Not Exactly a December to Remember

With early snow, the wettest fall in recent memory, and temperatures more like those I recall as a child, December 2009 offered great promise for hunting on Strum Island. It has proved to be a dud.

Strum Island is 60 acres of woodlands adjoining the Holston Army Ammunition Plant. When one totals the HAAP property, Bays Mountain park, and the privately held mountain lands, there's about 15,000 acres of mountains and riverbottoms teaming with game immediately to the east and south of the island. Wildlife makes it way onto the island with great frequency - or normally it does.

The Holston River's water levels are modified by Tennessee Valley Authority as the Ft. Patrick Henry dam is about ten miles upsteam. The usual pattern is for TVA to draw down the lakes after Labor Day and keep them low to accomodate spring rains and floods. Not all that much electricity is generated in the winter months from hydroelectric impoundments. For years, the winter months have had little flow coming from that dam.

At its thread, the sluice separating the island from HAAP is somewhere between knee and waist deep. It takes three to four hours for the water to reach Strum Island from the dam when the flow is moderate to light [500 to 2500 cfs]. Not so during the entire month of December 2009.

Today, as have most days this month, the outflow from the dam is about 8600 cubic feet per second. This amount of water takes the stream to the edge of its banks. If there's any additional flow coming from the uncontrolled north fork of the Holston which comes out of Scott County, Virginia, the river overflows its banks.

Such a volume of water keeps most deer from swimming over to Strum Island. The distance wild turkey have to fly over water from HAAP to the island nearly doubles. Such a heavy flow makes float trips down the Holston to duck hunt too dangerous for me. And, decoys won't hold with that volume of water. Ducks have had so much water in the fields, ponds, and creeks, that the river is no longer attractive to them. They can't get to the mollusks and invertebrates on which they usually feed.

Once again, mother nature [with the assistance of the Tennessee Valley Authority] has held the upper hand. December 2009 has been a bust. It's probably fortuitous that I had the flu for two weeks.

Winter's Way on Strum Island

I came to the cabin on Strum Island yesterday afternoon for many reasons. The most immediate was delivery of two 40 pound tanks of propane (the standard outdoor grill-sized tank is twenty pounds). It’s necessary to keep some minimal heat to prevent the water lines from freezing this time of year. Tearing out the wall to replace copper is not one of my favored tasks at Strum Island although it is a task with which I am intimately familiar (three times now). This late in the hunting season, tanks are emptying on about every trip.

As precious as the fireplace is to the old cabin’s atmosphere, it is inadequate for heating the entire cabin. Two tanks fuel the main cabin 40,000 BTU heater, two tanks fuel the 30,000 BTU kitchen heater, two tanks fuel the refrigerator and stove, and two tanks fuel the hot water heater and bathroom heater. Regardless of varying rates of consumption, as a team, they seem to have a knack for emptying at about the same time.

I brought two tanks last Sunday afternoon while there was still seven inches of snow on the ground. Admittedly, that trip was mainly about playing in the snow. Yesterday was the first day I’ve felt human-like in over two weeks. The flu has had its way with me. So the trip last weekend was ill-advised but necessary to avoid the greater evil of repairing water lines.

It’s always an adventure pulling a boat and trailer through a snow-covered field to launch into a river already out of its banks due to snow melt. Frankly, nearly every trip to the island includes some sort of thrill. Mostly, though, I wanted to be on Strum Island during a snow event. It’s special.

In the woods, snow has a way of silencing the world. While occasionally quiet, there’s always sound in the woods – a squirrel cutting nuts, a bug buzzing, a bird chirping, a leaf rustling. Not so during a heavy snow. Snow’s sound blanket makes the limb falling from the heavy weight of wet snow all that much more pronounced.

Putting into words the feeling I get from being inside an old log cabin with a roaring fire while the earth outside is wrapped in snow is a problem. I know all five of my senses are sated. One of my theories is this: the warmth from a fireplace is fetal in nature. We’re taken back to before there was conscious thought to a place in time where we were warm, safe, unaware.

But I digress. Yesterday I came with additional intentions. My opportunities to hunt are quickly running out this season. I’ve nearly consumed the venison from the deer I harvested during bow season so some extra meat in the freezer would be welcomed. And, I need to get some meat to my jerky supplier, my friend, James Pratt. I’ve promised venison to friends in White Pine – Tommy Musick and Richard Webb.

