NorthernDestinations.com

Wednesday November 29th, 2023

Greetings and welcome!

This is my last post here for a while. I am moving over to the Big Snow Page for the winter.

The week before deer hunting was warmer than usual. There were days that almost got up to 60. The week of deer hunting it cooled off to more normal temperatures in the 40s.

The last weekend of deer hunting a big cold front came through and gave us about 1-1.5″ of snow. More importantly it dropped temperatures significantly. Monday and Tuesday of this week had high temperatures of just 22 or 23 and low temps around 10. That will go a long way toward freezing the ground and the lakes.

Today we got back up to the low 40s, and expect pretty normal temperatures for the short term.

The church on Hwy C in Silver Cliff right across from Jungle Jim’s and Mountain Jed’s is for sale for $200K. The town was considering buying it for a new town hall. There was an informational walk through last night and possibly a vote. I don’t know how that worked out. One of the items in the notice said that it was subject to the financing of the new safety building going through.

Deer hunting week was pretty quiet as far as they go. Some people got deer, some people got really nice deer, and some people got skunked. Overall the DNR said that harvest numbers were down about 10%.

Me? To quote an old friend.. I have a deal with the deer. They don’t go into the tavern and I don’t go into the woods. We are still arguing about the roads.

Now we go into that very quiet time between deer hunting and when the snowmobile trails open up. A lot of bars and restaurants have limited hours, and in the case of Jungle Jim’s, they are closing until December 27th. I can’t blame them, it gets pretty quiet. It is a tough little stretch for bars, restaurants, and other tourism based businesses.

December 1st Marinette County shuts down ATV/UTV access to county roads. They re-open on May 1st. Oconto Co closed ATV trails Nov 1st.

The Marinette Co trails north of Brandywine remain open. Those only close for spring thaw.

That’s news for today. Come visit me on The Big Snow Page over the winter.

Have a good one and thank you for visiting!!

RJB

Friday 11-17-2023

Greetings and welcome!

It is the Friday of gun deer hunting season and busy or not I need to do a few updates.

First I have been a busy boy so I haven’t been able to update for a few weeks. Between all of the trips to the doctors, a huge water damage repair in my kitchen and laundry room, and fall chores, I haven’t had time to take a breath.

Anyway..

We have an unusual setup for deer hunting this year.

First of all the ground is not frozen and with all of the recent rain low spots will be wet. There is no snow on the ground at all. The last few days have been close to 60ºF.

Yesterday was a nice day that came with high winds that peaked over 40mph. We had a cold front come through last night and the wind just roared. The cold front dropped the temperatures from almost 60 yesterday to an expected high of 40 or so for today. There is going to be a lot of energy involved with a change like that, and this time it came as a lot of wind and very little snow or rain. That wind is expected to stick around with gusts today and Saturday getting up to 20mph.

We had another windy day like that recently too. Don’t be surprised to see a few dead branches or trees down.

High temperatures over the weekend look pretty normal with a high of 41 today, 49 Saturday, and 42 Sunday. Overnight temperatures are expected to be in the mid to upper 20s.

As far as the deer forecast I’d put it at better than average. This year the season comes earlier than usual. I have no idea where they are in the  progression of the rut, but back when I hunted usually the early season was good for us.

Usually I would not hunt on days with big winds. The deer don’t like having three of their senses taken away. Their eyes are very attuned to spot motion. With big wind the whole woods is in motion. Their typical scent scenarios go out the window too in a 40mph wind. Likewise the roar in the trees takes away some of their hearing. They are nervous and spooky in conditions like that, and typically don’t move as much.

In spite of all of that I saw at least six different groups of deer last night on the way home from Crivitz a little before sunset.

In my travels it seems like the deer population in general is up a little bit. As far as buck sightings, those are way up with at least 4 nice ones in the past couple of weeks.

There was a pretty nice one on the east end of Silver Cliff that still walks because of my anticipation and cat-like reflexes. He ran across the road a ways in front of me, and I was like, “Nice buck..”. At the last second he suddenly changed directions and ran back across the road and about five feet in front of the car. I got a good look at him, and any hunter would be proud of him.

