Showing posts with label White Tailed Deer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label White Tailed Deer. Show all posts

Monday 17 February 2020

Deer Heart


I can honestly say that I was apprehensive about eating heart.  I don't know why.  Perhaps it was because, other than liver, I have never really eaten much organ meat. After hearing so many people describe how delicious it is, I decided to give heart a try.  I was not disappointed.

The heart I prepared was from my last white tailed deer, a smaller 3x3 buck.  I followed the simple preparation outlined by MeatEater, both online and in their book, "The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering and Cooking Wild Game".

The result was the most tender and flavourful meat I have ever eaten.  It has the mouth feel of a perfectly cooked prawn, firm, but with a tender pop as you bite in. The flavour was like a perfectly cooked marbled steak.  After just a few bites, I realized how special and unique eating heart was.

Without any doubt, the heart it is one of the best parts of the deer to eat.  I would never pass up another chance at a heart.  It completely blew my mind.  How has it taken me this long to discover how awesome heart tastes!?

 

Ingredients:

-1 Heart
-Flour
-Salt
-Pepper
-Oil
-Ketchup



1) Cap and core the heart like you are preparing a bell pepper.


2) Slice into half inch thick cross sections.  Trim and clean up pieces.


3) Prepare seasoned flour for dredging with salt and pepper.


 4) Heat a few tablespoons of oil over medium high heat in a skillet.


 5) Dredge pieces in flour and fry.  Do not crowd pan.


 6) Cook until golden brown on both sides.



7) Serve with ketchup.  Enjoy!!!

Wednesday 31 October 2018

2017 Moose and White Tailed Deer

In July 2017, in spite of our group’s diminished odds due to our draw successes in 2015, one of our friends managed to get a moose draw while putting in solo.  There was no hesitation in deciding to go with him to Vanderhoof so that we would be there to help in case he managed to clip his tag. 

On the way to our spot near Vanderhoof, we would have to pass through a number of areas which are open for what I have now termed “Complicated moose” as well as 6 point elk.  “Complicated moose” as I have now taken to calling it, means spike-fork, 10 point, or tri-palm moose.   This is the ministry’s way of letting you still get out moose hunting in spite of wanting to limit the number of moose taken from an area by creating a relatively low chance of success.  Anyways, I bought all the tags I could reasonably think I might punch and started prepping for the trip.

Just like in 2015, we headed up towards the area so that we would be there and ready for when our friend’s tag became valid on October 1st.  However, unlike 2015, there would only be the four of us headed up there this time, compared to the 10 who went on the trip in 2015. 

When we got to the campsite, it was just as I had remembered it.  There were already a few people camped there, so we took a spot a little further in than we had on the previous trip.  Once we finished leveling the trailer, there was still enough time to go out for an evening hunt.   I decided to join my friend who had the tag, so we hopped in his tracker and burned out of camp. We headed to the spot where my father in law and his friends had been successful on past trips, the same spot where I got my first moose in 2015.  It’s is clearly a hot area.



As we started approaching the turnoff to the hot area we slowed to a crawl.  The tracker was as nimble as an ATV, and had no trouble with the dips and climbs.  As we slowly approached the spot where I got my moose in 2015 our eyes scanned the hill sides and valleys for any sign of moose.

We continued on a few hundred meters and around the final bend to where the trail ended.  We slowly came to a stop and by buddy shut off the tracker. As we sat there in the fading light he rolled down his window and gave a moaning cow call.  “MOOSE!” I exclaimed as we both saw the unmistakable movement in the bushes.  My heart was pumping.  Were we really going to punch a tag on the first hunt of the first day?

Quickly we realized it was a cow, but we were off to a good start.  We stayed there for a while longer and continued to call every 15-20 minutes.  Eventually we decided to make our way back to camp.

When we pulled back to camp we were greeted by the others who were camped there.  One was a family with two small daughters, probably 5 and 8, and the other was a father and son and their friend.  As we chatted for a while I noticed the two little girls we each holding a grouse.  Their mom was showing them how to clean their grouse using the standing on the wings trick.  I watched with amusement as these two girls got right in there, gutting and cleaning their grouse.  They weren't squeamish at all.  Very cool.

