Destination 107: Maine
By C.C. McCotter
What would make seven men drive 20 hours through
Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City, around
Boston and finally two-and-a-half hours on logging roads to
stay in a cabin with no running water and a wood stove for
heat?
Two words: ruffed grouse.
The current grouse population in the North Maine Woods
is at historically high levels but getting there and then finding
accommodations is the trick.
For three days in October, members of the Woods &
Waters Adventures Maine Grouse trip experienced the
journey to and the destination of northwestern Maine. This is
the story.
It actually started last year when a guiding client told me
that I need to go to Maine and hunt grouse. I was intrigued
and began a search for accommodations in the region I was
told to target. I happened upon Ross Lake Camps, located
about four hours northwest of the Medway exit off I-95.
After hours of Delorme Gazetteer map book and Google
Earth study, three of us set off to find this Oz of grouse
hunting. At the end of a long journey northward we found this
is a traditional Maine camp owned and run by husband and
wife, Don and Andrea Lavoie. It’s rustic, but comfortable and
right in the middle of prime grouse cover. Our hunt was so
amazing I began to dream of grouse hunting this summer.
Fast forward to 2011. This year we had seven men (Jeff,
Derek, Terry, Kevin, Todd, Clint and myself) and two bird
dogs (my Brittany, Kate and Todd’s German shorthair,
Bogen) sign up for the adventure. It was up to me, Don and
Andrea to show 2010 was no fluke.
We had a careful plan off meeting at a motel in Millinocket
on October 19th, then hunting our way into the camp on the
20th and hunting also on the 21st and 22nd. We’d return on
Sunday, the 23rd.
Incredibly, everything went according to the plan and we all
made it to the motel. Mother Nature was not in on the plan,
though as she decided to send a drenching rain all day
Wednesday during our ride up 95 as well as for most of the
day we were to hunt into Ross Lake Camps.
Our plan had us drive within 20 minutes of the camp, then
split up and explore various hunting areas. Jeff and Kevin
would hunt with Kate and I. Todd, Cliff, Derek and Terry
would hunt over Bogen. Using the Delorme Gazetteer we
would meet at the lodge to unpack and take dinner at the
lodge.
Day One
After breakfasting and syncing radios, our group of seven
had an 85-mile ride from Millinocket into the North Maine
Woods before reaching the camp. We would pass by
beautiful, 5,000 ft. Mount Katahdin (the start of the
Appalachian Trail), the Penobscot and Allagash Rivers, so
the ride was scenic, especially with the last of the peak
leaves. I wish I could say we saw the sun on this day.
On this first day we had to overcome some conditions that
were less than ideal for grouse hunting. With a steady rain
falling, the birds didn’t want to come to the edges of the
forest and collect grit on the logging roads we hunted. We
tried walking several stands of woods in the early afternoon,
but the only thing we bagged was a snowshoe hare I took
when Kate jumped it.
At 3 pm we were getting a little disheartened, but as it
were, luck was with us and our first introduction to the
Golden Hour came.
The rain lessened to a fine mist and we started pulling the
trigger. On one logging road we walked about a mile and
flushed 16 birds, bagging seven. I took a four-bird limit, Jeff
had two and Kevin had one. Kate pointed nearly every bird
hidden in the ditches and undergrowth along the edges of
the mixed hardwood and spruce forest.
These were big northern woods grouse in both the grey
and red varieties. We admired the black feathered tufts on
their necks and noted some had 12-inch tail fans. It was a
good way to start the hunt.
Sunset was upon us by 5:15 pm and we needed to get
back to the lodge to unpack our gear before supper. Rain
began to fall as we ferried our gear into the Swamp Buck
cabin Don and Andrea had waiting for us along the shore of
Ross Lake. I noted Todd, Clint, Derek and Terry had made it
back and they had a few birds, too.
We set the post-hunt routine that evening. Everyone just
took to doing something. Jeff and I would clean the birds
shot that day, then wash and vacuum pack them, finally
labeling and stashing them in the generator-powered camp
freezers. Terry would wipe down and oil the guns. Kevin
would get the wood stove lit. Clint would make us laugh and
Todd cared for the dogs.
