These fuses are made so they can’t melt back together.

There was lots of room now in the battery box due to the smaller batteries. I actually could have fit 3 of these 100 Ah batteries in there and that would have made for a nice tight fit. I considered lots of options for securing the batteries in place. I had a couple expired survival suits I got from Bear for some projects. I’d used a piece of another one to cover my anchor capstan on the bow, but realized after a few seasons that the closed cell neoprene was subject to fairly quick deterioration from sun/UV light, so I ended up not using the suit material for that. I cut off the arms and a leg of the suit. I rolled each piece up tight, and jammed them between the batteries and between the sides of the batteries and the battery box. That stuck the batteries in place well, and it will be easy to remove the neoprene rolls should I need to do anything with the batteries. I also found that closed cell neoprene is a very “non-flammable” material, which also made them a good choice. There is lots of air circulation between the batteries and the rolled neoprene and battery box, so I’m not worried about the neoprene material keeping heat in the battery box.

I tackled the job over several days. If I got tired or hungry or under caffeinated, I quit for the day. It’s alot easier not to be in a rush nowadays. This is the kind of job you don’t want to rush. I’ll be excited to see how it performs during deer season.

Now to tackle the pesky leak in my skiff. I took the skiff for a test ride with the new fuel tank and when I returned and pulled the plug, a significant amount of water drained out for the short run. I have a leak somewhere, but cannot find it with the naked eye. I parked the skiff on its trailer in the driveway on levelish ground and filled the inside of the hull with water from the garden hose. I checked awhile later and the hull below decks was nearly full. And not leaks. Except for the drip at the drain plug. What a relief. No patching or welding needed. Just need to coat the threaded plug with pipe dope each time I put it in for now. End of boat chores for now.