Hunting for Deer | Life Below Zero
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Yeah, you can see that, uh, something just came down through here. All this lichen's all rubbed off. Could be, probably more than likely an old slide, maybe a bear come down through here. Never know. Not seeing any tracks or signs. So I don't think anything's real fresh, but they are using this. It is hunting season; we have a very long deer season on the island, which is a blessing. We don't have moose on this island; we don't have really anything else besides black-tail deer. Earlier in the spring, I did see a lot of game trails and tracks, and it looks like it could be at some time very profitable.
♪ (game call squeaks) (squeak) ♪ (squeak) ♪ ♪ I know this call works good for, for bear, for sure. Um, in the spring when the fawns are dropping, you can tighten these bands and make a fawn call, and then bears will beeline right for you. They'll run you smooth over looking for that fawn. It's, uh... So, so far it's worked on bears. Hopefully she'll get, we'll get a deer in here. We do have a predator issue on this island. In the spring, those black bear, when the fawns start dropping, their only thing is eating fawns. And the wolves, their only thing is eating these black-tail deer. Our deer population is dwindling. It really hammers our chance to feed our family when the predator population is so high that you're not seeing the deer.
♪ Wind's really kicking up. I see these conked-up hemlocks here, means they're really rotten and they're starting to rock and roll. You got to watch, too, grabbing these little rotten ones. You shake 'em and that top just wobbles. Sucker will come off there and whack you right in the bean. When I first came up logging, a buddy of mine, he was cutting, and you can see there's a rotten limb that had already broke off there. And right above that big sweeper, it comes out, he was cutting on it and started pounding ledges. Well, it was rotten like that bottom one, and that whole sweeper come off and crushed him. Killed him, killed him on site.
♪ I do miss logging and I do miss cutting. But it is nice to know every day I'm home with the kids and I'm not coming home in a box either. Happens to a lot of us. ♪