spider solo
New member
Oh sure, I put in the the good part right in the title...
so the telling of the tale goes like this.....
Realizing I had a "window of opportunity" to spend a couple of nights up on Lake Umbagog ...part in NH and part in Maine...1 bivy bag & 1 tent figured that would about cover possibilities I might face...a stratergy I used to good affect last fall when it had snowed while there late in the season.
Wildlife Galore !!
The put in at Errol launch site was closed ....much to my surprise.. but it gave reference to a spot 2 miles up the road 2 miles closer to Umbagog itself.
I was putting in the water with the shadow of dusk looking over my shoulder.. There are two phantom campsites on my map in the northern part of the lake where the Androscoggin & Magalloway River join... making a nice delta area and great habitat for wildlife with it's "floating islands" and solid ground.
Thinking I was there I turn into an area of that describtion.......
I see it in an Instant....something swimining in the water. Something swimming to me .
A swimming head...that's really all you see...could be a unicorn..you never know.
Well, maybe not this one , it's head was to dark ...darkest darn Moose head swimming thing I ever did see.
I move my boat and let it drift into some reeds of grass silently...almost...
The reeds make a noise on my paddle and my swimming moose head started to look more and more like a swimming bear head....something I had never seen. For that matter I think I was the first he ever saw...he was about half way across the marshy river crossing.
He could just now see me, and you could read his body language, treading
water, stayng in one spot he turns an looks for an alternate landing place on a close by island, then back at me, back to the island a couple of times and the decision is made !
He's picked his spot to land even though he knows I can see him...we know we've both seen each other... and no one wants to be pestering the other.
OFF I go...in search of a landing site...with fadeing light... silently I paddle past a moose as she feeds off the bottom of the shallows.
Bald Eagle flies over head returning to the nest for the evening I would think.
Putting onto the river 2 miles from usual and a rusty memory I find myself doing a bit of a loop... which always seems to bring me back to the spot of ....Isn't this the place I just saw the bear cross...
Opting for a place somewhere between the Moose and the Bear I realize it's a bivy bag (body bag) kind of night. No cooking, no fire , no problembo.
Mosquitos the size of helicopters....I dove into the bag and ziped the netting.. it actually sounded like the whine of a motor, the noise they made.
Noises in the night...things that go bump, crash, splash in the night..in the deepest dark of the wee little hrs....that always sets the mind to wandering....
Next day excellent " moose on tip toes...will write more later
so the telling of the tale goes like this.....
Realizing I had a "window of opportunity" to spend a couple of nights up on Lake Umbagog ...part in NH and part in Maine...1 bivy bag & 1 tent figured that would about cover possibilities I might face...a stratergy I used to good affect last fall when it had snowed while there late in the season.
Wildlife Galore !!
The put in at Errol launch site was closed ....much to my surprise.. but it gave reference to a spot 2 miles up the road 2 miles closer to Umbagog itself.
I was putting in the water with the shadow of dusk looking over my shoulder.. There are two phantom campsites on my map in the northern part of the lake where the Androscoggin & Magalloway River join... making a nice delta area and great habitat for wildlife with it's "floating islands" and solid ground.
Thinking I was there I turn into an area of that describtion.......
I see it in an Instant....something swimining in the water. Something swimming to me .
A swimming head...that's really all you see...could be a unicorn..you never know.
Well, maybe not this one , it's head was to dark ...darkest darn Moose head swimming thing I ever did see.
I move my boat and let it drift into some reeds of grass silently...almost...
The reeds make a noise on my paddle and my swimming moose head started to look more and more like a swimming bear head....something I had never seen. For that matter I think I was the first he ever saw...he was about half way across the marshy river crossing.
He could just now see me, and you could read his body language, treading
water, stayng in one spot he turns an looks for an alternate landing place on a close by island, then back at me, back to the island a couple of times and the decision is made !
He's picked his spot to land even though he knows I can see him...we know we've both seen each other... and no one wants to be pestering the other.
OFF I go...in search of a landing site...with fadeing light... silently I paddle past a moose as she feeds off the bottom of the shallows.
Bald Eagle flies over head returning to the nest for the evening I would think.
Putting onto the river 2 miles from usual and a rusty memory I find myself doing a bit of a loop... which always seems to bring me back to the spot of ....Isn't this the place I just saw the bear cross...
Opting for a place somewhere between the Moose and the Bear I realize it's a bivy bag (body bag) kind of night. No cooking, no fire , no problembo.
Mosquitos the size of helicopters....I dove into the bag and ziped the netting.. it actually sounded like the whine of a motor, the noise they made.
Noises in the night...things that go bump, crash, splash in the night..in the deepest dark of the wee little hrs....that always sets the mind to wandering....
Next day excellent " moose on tip toes...will write more later
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A swimming bear is a rare site indeed!