The following day the father and son were successful and managed to get their moose.  As with everyone, they were cagey about saying where they got their moose, but it wasn’t hard to find the gut pile.  It was just up the road.  They mentioned that they had also been surrounded by wolves while they were field dressing the moose, so the son ended up shooting one of the wolves.  It was a huge wolf, a very impressive animal. 

That day my father in law and I decided to drive back to the hot area to see if anything was around.  As we hit the first deactivation, my father in law’s new winch dug into the far side of the ditch, causing the truck to come to an abrupt stop.  We chatted and decided that I would get out and direct him through so that the winch wouldn’t get hung up again.  As I got out of the truck and closed the door I heard what sounded like falling marbles.  That couldn’t be good.  My father in law heard it too and got out.  I watched as he bent down to pick up a shard of glass. That's when we noticed that the rear window of the truck had been broken.  So frustrating.  We patched it up with plastic and dock tape as best we could and continued on for the rest of the day, but saw no animals.

The next day we decided to all split up.  My father in law and I went up the road to see what we could, maybe get a deer or find the moose for our friend.

From that day forward, things pretty much blended together.  I hiked up and down hills and ridges, scouted new areas, and sat for hours hoping for animals to materialize from the treeline at dawn and dusk.  I could tell that the lack of success seeing moose sign, let alone a moose, was discouraging for everyone.  We broke up the days with a little grouse hunting, fishing, and had a fantastic grouse curry one of the evenings.

During those days we saw several whitetail does and fawns.  On one of the evenings out with my buddy we saw black bear in the distance, but in spite of having a tag, I decided it was not the time for me to clip that tag.  I didn’t want to risk the bear meat or the pelt while we waited for an opportunity for my buddy to get a moose.  It was pretty warm at that point and temperature was a factor, so I took a pass.

Another evening, while my father in law was out hiking, he ended up having a black bear come out of the woods at him.  As soon as it saw my father in law, it turned tail and vanished back over the bank.

The fishing at this spot is unbelievable and worth the trip just for that.  We caught a few and had them for lunch to add some variety.  We decided to catch our limits the day before heading home, so they would be as fresh as possible for the trip down to the coast.

After a few days the father and son left along with their friend.  Then rolled up "the colonel", as he became known.  A retired RCMP officer, who was nice enough, but just seemed to like putting us on the spot, sort of like he was flicking a switch and turning from chummy guy sharing a story to police interrogation.  Anyways, he was up there with his wife and she had the moose tag.  A few days later they ended up being successful too, but we never did end up figuring out if the gut pile we found belonged to their moose.  The location of the gut pile didn’t match their story… perhaps I would have made a good detective. Haha!

The next couple who rolled into camp was an elderly couple with a camper.  They came over and introduced themselves as Jehovah's Witnesses and we exchanged pleasantries.  They explained the husband had severe Parkinson's disease and had fallen a number of times recently. They also remarked that we had set up a shower behind a tree.  The front was hidden by a tarp, but the back and side facing their camp was open.  My buddy’s dad made a joke that we’d give them a good show the next day.  They said their goodbyes and retired for the night.  My buddy’s dad leaned in and said “Just you watch.  If they get a moose they’ll be the first one’s over here asking for help.”

The shower was a pretty fantastic addition to the camp that year.  We heated water with the wood stoves and our friends had brought a little portable shower pump that ran on D cell batteries.  We each used it a few times and it really made us feel fresh.

On one of the next days I returned to camp and saw my father in law working on his generator on the upturned hull of the car-topper boat.  The generator wasn’t working and my father in law was tearing down the carburetor.  At a certain point a few screws ended up falling into the grass and we managed to find all but one.  That generator was deemed to be out of commission and we shared our friends’ Honda 2000i for the rest of the trip.

For the next few days we drove, walked, hiked, and glassed.  I saw nothing.  If it wasn’t so much fun just to be out there it would have been very discouraging. 

A few days later we were returning to camp in the evening and saw our friend’s truck heading out of camp.  We pulled up to them hoping to hear that they got a moose.  There was a moose down alright, but it was the old couple who had gotten it, right in the middle of the road, and surprise surprise, they needed a hand loading it into the truck

My father in law and I decided to go along and help as well.  As we dropped off some stuff back at camp, we discussed not taking the blocks and gear since they had assured us they had everything they needed to pull out the moose.  We decided to bring the gear anyways. 

