I got to head up North a day early last week leaving Friday morning and making the 4-hour trip to the Rangeley Lakes area by 12:00PM. The ride up was wet, windy, and cold, with it being one of the coldest days so far this fall. Temperatures were just above freezing but with the wind, it felt a lot colder.
Friday, I hunted with my buddy Bob, and we got into the woods just after lunch time. The first 2-hours were good hunting. We put up several birds and I shot my limit of woodcock for the day, using only 5 shells. I would like to think that I am that good of a shot all the time, but in reality these birds were reasonably easy shots flying straight away from me as they crossed into my shooting lane.
After heading back to the truck to hook up with another buddy of ours, the weather changed from a crisp partly cloudy day, to a blustery snow filled afternoon. We met up with our buddy Scott and continued the hunt. The rest of the day was slow and Saturday was even slower. We hunted most of the day with little action. By the end of the day we ran into more birds but the logistics simply did not work. For example, we have one covert next to a deep, swift flowing river that always holds birds. The problem with this covert is that if the birds are close to the edge of the water they can have a tendency to flush out over the river and then you can lose the bird in the water if you shoot. This can be a little bit of a let down, but it is all part of the chase.
What we lacked for in birds we made up for in moose. We saw 6-7 moose as we drove around on our hunt for birds. We saw a couple of big bulls, and a couple cows with calves. This is always an exciting thing to see and can make for a good photo opportunity if they decide to hang by the road long enough for a quick picture.
