Rich Akin

As I sit to pen this next story, or should I say adjust my seat to be in a comfortable height for my computer keyboard, I am amazed how very quickly time marches on. I had intended to write about this special morning in Maine right away, but as the “when I get around to it” adage proves to be true, it has now been seven deer seasons since this morning unfolded with my trusted partner in the woods, my brother Gary. There have been several bucks shot by both of us since this day and many notable hunting adventures encountered, some of which have already been written about and now have a home on the Adirondack Camp Journal. This story is actually briefly referenced by Gary under our Maine Hunt 2005 entry on The Journal.

On our 2005 trip, I was on my 4^th trip to Maine, Gary was on his 5^th. I kick myself in the ass to this day because I missed 2002 when Gary toughed it out on his own, solo, in heavy snow and bagged the “Biggest Buck of His Life”, to date. His story on how the events that unfolded on that special trip can be read about in “A Personal Appointment in Maine”. As I write this story, I am still in amazement thinking about what my brother went through, alone in the North Maine Woods, 30 miles “in” with a drop off camper in a heavy snowstorm. I’ve been there… He came out with wide racked monster that hangs prominently on his wall, as it should, but to those who have not been there, trust me, it is not just a testament to the buck, but also to the physical and mental focus and determination of the hunter to go there and do it…….

When we arrived in Maine in 2005, our internal fires were stoked as we sat up our camp for the week. I wrote a story on The Journal called “Our Way” that was based on this trip.

We had to settle with no snow for tracking fresh sign and warm temperatures. As usual, we saw mind boggling signs of big bucks on 3 inch plus diameter trees and big ground scrapes, but we saw very few deer. We continued to remind ourselves after dinner every night in our camper that we were “here”. This is where it happens!

On Wednesday night, we were very happy to hear on the crackling AM radio that snow was on the way! We awoke Thursday morning at 3:30 AM to about 5 inches of heavy wet snow that had collapsed our outstretched awning from the camper onto our picnic table and grill. As we analyzed our situation and Gary perked a pot of coffee and started breakfast, our spirits began to soar! We ate a big breakfast knowing for sure that with the new snow this was going to be an all dayer! After checking and double checking our clothing, gear, etc.. We got into the truck. As we pulled away from the camp site, new snow on the ground, our expectations were at an all time high. We had read for years in books by R.G Bernier and the Benoits about how successful they had been with fresh snow on the ground with warming temperatures. This was a morning that they had described exactly!

We piled into Gary’s trusted Chevy pickup “Big Blue” that had safely transported us in and out of our remote Maine hunting adventures for the past five years. As we made our way away from the campsite on the angled left to right grade of the campsite driveway, we began to loose traction and slip to the downhill side. As we made it over a downed birch tree, we slid off the right side of the road and down the embankment on the right side and the right side of the truck crashed against small trees and brush. As quickly as we had pulled away from our camper, within three minutes, we were now ten yards off the road at an 80 degree angle to our right side with gear, coffees, maps, guns, clips and belongings piled up on me on the right side of the truck. Gary had all he could do to barely open his door, straight up! I could not open mine as my door of the truck was resting against a tree. Needless to say, there was an abundance of adjectives and four letter words to be heard, but by nobody except us, as we quickly realized, as we had known all along, we were alone… We were 30 miles “in”, off pavement and had not seen a truck pass our campsite in four days!

Gary climbed “up” and out and quickly moved the seat rest in the cab forward and proudly presented a ratcheting, manual hand crank winch that he obviously had a lot more confidence in than me! I actually looked at it, looked at our predicament and laughed, probably an inherited Akin default mechanism to hide extreme worry concern! I think we both realized what we could have been doing was, panicking, accusing, blaming and making excuses, but we decided to attack our problem at hand. After all, there would be nobody to help us, this was our problem and this was perfect hunting snow and we knew daylight was coming! Slowly, I was surprised and also gained confidence as Gary and I little by little, with the manual winch, got the truck moving back and forth and eventually in the right direction backwards and headed up the bank. After another hour, we were both stripped down to our Tee shirts sweating, steam emitting upwards in a plume of mist above us both, but the truck was back on the driveway and headed in the right direction! After “high fives” we again piled back into the truck with Gary shrugging off my repeated offers to drive and made our way out to the logging road and continued on. We made a left and went about five miles on the unplowed logging road until we reached an intersection. It was still about 20 minutes before shooting light. As we looked at our Topo maps at the intersection of an improved road a truck went by from right to left, also the first to be on the road in front of us that crossed ours. We had not seen any vehicle in three days and now one goes by, obviously doing exactly what were doing.

