PEPIN

“It was a night, oh what a night, it really was such a night,” — Lincoln Chase

We sat together waiting for our food in the country-styled roadside restaurant — one we’d known since we were both kids. It hadn’t changed much at all — decent food, friendly staff, bathrooms down the hall.

Cars blew past in both directions on the highway while we sat contented in this quiet refuge from the noise and bustle of a regular late Wednesday afternoon.

It was me and my younger brother, Jimmy.

The only customers there, we got up to look at the historic pictures on the wall — a military orchestra, 19th century townscapes and that famous picture of a record load of logs pulled by horses.

In a little while, the waitress brought us the French fries and hot submarine sandwiches we’d ordered, along with a basket of breaded mushrooms.

We reminisced and joked as we enjoyed the food, the atmosphere and the wide and comfortable silences in between our talking.

We walked outside with full stomachs, planning to find some trout water before the sun went down. It was a warm and humid evening.

I turned over the engine on the Jeep. Before pulling onto the highway, we looked across the beautiful blue of an inland lake that was situated just outside the highway restaurant.

The lake stretched far into the landscape in front of us — an old railroad track laid across the floodwood plains past a boat launch on its far side. Various panfish species darted and hovered, fanning their fins, within the lake’s roughly 20-foot depths.

Just a few feet offshore, a common loon paddled slowly across the water’s surface. It had two fluffy, chicks on its back.

Loon parents, which share chick-raising duties, carry their chicks this way to keep them warm, conserve their energy and help them avoid underwater predators, like pike and snapping turtles.

Against a backdrop of red and jack pine, poplar and northern hardwood forests, we drove a handful of interconnected gravel-covered backroads that night which took us roughly 75-100 miles.

The scene was largely rolling hills and a curving drive underneath the spread of those big, old trees. There were still many fine open vistas to enjoy, but some that used to be there years ago have now grown over obscuring the sights.

At the first place we stopped to fish, the side road I knew to skirt the edge of a jack pine stand had grown in a good deal since I had last been there.

Branches swatted against the sides of the Jeep and dusted the dirt off the bottom of the vehicle as we drove in, crunching and scratching our way to the creek.

When we stopped and got out of the Jeep.

Jimmy looked around and said, “I don’t see any water.”

I pointed down an embankment that was grown up tall in tag alders.

The stop didn’t last all that long. We found the creek, but it was low and slow and didn’t look promising for catching trout. We fished a couple of deepest holes I knew to often be reliable with no results.

A few minutes later, we were already trudging up the embankment to the Jeep.

I stepped with my lead foot onto a thick and grassy hummock. I slipped and fell backwards. I tumbled down most of the hillside. I wasn’t hurt, but my jeans were coated in wet, black mud.

Back at the Jeep, I was out of breath. The hot, moist air was almost too thick to breathe – like trying to inhale butter.

In just a few minutes, we were back on the main road, scaring up mourning-cloak butterflies as we rolled. A wild turkey waddled across the road in front of us.

We spotted several deer, especially in clear-cut forested areas. I slowed the Jeep to get a look out my driver’s side window at some wolf tracks in the mud. The imprint pattern followed a deer trail that meandered back and forth. Both tracks were fresh.

At a bubbling creek, I waited while Jimmy got out to drop in a few quick casts. He pulled a legal-sized brook trout out right away, but he let it go. It was on the small side of the legal limit.

We enjoyed the night, driving along these beloved backroads we’d first traveled with our folks more than half a century ago. I know. That’s a long time.

We saw a painted turtle in the middle of the road, and later, a common snapping turtle. This is the time of year when turtle eggs have hatched and the young have left their nests, which are often dug into the gravel and sand along these kinds of roads.

As the sun went down, the fishing got better.

Upon the arrival of almost pitch-black woodlands and fishing paths — what I refer to as “the witching hour” — the fish were biting almost as much as the bugs.

We ended the fishing with a great catch of trout. We brought home a half-dozen beauties for the frying pan.

With darkness down all around us, we turned the Jeep more in the direction of home.

Young rabbits were all over the backroads. Some froze in position at the edge of the road or in the middle, while others dashed out, crisscrossing across the gravel in front of our Jeep.

We encountered several American woodcocks on the roads, their eyes shining amber in the headlight beams. We’d see them one at a time. They would fly up and land a short distance farther down the road.

At one point, as we moved through a deciduous forest, we caught sight of an unexpected and unusual crossing. It was a mother porcupine, with a “porcupette.” This was the first young porcupine I’d ever seen in the wild.

I’d say it was about the size of a tissue box. It moved slowly, following. These young stay with their mothers for about their first three months of life. They are often out after dark.

We continued to see deer throughout the evening, with our total reaching 21 before the night had ended.

The grand finale of the night was well worth waiting for.

The previous evening, when riding down a residential street in a nearby town, we had watched a low-flying whip-poor-will snatch an insect out of the sky in front of us and then glide alongside our Jeep for about a block’s distance.

We thought that was just about the coolest thing either of us had seen in a long time.

But on this night, on our way home, we rode with the windows down feeling the now cooler night breeze coming in on us through the windows.

We were driving through a creek drainage when I suddenly heard a whip-poor-will singing just outside my driver’s side window.

I stopped the Jeep immediately.

The bird stopped singing for a few seconds and then started up again. As it continued to sing its namesake song, another nightjar landed on the road in the headlight beam.

As we watched it, I inched the Jeep up toward it so we could see the bird better. It sprang up from the road like the lid on a jack-in-the-box toy and flew into the woods.

I was amazed at how easily it negotiated its way between the cedar tree trunks along the creek. I noticed the bird did not bear the white wing patches characteristic of a common nighthawk, so it was certainly a whip-poor-will.

We listened for a bit longer to the song. We were so close we could hear grace notes in the song that aren’t typically audible when you hear the birds at a distance. It was fantastic.

We eventually moved along, driving up out of the drainage along the creek. As we did, we stopped again to listen to at least three whip-poor-wills singing. These were different birds from the first ones we encountered.

Just then, a common nighthawk landed on the road ahead of the Jeep.

While the whip-poor-wills continued to sing, there were at least three nighthawks singing their “beeping” songs somewhere up there above us in the blackness of the sky.

What an incredible concert! I have never experienced both these birds at the same time. This was truly a phenomenal event, especially with common nighthawks being among my top five favorite bird species.

I could have stayed there listening to them all night long.

Instead, we moved ahead, continuing to make our way home. Other things we spotted that night on the road included an American toad and a mole of some type.

By the time we got home and got the Jeep unloaded, I was cleaning fish in the sink after midnight — but what a night!

My brother and I both talked about what a great time it was, even better than the previous night when, in addition to the whip-poor-will flying alongside the Jeep, we had to stop to wait for a mother skunk to walk her six kits across the road.

Great nights out in nature are never really a rare thing, but the combination of the company of my visiting brother, the roadside diner, the fishing success and the incredible animal encounters made this a truly exceptional night.

I dreamt about nights like this all through the long, white-gray winter.

Now they’re here.

Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.