NFA ADK

[NFA-ADK]

Came home Tuesday from the big ADK trip up to Moose River Plains.  Really wish I could have stayed longer but a few issues caused me to shorten my trip.  Only sighting was 2 doe for Dominick one of our new hunters.  This is the entire trip so its more of a log than anything else. 

 

I arrived Wed the 11th and set up the entire camp including the cook shack, stove and steak down everything.  I was exhausted and slept well.

 

11/12/15  Happy that camp was set up I went out to hunt for the day.  I did my traditional stalk after hiking up the mountain with a slow still hunt the entire day.  I covered little more than a mile in that stalk and with the rain it was quiet.  Good sign of deer activity kept my hopes up.  I exited the woods by dark and was only 400 yards from camp.  Relatively easy day of hunting good tracks top of trail and in the area.  No sightings.

 

11/13/15 Woke up to a tremendous downpour of rain and drips on my face!  100% humidity from the rain combined with the pot of water on the stove and the inside of the tent was wet from condensations and precipitation.  Panic that the inside of the tent was wet I removed the water from the wood burning stove and hoped the rain would let off enough for me to put the tarps on.  I packed the stove and reheated the inside hoping to dry it out.  At first light the rain slowed and I was able to put both tarps on and secure the tent more.  Happy the tent was ok by 11:20 am I was able to head out expecting one more hunter to arrive at noon.  Upset I missed first light I figured it was time to check the swamps.  As expected I found some nice rubs and what I thought was a scrap but later turned out to be a bed, kind of felt sorry for peeing in it, lol.  As last light was close I stayed by the swamp hoping to see the culprit killing those poor trees.  No sightings. 

 

Shawn made it up and I showed him the rubs, shortly after getting back to camp Mike and his nephew Dominick arrived.  It was a nice early night and snow began to fall, I was in bliss! 

 

11/14/15 SNOW!!!  We tried to all hunt the swamp and see if anything was present.  Dom jumped 2 doe heading in and Shawn saw multiple tracks.  The spot I asked them to go down into had no tracks(From them!) and was about a half mile from camp that I hiked to give them some time.  I found 2 sets of fresh deer tracks that looked like doe so I passed them to check what I thought was a scrape and turned out to be a bed, lol.  At that point I left the swamp and headed up hill.  After about 800 yards up I saw a hunter stalking below me.  He sat about 30 yards from me and I tried to alert him with a doe bleet but I think his hat blocked his hearing.  He sat for 5 minutes then headed up and back to my right so I kept on my path away from him and found another track and hunter with different boots going in the same direction.  (They where going back from where they came in stalking the woods together.)  As I pass both these hunters below all of us was a doe track but it was going in the direction they where in.  I back tracked her for about 900-1000 yards she liked the thick stuff but walked on a foot trail for 300 yards.  I left the trail and still hunted to my honey hole and then still hunted it until dark.  No sightings.  Greg and George arrive at camp and the Rush is played until midnight ARG.

 

11/15/15 With snow melting I figured I would pick up on a track and see where it would take me.  Planning on heading up the back of this mountain I head in and find a nice doe track and it takes me back down into the swamp and across a river.  Then it takes me up that side of the mountain.  I jumped her one time and could see she saw me from a distance away.  I slowed my pace on her and found one more bed.  As snow was rapidly melting and would be gone within the hour 2pm I cut across the mountain for a river bed ridge and headed towards the road.  I found more tracks as I cut across and headed towards the road because I was not sure if I would come out past the swamps.  I came across an old logging trail headed in the exit direction and was on the road 15 min before dark.  I headed to another pinch point and hunting till my buddy Shawn came down the road and the day was over.  No sightings but this area held doe for sure. 

 

11/16/15 Late night music did not help us get up early and a late start ensued.  We tried to push this mountain the entire day with no luck.  I heading up 4 ridges to about 2600 ft trying to basically push deer.  With no snow it was fun tracking in the wet leaves hard but not impossible especially if the deer was bigger.  I tried a few call sequences then at about 2 pm I headed to the back side of the mountain to explore a bit and still hunted down until dark.  Some good tracks again but no sightings. 

 

RUSH again until midnight.  With a sore throat and being run down a bit I determine its best if I let everyone else help me with the camp brake down the next morning.  The morning conversation about the new invention called HEADPHONES did not go over well.  Needless to say I will make a statement next year if music is keeping people up EVERY night. 

 

 I got a real good grilling from my LI hunting partner Chris for not seeing any deer all week.  I invited him next year and said I would set him up in a couple of sweet spots and he said ok!  Not sure if he would do any better but I can't sit in a stand up in the ADK!  Hope he comes next year, any serious hunter is always welcomed and Dominick and George are the two new guys, hope they come back again it was a pleasure having everyone at camp!  Except that jerk Greg who kept playing the music!  Just kidding, you know I love you like a brother and sometime just want to hit like one too!  lol  Fun trip, the porcupine looking rub threw me off a bit but I only saw pictures, funny that day I kept saying NO WAY!  I was right. 

 

Had some cool bird sightings and had a moose in the area, now that was an easy track to follow, lol.  Happy to see good tracks indicating a few deer traversing the area that survived last years winter.  Good times with good friends!

 

 

 

 

[grampy]

Great story! There are so many more things that make a fun, successful hunt, besides killing a deer! I believe you already know that though. Best of luck to you for the rest of the season!

[steve863]

You guys should have shot the dude who played the music all night.  WTF?  Did he go up there to hunt or play loud music all night long?  Instead of hearing the music of nature in the Adirondacks at night you had to listen to his noise.  He probably scared the hell out of any deer that was in the vicinity also. 

[NFA-ADK]

He is one of my best friends so as much as I would have like to throw him in the river he usually gets a free pass.  He knows next year that the music issue will not be tolerated.  I try to let everyone enjoy their time off regardless of what they want to do.  As long as it is safe!  Some go up just to get away from the rat race a few days and hunting is not the real priority.