I really like the look of the forecast.
Well actually, I do from one perspective, and it’s very bad news from another. As I write on the evening of the Winter Solstice there’s a big windy snowstorm being predicted for Dec. 24, Christmas Eve.
I love it for outdoor fun and recreation, like snowshoeing, kids downhill sliding, setting rabbit gardens, snowball fights, moose hunting, and all the like.
On the other hand we were all planning to spend Christmas Eve at my daughter Megan’s house. Now with snow beginning at 7 a.m. on Dec. 24 and blustering right through till late in the night, our plans to open gifts with our grandkids on Christmas morning could be in jeopardy.
Anyway I’ll see what scheming logistics I can conjure up to work around the forecast. I never bought a Subaru Outback for fair-weather motoring. I’ll fill you in next time.
Yes indeed, today Dec. 22, is the Winter Solstice for 2019, actually it was 12:49-am Newfoundland Time. That means that when the sun rose this morning it was as far south as you will see it for the entire year.
If you lived on the Tropic of Capricorn, 23 degrees and 26 minutes south of the equator, the sun would be directly overhead today.
Folks who live in Northern Argentina, Southern Brazil, South Africa, and Australia would have had this mid-day experience.
But it’s not that hot here. Right now it’s dark and cold outside and it is the longest night of the entire year.
But hey, tomorrow night will be shorter. The sun peeked above Conception Bay this morning at 7:49 a.m. and sank below the horizon at 4:14 p.m., for a daytime duration of just eight hours and 25 minutes. Tomorrow will be about 90 seconds longer. That’s good because summer is coming and only eight hours is a very short day for salmon fishing.
And we have to make the best of the season. It gets dark early these days so we can turn on our Christmas lights at suppertime and enjoy our lit trees for longer. You know, it’s no coincidence or surprise that we have our biggest yearly holiday and celebration right around the Winter Solstice, and the longest nights of the year. We really do need the Christmas holiday and festive season to lift our spirits, and help us though a long, stormy, cold, and dark winter.
Just the same, I love winter. There’s nothing better than a blue sky, sunny winter day, trekking the northern woods on snowshoes.
I just thought of something. There are folks who are still looking for a moose.
I know a few personally. We were lucky this year and shot two moose right next to each other on the first day of the season. I suppose we were lucky to a large extent. But Rob did use his calling skill to entice a beast out. And then another just came running toward us to see what happened to his buddy.
That doesn’t happen very often and I guess you could call it good luck. But lucky is a funny thing, because the more you try in any sort of fishing or hunting, the more luck you get. So with just a few weeks left to hunt, get out there.
Eight hours is plenty long to shoot a moose, and the days are indeed getting longer.
This snow at Christmas could well be the golden, or white, opportunity to get that late season moose. It seems to me, based on over 40 years of moose hunting, that the first significant snowfall is a remarkably good time to harvest a moose. There was a time I would go hunting on Christmas day if need be, but I’m not that extreme anymore.
I’ll be opening gifts with my grandchildren. But I’d certainly go Boxing Day if I didn’t already have moose in my freezer.
One Christmas I hunted on snowshoes every second day for the entire holiday season.
That included Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. But I had no kids back then at just 20 years old.
Wow, what a wonderful Christmas that was, so many boil-ups with strong black tea and my mother’s dark rummy fruitcake. I must have logged a solid 200 miles on snowshoes for the whole Yuletide season. I didn’t gain an ounce despite copious servings of turkey, stuffing, and gravy.
Back to first snow business, and this is the first big snow here on the Avalon. I recall shooting quite a few first snow moose.
And besides that, I’ve seen many more opportunities when I have been in just trekking and pretend moose hunting. I do a lot of that. I remember once in deep snow, I tracked a big bull for about a half hour.
I reached forward with my hiking pole to smack powdery snow off a heavily laden green limb, and snow went flying everywhere, a lot more than could be suspended on just one limb.
It turned out that I had startled the moose that had been bedded down amongst the evergreens no more than ten feet in from of me. I guess with all the fresh snow dampening any sound he didn’t detect my approach, and I was downwind.
Tracking is a great option in fresh snow conditions.
Besides the obvious benefit of stealthy tracking, moose seem to move about and come out in the open quite consistently after the first snowfall. I don’t really know why, but most seasoned moose hunters will verify what I’m saying. The first snow really gets them active, fired up even, and brings them out of thicker woods. I particularly remember a late November morning with first snow about 10 years ago when my buddy Matt Brazil had a moose license. We hadn’t had much in the way of good luck up to that point in time.
I left the house early on my quad to drive into the Peter’s Path area. The pre-dawn morning was clear, the stars were out, and there lay on the ground a lovely fresh snow blanket about six inches deep. There was hardly a breath of wind and the air crisp and cool. It was perfect. It felt very moosy. I sensed success in my bones.
Soon, while cruising along an old grown in berry road, there were moose tracks galore. Actually, there were so many I figured the moose were out having some sort of pagan ritual dance celebration. Now remember, the snow had stopped falling just a few hours previous. These were all very fresh tracks.
My spider senses were quivering as a drove along to meet up with Matt and Rob.
We met at the foot of Peter’s Path and drove up to the trailhead leading to Gosse’s Hill lookout. We were filled with optimism. We walked silently to the cliff face that overlooks a big open marsh, arriving just as daybreak began to dominate on the southwest horizon. We hunkered down to wait with binoculars on the ready. Matt fiddled with his rifle and verified that no snow had lodged in the muzzle. We sorted out shooting lanes, positions and the like.
We waited in silence. It was beautiful.
The moose came out with the sun. Sure enough, our optimism was justified. After a month of hard hunting and no moose, now they were all over the place. We spotted seven in total and chose a good-sized cow at about 250-yards. Rapidly expanding gunpowder and a bullet’s sonic boom broke the morning silence. We had our moose.
So were we lucky that morning? We were there. That’s what really counts. Luck is really a matter of statistical mathematics.
The harder I try the luckier I get. You still have time to shoot a moose. Take advantage of the snow and get out there. If you shoot a Christmas moose I’d love to hear about it.
Paul Smith, a native of Spaniard’s Bay, fishes and wanders the outdoors at every opportunity. He can be contacted at [email protected] or follow him on twitter at @flyfishtherock.
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