2002 Deer Hunting Journal-I enjoyed keeping a journal of last year's deer hunting. I haven't really put in much useful information (like weather, moon phase, etc.), but in the B-zones, the weather is fairly constant... HOT, DRY, and sunny. Also, I know this section could really use some pictures. Some technical complications have separated my working computer from the one with my camera software, so I'm sort of at a loss right now. Hopefully, I'll square this away soon. I'm also taking some shots with the 35mm, and will scan any that have relevance. Of course, if I get lucky this year, I'll have pictures one way or the other. |
I drew B-zone and G-1 tags for this season. Since I am also hunting archery for the first time this year, I'll be able to hunt from 08/17 through 11/03. As you can see, the end of the B-zone and the beginning of G-1 will overlap. I'll straighten this out as the time comes closer, and I decide where I'll be hunting. |
|
Saturday, 9/07 0400 - Well, obviously didn't make it early on Friday afternoon as planned. But, does anything ever go as planned? Not for me. I putzed around getting out of town last night. Just wanted to spend some time with the family before heading out to hunt, so didn't leave town until after dinner... around 2130. Still had to pick up groceries, and probably didn't hit the highway until after 2200. Arrived in the wee, tiny hour and didn't get sacked out until 0200. I'm running on minimal sleep, and feeling it. But it's the closing weekend of archery season, and I REALLY want to get a deer with this bow. 0515 - There's an hour until daylight, so I start hiking to the orchard. That spot I've been using is too good to ignore. Just as I'm getting ready to leave the main trail and cut across the meadow, I see two eyes looking back at me, reflected in my headlamp. At first I'm kinda bummed that I've walked in too late, and now I'm going to push the deer out again. I turn my head away slowly, hoping the deer will walk away and not spook. But when I turn back, the eyes are still there. But as I look, I realize that these eyes don't look quite right...certainly not like deer eyes. For one thing, they seem too far apart. And the color is kind of different. After a moment of staring, I realize that they are cat eyes! I'm staring down a lion at a range of less than fifty yards. I consider my defense options, and realize that, with only this bow, I'm woefully undergunned for a big cat in the dark. I go ahead and draw an arrow from the quiver anyway. The cat has better sense, of course, and in keeping with general nature it turns and slinks off toward the ridge. That's left me a little spooked and a lot disappointed. If there's a lion hunting in the canyon, there probably won't be any deer around. Of course, if it just arrived, maybe it hasn't had a chance to spook everything away. Hopefully my presence will send it packing for other hunting grounds. 0615 - Dawn comes on, and not a moment too soon. It's cold this morning, probably down in the 40's, and I didn't bring any warm clothes. I hope the sun will warm things up, or I'll be in trouble. It doesn't help either that I expect every sound to be that lion creeping up on my ground blind. I've had an arrow nocked since I first got here. 0730 - Nothing is moving here, and I'm freezing. The sun is up, but it's still cold. I'm also dog-tired. I decide to hike up on the canyon wall, and see what I can spot and stalk. 0830 - I can't believe how exhausted I am. It has been a long week, and two hours' sleep just isn't cutting it. I'm feeling weak and dizzy. I sit down and eat a couple of Nutri-grain bars. That helps, but not a lot. I need to get back to camp and sleep, or I'll never make it through the day. As I start down the hill, I spot two deer trotting across the meadow. I sit back down and glass them. It's a mature doe and a youngster, apparently also a doe. They cross the creek and head south in the Long Meadow. There's a ridge that comes out of the Long Meadow that I've been thinking about setting Kat up on for the opener of gun season. The two deer follow the ridge just as if I'd scripted it. I head back to camp happy. At least something is going as planned. 0930 - Back in camp, all I want to do is ditch my gear and crawl back into the bed. Now I'm happy for the chilly turn of the weather. Usually it's way too hot to sleep after sunrise, but today it's very comfortable as I slip under the blankets and settle in. I read for a few moments, and the next thing I know it's... 1430 - I'm feeling good! That nap really did the trick. I get up, eat a sandwich and have a diet Coke, and sling a few arrows at stumps for practice. It's clouding up a bit, and while I know it's too much to hope for in September, I look for signs of rain. That would be so perfect! 1530 - Time to head back to the orchard. I'm hitting that spot hard, but I don't think I've impacted the area too badly. There is still a lot of fresh sign. I reach my blind, get comfortable, and wait to see what the evening will bring. 