The cabin was an upgrade from the duplex we stayed in
last year. There were beds for eight men with two doubles.
We had ample room for our gear, homemade boot drying
racks above the wood stove, refrigerator, stove and sink we
used with seven-gallon water jugs. The dogs were
comfortable, too, each picking a bed or couch to sleep on
despite us bringing beds for them.
Dinner tonight was a hearty pork chop with several side
dishes. The camp was nearly full with hunters (about 20
guns), and hungry men in blaze orange shirts with hat head
surrounded the tables.
We played poker that night for matchsticks and looked again
at the Delorme Gazetteer to plan our route for the coming
day. Terry and Derek would hunt over Kate with Jeff and I.
Kevin would go with Todd, Clint and Bogen.
We were tired and asleep by 10. As advertised Kevin and
Terry were strong snorers. Luckily I was prepared with
earplugs.
Day Two
“Who kept putting wood in the stove?” was the burning
question in the morning. Kevin admitted he was cold and
stoked it a couple of times. We all agreed that Kevin would
not be in charge of the stove again, though, as the
temperature in the cabin was easily 100 degrees even with
the windows open.
Breakfast was quick eggs, bacon and toast prepared by
chefs Derek and Terry. The pans could wait until the evening
in the sink. The obligatory outhouse visits accomplished,
then we were off to hunt.
This day featured heavy overcast and light rain until nearly
noon when the sun shone intermittently for the next four
hours. We discovered 20 different kinds of mud in our
travels. There was watery mud, gray mud, black mud, clay
mud, mud with leaves, gravelly mud and many other kinds
that dried to a grayish haze on the side of the trucks.
We walked and drove, but most of the birds were spotted
as we were driving today. We’d jump out and stalk them.
Kate was used mostly to find dead grouse.
Derek proved himself an excellent shot. He had brought 20
ga. Benelli Super 90 Montefeltro, and I don’t believe he
missed on his way to the four-bird limit.
The highlight of the afternoon came when our two-way
radio came alive with Terry calling, “Bogey, bogey, bogey!”
The satellite radio was on and I was late recognizing the call.
We stopped and jumped out of the Nissan XTerra listening
as Terry, behind us, said, “Look up in the trees!”
I looked up and there were six grouse sitting in a yellow
birch about 50 feet up. In Maine you shoot grouse in trees.
Jeff and I dropped two and I missed one on the wing with my
second shot of my over-and-under 20 ga. Daly. Amazingly,
there were still birds sitting in that tree as I reloaded, but
when I was ready again, the birds had flushed into the
woods.
These woods were not dense spruce, but logged
hardwoods. The sun was shining warmly, so we moved in
with the dog to see what would turn up. Derek found the last
bird of his limit. I took bird #3. Terry and I chased the fifth
bird, but lost it. I don’t know what happened to #6.
The rest of the afternoon the low sun showed us how dirty
our windshields were. We found more birds and our game
bags showed it.
When it was time to head back to camp, I was sad. We only
had one more day to hunt and we were just settling in, really.
That’s what happens with a good adventure. Three days is
not long enough.
Back at Ross Lake Camp the game table was covered with
grouse. Todd, Clint and Kevin had done well, too. Old Bogen
found them birds and Jeff, Derek and I had a cleaning party
complete with adult beverages made by some guy from
Boston.
Dinner was hearty spaghetti and meat sauce prepared by
Don in the lodge. No cards tonight. We were all too tired.
Kevin was not allowed to stoke the first but once. Kate
snored almost as loudly as he did before I put in my
earplugs.
Day Three
Today Kevin would again hunt with Jeff, Kate and I. Derek
and Terry hunted with Todd, Clint and Bogen. The latter
three had to depart in the early afternoon as Clint had a
closing to attend to back in Virginia.
We were breakfasted and rolling by 8 am. This day would
feature overcast skies, misty rain and air temperatures
around 52.
On a tip from Andrea we drove to an area northeast of the
camp where I had not hunted before. We split up at a fork in
a road near where Chemquasabamticook Creek flows out of
Clayton Lake. Clint, Todd, Derek and Terry did well, finding
eight birds on their walk in the woods. Jeff, Kevin and I found
no birds.
