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We are going to need to find Bob Cary’s recipe for Deer Track Soup. Camp Cholesterol was skunked during the 2024 rifle season. But now that we finally have snow on the ground, we can whip up a batch of Bob’s deerless recipe.
This doesn’t mean there wasn’t some fun times at the shack, there always is, it seems. Our camp cook, Steve Groteboer, even returned for the third weekend.
My son Evan and nephew Justin were the other hunters in the woods but we did have guests for two meals.
On Friday night Steve had prepared a homemade spaghetti that was out of this world. Our State Rep. Roger Skraba joined us for a dinner and a few games of smear.
On Saturday Steve whipped up another heart attack brunch that brought in my daughter Megan and boyfriend Ben. Luckily, Ben’s hunting shack isn’t that far from our spot so they were able to play some smear and enjoy some good food.
Sitting in the deer stand has been comfortable this season with mild temperatures. I logged over 40 hours of sitting but didn’t get a chance at a buck. There were a couple small ones on the camera but they didn’t come by when I was there.
Ron Svatos was telling me about their camp, which they closed early this year due to a lack of deer. He did get to see a cow and calf moose walk out into a shooting lane.
“Then the cow walked right below my stand and just stopped right there for a minute or two,” said Svatos.
Better a moose than a pack of wolves and I have heard several stories of that happening. Luckily we didn’t have a lot of wolf sign by us. Unluckily that’s because there isn’t anything for them to eat.
We did manage to get a shack project done on the third weekend. The stove pipe leading up from our Kuuma sauna stove had rusted away and needed to be replaced.
Evan had to hop up on the roof at one point when I was pushing the new stove pipe into place, but we got it done. Saunas can now commence.
I texted my buddy Rob Wilmunen on the last hunt of the season, asking him if I should tough it out to the end or head back to the shack for a steam.
“Sauna! Sauna!” he replied. Never ask a Finlander if you should take a sauna or not. I should have known better.
