ELY, MINN. -- Though it was below freezing and snow blanketed the woods, I was snuggled warm and dry in my sleeping bag, sound asleep beneath a yellow nylon tarp strung between two trees.
It was 3:30 a.m. and dark as sin when I felt a nudge.
"Hey, it's snowing on me -- move over," friend Steve Piragis said.
Fluffy flakes were falling, and Piragis wasn't quite far enough under our makeshift shelter. So we slid our bags over a few inches and, protected from the snow, fell back asleep.
The two of us had paddled a canoe down a small, partially frozen river on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, set up camp and planned to hunt deer on the wooded ridges nearby.
Yes, we knew there aren't a lot of deer in the BWCA. The forest generally is too mature to support large numbers of whitetails.
But there also aren't any hunters -- or anyone else.
"I wanted to go deer hunting, but get away from other hunters and have a wilderness experience at the same time," said Piragis, 55, of Ely, a longtime friend.
"Deer or no deer, it's just fun being out here when no one else is here," he said the next morning while frying bacon and eggs over a campfire.
First-time deer hunt
I'm a bird hunter.
Have been for decades. For me, the joy of hunting involves a canine companion. Especially your own.
I hunt pheasants, waterfowl and ruffed grouse as often as I can. Ringnecks are my favorite. Watching a dog excitedly trail a rooster, flush it and then -- with luck -- retrieve it, is the pinnacle of the hunting experience for me.
So though I write about deer and deer hunting, know a fair amount about it, have been to several deer camps, have photographed deer from stands and have encountered them frequently in the wild, I'd never hunted deer.
Until last week.
I decided to give the dog a break and join the half million Minnesota whitetail hunters in the woods. A wilderness deer hunt was especially appealing.
A cold, silent landscape
Piragis and I split up the next morning and, rifles in hand, hiked over a large snow-covered peninsula with a high ridge, looking for deer.
outdoors
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