Adventure 42- Hunting with friends

No you can't drive it!

We had tentative plans to partake in different adventure that got cancelled because of "The Wiggles" show in Vancouver. I found out mid-week that we would have to re-organize our Sunday excursion. A idea to go check out some back roads and do a little road hunting figured to be a great plan. A trip with friends would be a fun time, so with a text to my old friend James to see if he and his son Kaiden were available to join us, we had some company in the truck.

A different perspective of a "boxed lunch"

We left my place at 8 a.m. to make a drive into the Upper Quinsam Lake area of the Gold River highway, west of Campbell River. I had been to this area a half a dozen years ago for a exploration trip with another friend. That time was mostly spent driving the main roads and looking for camping spots. I was surprised how much different it was in this country this time. Much more logging had taken place, and the roads had better signage.  Timberwest signs abound, and I wonder if this is a recent purchase by Timberwest or maybe it just was not identified so before. Much more logging seemed to have occurred, but like I said, we didn't venture of the beaten path last time. The side roads have ample slash to look for black tail deer and black bears.

The terrain

James and I have been friends since we were in grade 4, the same grade that Natalie and Kaiden are presently in. That is fun to know that these kids could be friends for a long time, just like their dads. James and I have wanted to hunt together more in recent years, but didn't make it happen. When we were in our early 20's we used to spend many hours driving around in the woods, looking for deer and grouse. Usually coming home empty handed and less gas in the tank. It was a wonderful way for a couple of young guys to hang out and stay out of trouble. Unfortunately the local area is very limited in places that we can reliably travel to hunt, because of private land and gates. We have a real problem with the amount of crown land we can access, leaving the few places that are open to hunting completely over run with other outdoors minded folks. Not just for hunting opportunities, but fishing, mushroom picking, berry picking and hiking.

Shaggy Mane

The first road we spurred off onto had evidence of a fresh killed deer. It was probably from this weekend, maybe even at daybreak of the same day. This seemed like a good omen that deer were around and maybe we would have a good day. This didn't come true for the fact that we wouldn't see lots of animals. We did see four doe's and a fawn. No bucks, grouse or bears. I did get a few arm loads of firewood that someone had left on the side of the road. Prime Douglas fir. We poked around for mushrooms a few places. I spotted two shaggy manes on the roadside, but with out a way to cook them pronto, I left them behind. As I started the truck after looking at the mushrooms, James spotted a deer running through the clearing. The deer were watching us the whole time. Horns just would not appear no matter how hard we tried in the binoculars, and we carried on.

Big Grapple Yarder

We had a great day even without any grocery's brought home. Driving and exploring the side roads are such a fun way to spend a day with kids. If we had more time, we would have liked to have a lake side fire and try to catch a fish. Maybe we will save that for a spring time adventure. Find Adventure!