My hunters piled back into the trucks and headed to a
different type of area, higher elevation with a mixed
hardwood forest and yellow birch. Here we flushed just one
bird into a stand of spruce but couldn’t find it.
We finally got on the board when Kevin bagged a fine split
double just inside the woods off a logging road the had us
slogging up the side of a mini-mountain. There was one
more bird, but Kate chased it as it ran and it flew no more
than 10’ off the ground. I didn’t shoot and we lost the bird.
This was a frustrating morning because of the lack of birds
for my group and our dwindling time left to hunt. According to
plan, we rendezvous with the other guys near where the
Pelletier family (of Swamp Logger TV fame) compound
looked out on Clayton Lake. We made sandwiches on the
tailgate of Derek’s truck and heard about each other’s
morning hunt.
With only the afternoon session to go before our hunt was
over, I was hoping the Golden Hour would improve our take.
Todd and Clint headed back to the lodge to pack up and
head south. Derek and Terry wanted to retrace their morning
path. Kevin, Jeff and I unknowingly followed the same route,
looking to hook into another road that would loop us back to
the lodge road.
About three quarters of the way, we met Derek’s Ford and
they told us the road was flooded ahead. Our plans changed
as we hauled iron back to where we started and each group
choose another route that would eventually bring us back to
the lodge at sundown.
Jeff, Kevin, Kate and I hunted some thinned hardwood
stands with no sign of birds. The endless woods were
beautiful but empty.
It wasn’t until we drove several miles to an abandoned air
strip near the St. Johns River that we bumped grouse. A
group of three ran across the road as we were leaving the
strip access road. Kevin and I darted out, stalked and I made
a poor shot as the birds moved into the woods.
Kate then joined the hunt and one bird flushed across the
road, where I thought Jeff’s Beretta would have caught it.
Another bird flushed across the road with no shots fired.
We crossed too, but the cover was full of fallen logging
scraps and we couldn’t find those birds! Frustration was
increasing as the sun sank lower in the sky.
The golden hour arrived and we decided to hunt an area
called The Badlands by Don and Andrea. It was a wooded
hillside leading down to the St. Johns, bisected by a main
logging roads with several side branches running
perpendicular.
Jeff, Kate and I started down the hill. Kevin elected to stay
back as we were in a cell phone “bubble” and he wanted to
check messages.
Kate got birdy real fast, her little stub of a tail wagging
furiously, then she locked up. This first bird flushed into
dense spruce and with the failing light we couldn’t see it and
abandoned the chase.
About 20 yards down on the left side of the road this time,
Kate held steady and Jeff and I moved in.
Birds flushed everywhere and we dropped three in the first
round. Stalk and mop-up in the woods produced two more
for me, and a miss.
I watched Jeff take a bird down from 30 yards with a
beautiful crossing shot. Then I took the last bird of the night
as it was flying back to the road. It was a technically difficult
shot at 30 yards but the bird dropped. Kate found it and
actually brought it back to me as if to say, “Finally, a nice
shot.”
As we drove back to the lodge with the light waning we
saw many birds along the road. They had waited all day for
the rain and overcast to lift and now was their time to get grit.
I wished we had one more hour of daylight, but our hunt was
over, unless we had night vision goggles!
We pulled into Ross Lake Camps and found out Derek and
Terry had experienced a similar afternoon, birds everywhere
at dusk and hard-to-find before then.
Total bird tallies were good for seven guys with a very little
grouse hunting experience. We flushed over 100 birds and
came close to bagging the possession limit of 56.
On the drive out early Sunday morning Jeff and I counted
eight ruffed grouse and two spruce grouse along the roads.
We also raced three moose much to the delight of Kate who
barked excitedly from the back seat.
This trip only makes me want to go back again and stay
longer. I feel strongly my currently nine-year-old son should
experience this adventure so when I am old, he can find his
way back and take me.
If you’d like to go on this Woods & Waters Adventure next
October, please contact us ASAP at 540.894.5960, as we
will fill our cabin and extra space is limited.
For more information about Ross Lake Camps, visit
www.rosslakecamps.com and their Facebook page. More
photos of the W2 trip can be seen on the Woods & Waters
Facebook page.