10/21/72 To island alone and accomplished much despite my very sore shoulder. 1) bailed out 2 boats (they had been sitting for 10 days); 2) took table apart for Karen; 3) winterized 3 motors; 4) put more antifreeze in main cabin; 5) and most important, fixed covering on Starcraft. My shoulder only bothers when I lift right arm. I called Judys to check on their duck hunting and learned that they had shot 21 bluebills in 2 days. Good, altho it made my shoulder seem sorer. Am I going to be laid up all fall?
10/22/72 Buck, Jayme, Cliff Blais and John Lynch off for buoy job. They didn’t need me - and I am glad. Our ordeal last year made any subsequent job an anticlimax. I feel that I bowed out in a blaze of glory! My thoughts with buoy pickers all day, nevertheless.
10/23/72 Went to town and bought material to make railing for basement steps. A little like locking the barn after horse stolen but it may save a serious fall. “Forewarned, forearmed”.
10/24/72 Cliff picked me up at 8:30 and off for Black Bay. Made a circle around Cliff’s “butcher shop” and chased out a small doe - just what we wanted, and Cliff got it. In for lunch then out and pulled deer out. Kind of tough on couple of old men but not too bad. After supper (after dark) we dragged deer to boat and off for our island. We hung it up in fish house and back to Cliff’s. No trouble.
10/25/72 Out shortly after daylight to give ducks a whirl - wondering how my shoulder would let me shoot. No need. No ducks. We ran into east end. I could hear my old pal John Erickson saying “I tell you, Eisenach, because I know it to be the truth. For every duck you can shoot with a gun on Iltis’s Point, you can kill ten with a stick in the east end.” It may have been, but not now.
10/26/72 60o Decided to try .22 on my shoulders. I reactivated the Savage Sporter that I bought in 1927 from Everett Anderson for $12.50. I haven’t shot it for 10 years. It worked good. Harry picked me up at 1:30 and off for Big Fork. He fished in river and I walked the woods for three hours. Saw 2 partridge and quite a number of deer tracks. Not my kind of a deer country, however. Think I’ll stick to the peninsula until Uncle Sam kicks me off - maybe longer.
10/27/72 Put non-skid treads on basement steps. Now all I have to worry about is the human element. It should take some doing to fall down those steps now. To town to shop for deer hunting clothes. Everyone we met talked about Kimball’s article. We are well known.
10/28/72 After lunch I took Timmy & Jayme and off for island to pick up Jim DiOnne’s table for K & R. I got home about 3:30. The table, all knocked down, had fit in Chevy. Now where to put it until Layna could take it down next Friday? We made a quick decision, some small preparations and by 4:30 we were off for Duluth and delivered table ourselves.
10/30/72 Cliff and I to island where we cut up and packaged deer. It is now in deep freeze. Also pulled out last Cadillac and put 10 hp kicker away. We are phasing out of our summer operations. Made plans with Wayne and Opal to go to NW Bay on Wednesday. Hope there will be a few ducks to meet us. Also hope my shoulder survives first shot, if I get one.
10/31/72 Harry & Bern out for a quick drink and ended up by staying for a pancake supper. They left early so they could meet the trick or treaters. Not much activity on that score our here. Don’t know why.
11/1/72 Off for NW Bay with Judys at 10 a.m. I had done enough “dry shooting” in basement to know that I would pay in pain for any shooting I got. On to Marshall’s where I got chance to try my shoulder. I let go at a high flier and down he came - and ouch! - it was worth it. We stayed to get a total of 6. Full of hope for tomorrow. My admiration for Wayne always great, still growing. He is practically blind but evidently still gets big kick out of going thru motions of duck hunting. It is an obsession with Opal.
11/2/72 We were set up when light enough to shoot and a fairly fast couple of hours followed. We got 26 bluebills. At noon Opal and Wayne went back to cabin. I stayed. No ducks - I got only one, but a couple of memorable events. I saw mink towing one of our lost ducks along shore. Thought it was an albino beaver. Later I was visited by 3 Canadian jays who put on quite a show when I fed them cookies and crackers off deck of duck boat. A great day - but my shoulder aches like crazy. I shot almost 3 boxes of shells this a.m. Good thing the ducks quit coming!
11/3/72 Eight ducks to go for our 42 limit. Wayne made a one hour shag and when he came back we had 6 birds. Two short but we decided to call it quits. Off for home by 3 p.m. I got to our house at 4:30. I’ve packed my bag and we made it to Cliff’s Landing by 5:30. Leonard Peterson met me and took me across. He had killed a spike buck but Cliff hadn’t scored. Cliff and I full of big plans for tomorrow.
11/4/72 Up at 5 a.m. and had breakfast consisting of a quart of oatmeal. Not fancy but filling. Cliff mounted Pug and took off for his “butcher shop #2.” I still hunted until noon, saw one deer. I then managed to find Cliff’s stand in rather heavy timber. He told me he had shot and crippled a fox. Now how about that for an old deer-slayer? We chewed rag after supper until 8:30. Glad to crawl into bed. As MacKellar used to say, “I have been training on wrong stuff,” or maybe it is just too much of right stuff.
11/5/72 We ate lunch and had just finished listening to noon news when I looked out to see a spike buck standing in meadow. He seemed to be listening to the radio. I crawled to back door, opened it cautiously, reached my gun on porch and he waited for me all this time. I got him, to keep my record intact. 53 consecutive years getting a deer. We took off again after lunch but got nothing. I saw a few jumps from a fawn. Leonard Peterson came at 7:00 p.m. To bed at 9:00. We talked much of night. He is my kind of a guy.
11/6/72 Up at 5:00 a.m. as usual. We went south of logging road where Cliff drove while Leonard and I stood. A big doe came out to me and I plunked her. Had a good lunch. I could feel that Cliff was frustrated in not looking over new territory so off we went again for a 2 hour survey in Pug. The rains came and we broke camp. This is my 6th day of hunting in a row. I am willing to call it quits for 1972. Glad to get home to Layna.
11/7/72 Layna and I picked up Cliff and off for town where we registered our deer in compliance with the DNR regulations. I have never been so legal in all my life. We voted. Polls have been so overwhelmingly for Nixon that it hardly seemed necessary. Layna put on an “election dinner” for the Daveys and George Amidon. They came at 5:30, drank, gorged themselves on a gourmet feed, watched TV and by 8:15 we learned that the CBS had projected the election returns to the extent that Nixon was reelected! What a computerized age we live in. Heard McGovern’s and Nixon’s speeches. Very satisfying for a couple who had voted the “right” way.
11/8/72 Layna, Bernice and Joan took off for Virginia at 9 a.m. I was six days behind in this book, altho I had made a few notes on shell boxes. I put it all together. Jayme called to ask me to go hunting tomorrow. I told him I would go altho I thought I had put my stuff away. I think I would have refused a lot of people.
