Larry Atherton
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Jun 2003
Location: Central Michigan
Posts: 6544 |
Murphy Lake State Game Area
For those in Michigan ya either love it or hate it. Well, I had to go to Put's last night. So I thought I would show my son's young dog a change of pace and kill 2 birds with 1 stone since I would be in the area.
While at Put's, he told me about a recent hunt there and having to wade to the dogs through a beaver pond, and the fact that they found the beaver's channel.
My favorite spot to drop is on the north side of the road and the beaver pond is on the south so I saw no worries. The night seem to have a healthy chill in the air as I pulled into a parking area. Well if ya can call it that the running boards on my truck scrapped bottom in the first 10 feet. I got the young dog out and cut her down a wild looking little creek that winds through some nice little ridges. The little dog made a strike within about 80 yards of the road. She worked what seemed like a hot track north and then northeast. Now normally I sit and wait for the dog to tree, but with a young dog I like to hang with them just a little bit.
So, I step off the road and immeditately feel the spongy ground under my feet. I few more steps and pine and cedar trees are pretty prevalent. There is dead rotting down falls laying all about, but the canopy is tight enough that the forest floor isn't too bad to navigate. Well, I slowly make my way as the dog is getting deeper. Suddenly the ground makes a sudden plunge and as i make my way down the slope I come to a wall of wild multiforal rose that is doing its best to over come the choke cherries growing along the edges of a nice little swamp.
I couldn't tell if the young dog is treed or not, but where she is at there really aren't any trees either. So I start off to her to see what is going on. The swamp out there is pretty unique in that it is a tangle of cattails, dead old choke cherry trees, sedge grasses, and way too much multiforal rose! I remembered real quickly to only step on the vegation clumps ... well I remembered the instant I plunged to my waist. The really fun part was trying to pull myself out by grabbing a floating mass of sedge grass. Well, it took a bunch of work, but I finally got my knees up on the sedge grass. As I made my way closer to the dog it becane evident that she was in fact moving. So I turned around to make my way back to the ridge line. I left quit a bit of skin hanging out there on those darn roses as I have it missing from numerous places on my hands, face, and ears this morning.
By the time i made it back to the ridge line I had sweat stinging my eyes so I said what the heck and just sat down against the bottom of a tree. The dog was now making her second loop around the lovely little swamp. She was barking like she was tied to Mr. Coon, but I knew better. Then she finally really sounded treed. Thank goodness she sound like she was near the edge, but on the other side.
Well, it took me longer than I anticipated, but I got there. She was definately treed, but didn't sound exactly right. So now I head down the ridge to the swamp's edge. Yep there is another mass of multifloral rose. I slowly tried to fight my way through the edge. My gun was hanging up; my light cord almost gave me whip lash a couple of times as it would suddenly come to a stop. The dog was just a mere 20 yards out, but it still seemed like it took along time to get to her.
Finally, I reach the dog and I was quickly reminded that she has a long way to go. She wasn't treed on a tree, but she was standing on her hind legs treeing up in the air. She was directly down wind of the hard wood and pipe trees that lined the bank just yards away. I reach dowm to give a single pat on the side and of course she is completely covered in black muck. I leashed her up, and we called it a night.
Yes, it is a love/hate relationship, but I will go back to The Murphy Lake State Game Area.
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Larry Atherton
Aim small miss small
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10-16-2009 04:02 PM
