The eight-inch snow storm and winter advisory for the Arrowhead of Minnesota this week amounted to only a couple of inches and that is all of the snow we need for now. It seems like the meteorologists were eager to scare us with the threat of snowstorms, but now the forecast looks dry and cold. I am no weather expert but I can tell you that it feels like winter up here.
Each morning my frozen truck starts a little slower as if to tell me that it would prefer to stay home. High temperatures have been in the single digits lately and the swamplands that I have been hunting are frozen solid. Many of the smaller lakes have been frozen over two or three times already, and I think this time will be the last. There are even some bays beginning to freeze on Loon and Gunflint lakes as well.
Hunting is not something I have a lot of experience doing but I am really enjoying the long hikes in the woods while searching for deer tracks. Tracking an animal in the snow is much easier and it always amazes me how many critters there are running around in the woods. Every trail has animal prints of some kind. There have been many snowshoe hare tracks and even a few martens in the Loon Lake area by our house.
For whatever it is worth, I have not seen nearly as many wolf tracks this season but they are still around. I was tracking a small set of deer prints for a few hundred yards before seeing where two wolves had intercepted the deer and chased it into some incredibly heavy brush. It is amazing how these large animals can squeeze through such tight trails. I wanted to continue following them but it was just too hard to navigate, especially while toting a gun. It explains why the deer up here can be so hard to find and that is what makes it so rewarding.
There is still a lot of season left and I feel like I am hunting in the right area. I have been staying within a quarter mile of my truck this year since I almost had a coronary while humping a big doe out of the woods last season. It would not have been so bad if it were not for the jagged terrain under the recently cleared power lines. The little trees were all cut off a foot above the ground making it difficult to drag a deer across. I don’t care to ever hunt back there again. Every time I opened a package of venison my back and neck would begin to twitch in remembrance of that dreadful hike. Work smarter not harder. Cory Christianson has worked as a fishing guide on the Gunflint Trail since 2000. If you have any fishing or wildlife reports or stories to share, send an email to: christiansoncory@hotmail.com or call 218- 388-0315. You can also visit Cory’s website at Gunflintfishingguide.com.
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