Gary and I sat there a few minutes, dejected at seeing the truck and talked about which way to go.  That truck was cutting the first track on that road, just as we wanted to do. There were no other truck tracks on either road. We waited, looked at the topo map, and rolled down the windows as we were still steaming and shared sips from Gary’s thermos of coffee. After about five minutes of discussion, we decided to make a left and started driving in the tracks of the truck that had just passed. By the looks of the tire tracks, they were moving at pretty good pace to wherever they were headed. After about three miles, we found a smoking hot, huge set of buck tracks that crossed the road. We could only assume that it was not there when the truck in front of us went by or they would have at least hit their brakes to look at them, or pulled over to investigate or hunt the track. There were no signs that they stopped or got out of the truck. We concluded that this obviously fresh track had in fact crossed the road in between the time the truck ahead of us was there and we got there! This meant that the track we were looking at crossing the road was less than five minutes old! Gary and I got out and were amazed at the size, length of stride, and wideness of the tracks, just as the masters, R.G. Bernier and The Benoit’s had told in us in their books to look at!

Without hesitation, Gary said “grab your gear and go kill him!” He said “it’s early, you have all day, you know where we are, go get him!” I quickly grabbed all my gear, set my GPS, thanked my brother for giving me the go on this track, told him good luck and slipped down the steep bank into the thick evergreen forest. As I heard the truck meander off, I hoped that he too would cut another track to follow. As I dropped down off the logging road the first 100 yards, my heart began to race as I noticed urine marks in his tracks in the snow as he walked. In the next 100 yards, his tracks lead me to several very large ground scrapes that he had kicked up the snow and mud 10 feet behind! After another half mile, his tracks lead to several 3 to 4 inch diameter violently rubbed trees that had obviously been made by him as the sap and shavings were laying right there on the snow! Everything was unfolding just as Gary and I read about, including the part where your heart will be pounding so hard you’ll have to zip your coat up to keep it in your coat! I was in fact overheating though. All of the work earlier to get the truck back on the road, as well as the rising temperatures and snow falling off the trees on my neck and back while tracking had my first three layers of clothing soaked. I should have changed clothes. I knew if I was that wet now, there would be problems later. I slowed my pace down and started to think about what he was doing ahead of me and where he was going. He seemed to always stay just far enough ahead as to where I couldn’t see him and I noticed the wind was always blowing on the back of my neck, not a good thing…

For the next mile and a half, twice his tracks lead me to where he “hooked”, meaning he stopped and turned around waiting for me. By the tracks he made in the same small piece of ground facing my approaching direction, it was clear to me he was letting me get close. Each time though, he bounded off, and then slowed again to a walk. He seemed to enjoy going through the thickest under brush and cover he could find trying to lose me. Several times I got down and crawled as I looked ahead trying to catch movement. After another mile or so he must have stumbled onto a group of feeding deer, as his tracks seemed to blend in almost invisibly with hundreds of other fresh tracks that were concentrated in an acre sized feeding area. Talk about finding a needle in a haystack! I started in the middle and began making bigger and bigger circles. Each time as I found his track I would go with it till I lost it again. It took about an hour to find it and be able to stay on him as he left the area headed up toward a knoll. I was elated and had rekindled confidence knowing it was just me and him again. Up the knoll his tracks lead me until I reached the top and found another spot where he “hooked” and waited for me. This time the tracks were smoking fresh! There were small puddles he had stepped in that still had muddied water! As I was looking down at all the tracks and determining where he was headed next, I heard a very close, loud blow and heard a heavy deer go bounding off the top of the knoll and down the back side blowing every few seconds!

Damn it! He must have been bedded or had not winded me this time. He was probably looking right at me! My heart was racing as a I realized I had finally caught up to him, even though he was now getting out of Dodge in a hurry! I took off on run myself following in his tracks hoping to see his pace slow again to a walk but it didn’t for quite some time. When his tracks finally slowed to walk, I could hear a river flowing from the direction we were headed. It wasn’t but another several hundred yards till his tracks hit the edge of the river’s edge and he slipped right into the water and obviously must have crossed it. Frustrated and dejected, I realized my hunt had come to an end as the river was too deep to cross. I went up and down the river bank searching for shallower water but found none. Sitting down on a rock to pull out a candy bar, I couldn’t help but rethink the events of the morning as my heart beat finally began to slow to fewer than 160! I am one who always is looking for the positives in situations and always like to reflect on the lessons learned. Was I mad I didn’t catch up to this one, sure I was, but I knew I had been closer than ever to tracking down and shooting a big one in Maine. As I gathered my gear and took a GPS reading, I was not surprised to see it was four and a half miles to where I had gotten out of the truck. Looking at the Topo map though, it looked like I could hit the road in less than two if I headed west. Most of it was a blur at the time, but here I sit somehow how remembering exactly how the events had unfolded. I can still see that track, those buck trees and those scrapes he was putting down and can almost feel how hard my heart was pounding seven years later now… I’ll be back…

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