Having the day to myself, I traveled south to the point where the Cannon and Vermillion Rivers flow through a delta into the Mississippi River. The rivers are all at flood stage now and way out of their banks. I know a remote little-used trail along a the base of a glacial ridge that follows a long-abandoned railbed through a ghost town in the area(now you understand the title of my post. The trees are near their peak of color, and as I expected, the animals are up out of the bottomlands and moving about in the hardwoods along the trail. The colors,smells, and sounds in the backwoods and on the huge sky-tinted ephemeral lakes on this perfect autumn day are hard to put into words.

Technically this was a squirrel hunting trip. I had my orange vest, survival pack, mini binoculars and my favorite rifle; an old Remington Fieldmaster Mod 572 pump .22 with iron sights with me. I saw a lot of animals including 4 beavers, a dozen squirrels, a young bald eagle, dozens of wood ducks, five snakes, pelicans, a flock of geese, two fat toads, and uncounted peeps of various species.

At one point along the trail, a squirrel challenged my presence, and hung down from an overhanging tree barking at me. It was less than 15 yards, and I put the shiney bead of the old Remington on center mass, slowly squeezed on the trigger and said 'bang'. Taking a cue from my fishing colleagues, today was one of my 'shoot and release' hunts.... no shot was fired, and the squirrels will continue to gather the walnuts and acorns that rained down with every wind gust.

On the way out of the woods after my successful hunt, I met an old man on the trail with a recurve bow and cedar arrows. After talking with him for a few minutes, I realized that he was 'shoot and release' bow hunting.

Sometimes life is just plain great.