1830 - Well, up until now, the evening hasn't brought anything. The sun had dropped behind the west ridge, though, and it just feels like a good evening to see deer. 1920 - Sunset is pretty much on me, and it's getting dim. Finally, I catch movement on the hill to my west. A deer steps cautiously and VERY alertly into the open. It's a doe, but I'm tickled to see that deer are still moving in the area. The lion apparently hasn't run everything off. She moves down, into and across the creek, and pops out on the trail right where I expected... about 15 yards from me. I keep still and enjoy watching as she browses across the orchard meadow and into the thick bedding area, about 20 yards behind me. I keep looking back at her to make sure she hasn't spooked, while I watch for other deer coming in to join her. 1945 - It's getting too dark to see now, and nothing else seems to be moving yet. The little doe is still in the bedding area. I can see her ears and the top of her head where she's laid down. I'll have to try to slip out of here without spooking her, so I go the long way around beside the creek bed until I'm far enough away that I don't think she'll be too freaked out when I cut across the meadow to the main trail. 2030 - It's too cold for a shower tonight. I take off my shirt and wash my face and underarms. Then it's time for a nice tequila while I cook a steak for dinner. Sunday, 9/08 04:15- I wake up well-rested this morning. What a difference a reasonable amount of sleep can make! I will hunt closer to camp this morning, instead of pushing into the orchard again. Almost every morning I find fresh tracks down near Kat's Crossing, and I want to see what's moving here. My bet is that it is the doe and yearling that I've been seeing so much, but you never know. 0530 - It's hard to find a good spot to sit in the dark. The whole area looks very different. I locate a big, flat rock I'd been seeing, and take a seat there until daylight. As light dawns, I see I'm situated about ten yards from the main trail along the edge of a gully. I have two or three perfect shooting windows through the burnt tree trunks and new growth. 0730 - I'm getting a little antsy. There's a whole lot of territory out there, and it's impossible to watch it all from this spot. This is the hardest thing about hunting here. There's so much good area, and no way a single hunter can cover it all. No matter how good the spot you're in looks, you always think about the other good spots. 0830 - OK, I have to move to where I can see more. I can't stand it. I get up and move uphill a few yards to another big rock. From here I can still see the trail along the gully, but I can also see out across the meadow to My Hill, and almost down to the orchard. I can also see up onto the ridge above My Hill. I stand there a little self-satisfied that I've picked a good spot, until I hear the crunch of brush just below me. A doe pops out on the opposite hill, about 40 yards away and looks back at me. I'm off balance, but I freeze where I am, binoculars held just below my eyes. She stares me down, bluffs toward me a step, and then stots off up the hill. About fifty yards away, she stops and looks at me again. I'm still frozen in place, and she apparently can't quite make me out. She turns and trots back down the hill to her original position and stares me down again. My legs and arms are dying, but I don't want to move. Finally, she moves uphill a couple of yards and starts to browse, eventually moving up into the oak trees on the hillside. I am able to get my feet resituated, and I watch as she browses over the hill and out of sight. 0900 - I take a seat on the rock, cursing myself for moving around and spooking that doe. I hope there wasn't a buck with her that I didn't get to see because of my impatience. As I'm gazing around, I catch movement up on the ridgetop. One, then two, and then three deer move through the blackened tree trunks. I put the glasses on them, and can see one browsing, head down near a bush, and the tail-end of another one behind a rock. I watch as the first deer comes into an opening. There is a lot of stuff in the field of view, and the ridge top is about 250 yards or more away, but I can make out the curve of antler over the deer's head. It would be an impossible stalk, so I decide to sit and watch. The three deer browse around on the hillside for several minutes, then move over the top and out of sight. I decide to move over toward My Hill, and see what the odds might be of heading them off. My bet though, is that they'll bed down up in the thicket on the ridgetop, and I won't get another look at them. As I'm heading down the trail I hear the slam of a car door, then another. A moment later I can make out several voices talking fairly loudly. Crap! I climb up on a hill and look back toward the trailhead. I can see several men clustered around the back of a battered jeep. As I watch, two of them start down the trail toward me. Oh well, so much for a morning hunt. They're not carrying guns, so I'm a little curious as to what they're doing. I'll cut out a lot of this story and get to it... they are a bunch of local old-timers, and the two coming down trail were planning to go in and pick some apples. Of course, as I mentioned before, the apples didn't "happen" this year, so they came and went empty handed. But they had tramped all through the canyon, so my opportunity for a morning stalk was pretty well shot. I returned to camp. 1100 - It's cool again today, so I climb up in the truck and finish my book, Peter Hathaway Capstick's Death in the Silent Places. Over the first couple of weekends this deer season, I had read Death in the Long Grass, and found I really kind of enjoyed the tales of the African hunters, back when Africa was still wild and not divided into game ranches with huge fences and managed herds of game. Exciting stuff to read, especially if you hunt alone as often as I do. I thought back to yesterday's lion. Maybe that's why I chose to hunt close to camp this morning? 