Dave Cieslewicz deer stand
Camp Dave: where the magic happens.
If there is any upside to the COVID 19 pandemic it might be that it has spurred a renewed interest in the outdoors.
Bicycle and kayak and canoe sales are at record highs and there has been a 100 percent increase in fishing licenses sold in Wisconsin. There has even been a nearly 10 percent increase in gun deer license purchases here after decades of steady decline.
That last increase is not an unmitigated good. While hunting itself is all about maximum social distancing, deer hunting in Wisconsin usually comes with the traditional deer camp. That often means up to a dozen or so hunters in close quarters in a small cabin or shack, sharing meals, playing cards, and generally violating every rule of pandemic caution you can think of.
For myself I opted out of deer camp for the first time in 29 years. I confess that I miss it. But I did not miss the hunting itself. Instead I have had my own solo camp up here in the Michigan Upper Peninsula. I think of it as Camp Dave, though there’s nobody else to think of it that way with me. (Dianne encourages me not to shoot anything and our dog Maple loves to chase deer, which is not especially helpful when you’re trying to sit quietly and have them happen by.)
In the early fall I put up a deer stand and constructed a crude ground blind out of logs and branches in the Ottawa National Forest, which is just across the road from our cabin. All throughout October and the first half of November I bow hunted from the tree stand and, since gun season began in Michigan on Nov. 15, I have been out there in my ground blind with a rifle almost every day.
For those readers who are opposed to hunting, not to worry. As is often the case with my hunting essays, no wildlife will be harmed in this story. That’s mostly because the rules up here are pretty strict. I may only kill a buck with at least six points on its antlers. That cuts down on the odds significantly. In my hours and hours up in my stand or down in my ground blind I’ve seen more than a couple dozen deer, but the only shootable bucks I’ve seen were out my kitchen window one morning as I was making coffee. They didn’t wait around for me to finish reading the paper, get dressed, find my gun, and fill my deer tag. Deer are uncooperative in that way.
What I’ve sacrificed in the camaraderie of the deer camp has been somewhat made up for in the sheer amount of time I’ve spent out in the woods. Most years I get in maybe three or four days of hunting. This year it has been 28 and counting.
When you spend that much time in one place you start to notice things you wouldn’t if you had less time there. For one thing I’ve noticed that I’m seeing a lot of the same deer. For example, there is a big doe and her fawn that we were seeing in our yard for most of the spring and summer. They come by with some regularity. In fact, the other evening in the midst of a steady snow they came past my ground blind. The doe saw me and got between me and her fawn, who stopped and stood as still as a statue about 50 yards away.
The doe snorted at me repeatedly. When I didn’t move she stomped her foot. Then she walked toward me, stopping about 15 yards away where she snorted and stomped some more.
Now I was irritated. No, I couldn’t and wouldn’t shoot her, but for crying out loud I was the predator here. She was supposed to be intimidated by me. I stood my ground. Finally, after several minutes of this, and mostly out of what seemed like disgust on her part, she turned, collected her fawn and they ran off deeper into the woods.
The season ends on Sunday and it grows more likely that at the end of it I will have spent more than the equivalent of an entire month of days out in the woods with no venison in the freezer to show for it. But I’ve seen the leaves turn shades of red, brown and yellow and fall to the ground. I’ve seen snow come and go three times. I’ve seen dozens of deer and they’ve given me time to appreciate the deep reddish browns and grays of their coats. I’ve watched them bound gracefully out of sight. And they’ve come by often enough for me to start to recognize individuals among them. (And yes, in fact, that would make it harder for me to pull the trigger even if I could.)
It has been a strange year and like most other people I’m ready to get back to normal. But to the extent that all of this has induced a lot of us to spend more time outdoors, well, at least that’s a plus. I hope that when this ends (and there seem to be more hopeful signs every day that it will end fairly soon) we stay out there.
