Hey Hall of Fame family,
I hope this blog post finds you well! For last week's Tackle Room blog, I recapped a cool trout fishing trip my wife and I took for my birthday. It was a lot of fun and we caught a few good sized trout! Read about it here!
This blog post will be short and sweet. As I write this, I am in Newport, Rhode Island for field work. It's my favorite project to work in the field on, hands down. Everyday we take a boat, the Sally Forth, from Bowen's Wharf out to Gould Island, a 3 mile trek that takes around 30-40 minutes. We leave the wharf by 8 am, collect groundwater samples all day, and then take the boat ride back to Newport. All I can think about during that boat ride is fishing!
Gould Island is actually owned by the US Navy, and, allegedly, it used to be a site for underwater torpedo launching. It was active until the 1950s or 1960s, and is now quite the desolate 55 acre wasteland. All buildings have been torn down but their foundations and parts of the flooring still remain. Remnants of the old water tower can even be found in the woods. Mother Nature has definitely reclaimed most of the island, and it's a very popular place for seagulls and geese alike.
This week will be the 5th week I've spent out on Gould for field work in the last three years. The only animals I've ever seen on the island are the aforementioned seagulls and geese, as well as some bees and ants in the fall. On our field work kickoff call prior to coming out here, a coworker mentioned that there may be deer present on the island. I'd never seen any signs of deer there before. No tracks, no poop, no antlers, no nothing. I was actually joking with my manager that I thought there was no way deer were at Gould Island. I was wrong...
We got out to Gould Island yesterday by around 10 am. We got a later start because we had to obtain base access and pick up our supplies. As soon as we arrived on the island, I began gauging synoptic water levels on the monitoring wells while my coworkers got started sampling. As I walked up to the very first well to begin gauging, I saw it. I thought it was possibly trash at first, but I knew it wasn't. A four point antler shed, in a place where I did not think deer even lived!
It's crazy to me that I found a shed, at work, on a remote and desolate island wasteland, when I wasn't even trying to look for them. I've never found one before, and even though it was only a 4 point, it was still very cool to me. I've spent many hours looking for antler sheds back home in Missouri, all unsuccessful. Gould Island is about 3 miles from mainland Newport, so that is quite an impressive swim if they can make it. I'm also unsure if the island is large enough to support a deer population 365 days per year. I ended up shipping the antlers back to my house because I knew it would not fit in my luggage, and I didn't want to damage them somehow. Finding that shed was the highlight of my day!
Thanks for reading my shed story and as always, tight lines!
-Erik Hoffman, Hall of Fame Outdoor Co