I have had no quiet time to speak of for many days due to the holidays. The cell phone works only sporadically here. With Tennessee Valley Authority draining the upstream lake of Ft. Patrick Henry at the rate of 8600 cubic feet per second, the water is too high for any intruders. There’s a good chance for sanctuary, reflection, reading to prepare for the political clashes certain to come, and even some writing.

Also, the smoker is at the cabin and I’ve thawed a couple of pheasants to smoke. Have you ever tasted smoked pheasant breast? I use apple wood and apple juice in the drip pan. The smell of those babies smoking will linger in my mind if not my nostrils for a lifetime. I’m using the rest of the pheasant to make a stock and deboning the meat to use for a rice-based soup for supper.

My friend, Joe Mitchell, gave me a couple of pounds of ground Nilgai – a south Texas antelope – needing to be cooked. I’ll brown it, drain the little fat there is in it, wash it, and use it for Sloppy Joes or for making a meaty sauce for spaghetti. Simply put, things just taste better when cooked at the cabin.

Finally, I observed a few trees down and many major limbs broken from last weekend’s snow storm. There’s plenty of clean up and chainsaw work to do. The woodpile needs replenishing anyway.

So today, I’m enjoying the fireplace, cooking, contributing to the woodpile and writing a bit – with rifle loaded while wearing hunter’s orange. Who said guys can’t multi-task? Such is life as winter has its way on Strum Island.

Rooster, Art! Rooster!

Never mind we had just driven twenty-five hours in two days from east Tennessee to Parshall, North Dakota – a town of less than a thousand near the Canadian border just west, southwest of Minot. It was about 3pm, we had bought our licenses on-line, and there was daylight enough to get in a couple of hours of hunting before sunset.

This was my second pheasant hunting trip to Parshall. The first one several years ago was not successful measured by the number of birds we took. That year had been extraordinarily dry and came on the heels of a particularly bad winter that drove the brood numbers way down. It was too hot to wear long sleeves at that latitude in October! While the company was great and our hosts, Wade and Cindy Williamson, were grand, the hunting wasn’t especially pleasant.

That trip, I was assured afterwards, was the exception rather than the rule. I know Art Swann. I’ve nicknamed him “Killer” - a monicer well-earned over the years. The gang from east Tennessee comprising the usual hunting party is a group of savvy upland game hunters. They simply would not routinely make the 1600 mile trip twice a year if poor hunting were the rule. So my invitation to make the October 2009 trek was quickly accepted.



Suzy the spaniel was wired upon our arrival. She, after all, had spent most of those twenty-five hours in her kennel. It wasn’t her first rodeo. I’m certain her anticipation was based on her recollection or at least her association of the long ride with more birds than a good dog can sniff.

Around the hills of Tennessee, coveys of quail have become even rarer than the old ruffed grouse. A good hunt at home might result in two or three scent trails over the course of a half day hunt. But Dakota is different - very different. Compare shooting a pack of Black Cat firecrackers with the Fourth of July fireworks on the mall in Washington, D.C.

Not taking the time to unpack, we suited up, loaded up, and hit the field nearest Chuck Alexander’s farm house about four sections east of town. Skies were partly cloudy. There was the usual high plains wind. Temperature was about 40 degrees.

No more than a hundred yards into the field, Suzy became birdie. Like a champion, she did not flush the bird wild – too far away from the hunters to shoot. Up the rooster came with a mighty roar and down he dropped as Art leveled his little 410 gauge double-barrel. Suzy fetched, got that taste in her mouth, and shifted her motor into a higher gear.

Occasionally getting out of our sight, we had to hustle to catch up to some of Suzy’s points. Again and again, the birds would fly. And, again and again, I yelled my favorite battle cry, “Rooster, Art! Rooster!”

Over the next hour, Suzy covered probably twenty times the ground Art and I did. With a three bird per day limit, the three of us bagged five pheasants that afternoon. Taking a few shots to find our range, our marksmanship could have been better but the hunting couldn’t have been better. Our first night included sweet dreams with "Rooster, Art! Rooster!" playing in our heads!