1430 - After finishing the book, I dozed off for a while. The clouds of yesterday are all gone, and it's heating up pretty good now. The back of the truck is a little too hot for any more sleep, so I hop up, fix lunch, and decide it would be a good time to shower. The water is plenty hot, and I luxuriate in the stream of water. Solar showers! Gotta love whoever came up with that one. A simple concept, but for years of camping and outdoors pursuits I'd never thought of it myself. 1530 - I want to mark a trail to that ridge for Kat, so I head in a little early with some reflective tacks. Since the fire, you can pretty much cut right straight across from Lizard Gate to the creek. There's a good deer trail crossing, and then you can pretty much walk across the scrub to the ridge. Before the fire this was 100% impassible. I had tried, and it was so thick you could get lost in 100 yards. The only way to get onto the little ridge was to go all the way around and come up the Long Meadow. Now it was growing back, but most of the scrub was less than waist high and well-spaced. The trail marked, I sat on the ridge for a while, considering shooting angles and good spots to cover. There's a bedding area across the gorge on the west side, and several good trails through the scrub on the east and south. This is also an escape route that I've seen the deer using ever since I started hunting this place. If there's pressure on opening weekend, Kat should see deer being pushed as the other hunters almost always walk in on the main trail to the orchard, then go over to the west ridge and hike along that back to the south. I've patterned not only the deer, but the hunters in this area too. I have to laugh a little at the thought. 1630 - Time to get moving to the orchard and my blind. I'm hoping this will be the magic evening. It's my last chance during archery season. If I don't tag out now, I'll be back with the rifle. But that won't be quite the same, will it? 1845 - I've been sitting here for a while without much activity. I have watched a covey of quail browse all up and down the creek bed, with sentinels posted on low tree branches. That was entertaining, but I'm ready to see some deer now. It'll be dark in an hour. Almost as if on cue, I notice something sticking up above the weeds at the far northern end of the orchard meadow. I raise the binoculars and see the top of a doe's head. Over the next twenty minutes I watch as she slowly browses her way toward me. Then, as I lower the binoculars, I catch movement out of my peripheral vision, and turn in time to see a deer come off the west ridge and move into the creek bed. My heart starts thumping. As the doe continues to close distance, I watch the other deer moving in the creek bed. I didn't notice any antlers, so I'm assuming it's another doe. But it wouldn't do to spook either of them, as a spooked deer will almost certainly spook any approaching bucks. I turn back to watch the first deer, as she draws to within ten feet of me. I have a big pine tree to hide behind, so I am fairly comfortable with her being so close. I look back at the second deer, as it comes into a little clearing and begins to rub its head on an overhanging branch. A startled shock runs through me, and I put the glasses back on it. A buck! Very likely the same little forky I saw here on the opener! A sense of satisfaction comes over me with the anticipation. All I have to do is wait. He'll come out the same trail as that little doe last night. Then I can stick an arrow in him. It'll be just that easy. But of course, it's not. The little buck continues to screw around down in the creek bed, showing no sign of coming down the trail and into my shooting zone. He's only about 60 yards away, an easy gun shot, but in a place where I'd never be able to stalk him. Besides, if I step out from behind this tree, that doe will spook and probably send him bolting for the hills as well. All I can do is wait. And wait some more. Darkness is filling in the hollows of the canyon, and it will only be a few minutes before it's too dark to get a shot. Then it is too dark. The hunt is over. I salute the little buck, and slip out quietly so as not to disturb the doe which has bedded down in the same area as yesterday's deer. A silly optimism tells me that, if the pressure isn't too ridiculous on the opener, the forky will make a great first deer for Kat during gun season. Silly me.
|
|
|
|
Use your browser's Back button to return to where you came from, or Click here to go Back to my Hunting PageWanna drop me a note about this?
|