Don’t be surprised to see some black bears. It has been warm out so they are not hibernating yet.

There is a hunter’s bake sale at Nimrod supper club in Athelstane today that benefits the local VFD.

For Thanksgiving the usual restaurants will be putting out their best buffets. Rapids Resort, Hilltop Resort, Nimrod’s, and so on. Rustic is doing a potluck where they supply turkey and ham and the rest is potluck. Interesting.

The late season looks cold. There is a little snow showing up in the forecast for about Tuesday night. Next Wednesday and Thursday could have high temps only in the 20s, with lows in the teens.

As far as dem Packers, they play Sunday at noon against the Chargers, and again on Thanksgiving at Detroit. Sunday’s game starts at noon and Thursday’s game at 11:30. Plenty of places will be running Packer specials.

As far as traffic, that has been picking up since early this week. I had plenty of company on my way home from Green Bay yesterday afternoon.

A little story about that. One year I traveled out of Milwaukee with the masses at about suppertime Friday night. Left about 6, got to Rapids Resort at about 11. Traffic sucked the whole way and it was a 5 hour ride instead of the usual three. The next year I left at 8pm and still got to Rapids at about 11, but with a lot less traffic stress. Lesson learned.

One last item, gas prices are down a little this week. Locally it was $3.09 yesterday. In Green Bay it was as low as $2.99. Not great, but it could be a lot worse.

That’s it for me today. Have a good weekend, have fun, and be safe.

RJB

Thursday 11-2-2023

Greetings and welcome!

I warned you guys about early freezing temperatures last week. Hopefully people took action because it froze and it froze hard. Most of the ponds and swamps have ice on them going all of the way across.

So far we have had a couple of nights that got as cold as 16F and a couple that were in the low 20s. Daytime temperatures only got up into the low or mid-30s, no help there.

Whatever the case, we froze hard. My little fishing boat had some leaves clog the drain. The heavy rains from the week before filled it halfway up. I discovered that yesterday. Too late, it is a big block of ice that will take some very warm days to melt.

Most years I don’t worry about winterizing my well house and plumbing until about Thanksgiving. Last weekend it was an emergency deal where I needed to do it by dark on Saturday night or else.

We also had an Alberta Clipper come through with some snow on Monday and Tuesday. The most that we got in Silver cliff was some splotchy white grass. I also had a light layer on the deck and on frozen gravel areas.

The storm came through north central WI and went diagonally southeast, for the most part missing us. Some people near Eagle River and west of Oshkosh saw totals as much a 4-5”.

So what’s the deal with the big set of storms and the big freeze? Blame El Nino. We have a strong one coming up this winter and it has already started to affect our weather. I am expecting cold weather in the short term and then warmer than normal weather just about the time that we think that we have a great start on the snowmobile season.

On a smaller scale we had no less than three big rain storms last week, all out of the southwest. According to my boat we had 6”+ of rain.

As is typical with big winter storms like that a big push of Canadian air came out of the northwest behind the storm. Last weekend’s big freeze was the result of that, and the snow came from a clipper system that followed with a reinforcing shot of cold air.

It will get better for the weekend. We will trade in our 20 degree below normal temperatures for a more normal 50ish high temperature. I’d welcome that.

That’s news for today. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!

RJB

Friday 10-26-2023

Freeze Warning!

Greetings and welcome!

I haven’t had time in the past few weeks to update regularly. Today is important though.

We had a major series of rainstorms this week that looked a lot like winter storms coming out of the southwest. We aren’t expecting snow here until Sunday.

Anyway, like happens behind big storms is a huge push of cold Canadian air. Sunday night and Monday the forecast is for temperatures that could freeze plumbing. From the NWS website..

Sunday Night

Partly cloudy, with a low around 21.

Monday

Sunny, with a high near 35.

Monday Night

Partly cloudy, with a low around 21.

Tuesday

Partly sunny, with a high near 34.

Tuesday Night

Mostly clear, with a low around 21.

Wednesday

Mostly sunny, with a high near 37.