2001 Deer Hunting Journal-I'll try to keep a journal for the season here this year. If it goes well, this will become a regular thing. Who knows, if nothing else, it's something to look back at when the freezer is empty, the rains of winter fall, and cabin fever sets in hard.
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I drew B-zone and G-1 tags for this season. This means I'll be able to hunt from 9/15 through 11/4. |
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10/27-10/28- G-1 Opening Weekend Well, skunked for the B-zone this year. But at least no misses. Saturday, 10/27- Well, the best laid plans and all that, right? Dave (BigDog) has hunted up here before and was planning to come up this weekend. Couldn't make it. So, it's just me. Never been up here, and all the misgivings about trying to find "the right spot" over the space of a weekend bugged my sleep over the week leading to this hunt. Arrived at midnight last night, found a logging road and pulled in to make camp. Turns out there's a cut down and what looks like a beaver meadow very near where I've made camp. This is where I'll start hunting. I'm at around 5400 feet elevation, the weather has been dry and relatively warm, although at sunrise this morning it was hovering near 40. Spent the morning hunting near the beaver meadow, then followed an ATV trail deeper into the woods. This is big timber forest, nothing like the chapparal I'm used to hunting down in B-zone. Lots of sign, but nothing fresh. I decide to break camp and drive around looking for greener pastures. Down a little lower, I find some more potentially good looking habitat. I take the truck down a really rough road as far as I think is reasonable, then get out and start hiking. Nothing at first, then finally a solid trail. Everything is going the same direction. I'm guessing this must be the migration. Clouds are coming in pretty solid, and it's staying chilly. A four-wheeler interrupts my hike. Two yahoos, the guy on the back carrying a loaded bolt action rifle, pull up and expect me to talk to them. Act surprised that they haven't seen anything. Duh! I decide to go back to my beaver meadow. At least there weren't any people up there to screw up the hunt. Hunt until dark near the best trails near the meadow. Nothing moves, but the clouds are coming on strong. Promising weather for the morning! Back to camp, dinner and a drink, read my maps, then break camp. I'll drive out in the early morning and head down toward another area. Sunday, 10/28- On the road by 0400. It's spitting rain and the wind is whipping pretty good. By all accounts, this is what it'll take to get the migration into full gear. I want to be down below this area where I am now, so I drive back toward the west, then hit a dirt road that gets rougher and rougher the deeper in I go. 0500, I find myself pulling up to a fire lookout. Fancy stuff, this, nothing like the old towers I remember back home. The ranger's cabin is a beautiful thing, and I catch myself thinking wistfully of what this life must be like. The Ed Abbey in me, I suppose. There's a rent-a-john nearby, and I decide it's the perfect place to take care of morning "business". Much better than sitting under a tree in the blowing, cold rain. I climb out, into the dark and walk over. As I reach for the door, it opens! I nearly jump off the mountain, as the ranger exits with a pleasant "good morning". Yikes! I wasn't ready for that. Anyway, all that behind, I head back down the road. Ten minutes later, the road begins to become dubious. Better stop here, at least until daylight. There's a large meadow just below where I stop, so I load the rifle and sit through sun-up overlooking the area. Shortly after sunrise, I return to the truck and take a quick look at the road. Glad I didn't try to run it in the dark. Jagged rocks and extremely narrow turns pose a real hazard, and I decide I won't try to drive it. As I stand beside the truck deciding on my next course of action, I notice two sets of deer tracks in the road. Both are mostly dry, despite the spitting rain, and I know I must've just missed seeing these deer. My mind is made up. I load my backpack and my gear and start hiking. Further down the trail, more tracks join the original pair, and eventually it's obvious that an entire herd has moved down the road within the past several hours. All the same direction... and all long gone. I follow for a couple of hours, and suddenly feel eyes on me. I pause and glimpse the greyish-brown of deer hide about 100 yards up on a ridge. I raise the glasses and see a very mature buck looking down at me. His grizzled white face shows his age, and while I can't see the entirety of his antlers, the bases look as thick as broomsticks. We look at one another for a moment. He's framed, broadside, in the opening between two patches of brush. I try to ease the rifle off my shoulder, but no go. He only waits long enough for that movement, then quietly slips into the thicket. Once again, I was caught flatfooted walking along an open road. Spend the rest of the day in the area. Evening finds me hunting up onto the ridge where the buck was. Up top, I can see that he (and probably several others) have been living here for quite some time. The ridgetop is covered with deer sign. I sit over a well-used trail until sunset, but nothing moves. The majority of the herd has migrated, and the old buck knows I'm around...he's not showing himself. I move down off the ridge and reach the truck as absolute darkness rolls in. If I'd only found this place yesterday! This country is too big to try to scout and hunt all in one weekend. Oh well, next weekend we have passes for the Tehama hunt. We'll start down in the much lower elevations and hope all these migrating deer have reached the bottom by then. Oh, and as it turns out... I hadn't moved to lower elevation after all. Later review of some more detailed topo maps indicates that I actually climbed. The ridge I was on is at about 6200 feet.
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