We arrived expecting the moose to be field dressed and just ready for some extra muscle to get into the back of a pickup.  We were wrong.  The moose was there, 30m up into the treeline, uphill thank goodness, and my buddy was getting ready to start gutting it.  Right away there were too many chefs in the kitchen so my father in law decided to supervise and make sure no one got hurt.  My biggest fear was that one of us would get hurt, ending our hunt, from helping someone who really had no business being out in the bush anymore.  It became clear within moments that the old man and his wife could never have hauled this moose out without our help.  They had no gear, but what’s more, they were so physically unable that they could not have done it themselves even if they had the proper equipment.

Once the beast was gutted we rigged up a block to haul it out of the trees down into the bed of my buddy’s truck.  In the haste, people were more eager to hurry than do it right, resulting in the rope breaking a few times.  At that point the wife of the old couple remarked to my father in law that the rope must not be that strong.  It was in fact rated to over 2000 lbs and it was the fact that the block was not free to sit correctly that the rope was being pulled against the edge of the block, which in turn, cut the rope like a knife.  I could see the frustration in my father in law’s eyes or it might have just been the reflection of my own frustration. 

After re-rigging we slowly dragged the moose down and into my buddy’s truck bed.  As he started pulling out it was clear his bumper was caught on a rock and the mud was not affording him much traction.  The last thing we needed now was a ruined truck because of doing a good deed.  We managed to free the bumper and we all headed back to camp. 

When we got back my friend’s dad made it clear that we wouldn’t be skinning it tonight, we had hunting to do the next morning and would give the elderly man an hand skinning and hanging it the next day around noon.

After the elderly couple retired to bed, we made more than a few jokes about packing up in the night, clipping my buddy’s tag, and heading home.  … only half jokingly.  Anyways, we got back to hunting the next day, no one was injured and no gear was damaged by the good deed, and the old couple even ended up giving my buddy a hind quarter for all his work.  It was well deserved, but still a ridiculous situation none the less.

Later in the week a few of familiar faces showed up, the same two gents who we met for the first time there in 2015, Jim and Doug.  Two good old boys with the right attitude and some good stories.  They are the two who had the Suzuki samurai which we think bumped the grizzly in 2015 and set it on the path towards my father in law.

The next morning my father in law decided we would head back down the road to the area where he had been charged by the grizzly bear.  We had seen a few does and fawns down there earlier in the week and we had tags to punch.  We left camp around 7:00am. We got to the end of the road out of the rec site and turned right.  As we started to speed up my father in law joked that maybe we should try road hunting as fast as my buddy drives his tracker, and wouldn’t you know it, a moment later, less than 100 meters from the turnoff to camp, my father in law looked at me and said he just saw a buck in the clearing that we had just flew past.  He gradually slowed down the truck and we both got out, loaded our rifles, and I started walking back down the road.  On hindsight I feel badly to this day that I didn’t think to insist that my father in law go after this buck.  As I started to walk up a little side road around the clearing I looked at my father in law and he signaled, pointed and whispered to me to stay on the main road. I followed his instructions and continued down the main road as my father in law stood by the side road. 

As I approached the clearing I started to be able to make out the shape of a deer through the brush.  I continued to creep forward, one step after another, trying not to spook the deer.  He was looking right at me and I could see his rack.  I found a little opening and tried to steady myself.  This would have to be an offhand shot.  I hate those, I never practice them, I really should.  The buck was at no more than 20 metres from me, looking straight at me.  I chose my spot, found the pause in my breath, and slowly increased pressure until the trigger broke.  BOOM!

I expected to see something as I lowered my rifle, but I could not.  There was no movement and no deer visible from the road. Doubt began to creep into my mind and I thought that I must have missed. How could I have missed at 20 metres?  I began to walk around the brush to the entrance of the clearing and there he was, a nice little whitetail buck.



After the obligatory photos, we set to work field dressing.  We set him on the back of the tail gate of the truck and headed back to camp.  As we pulled in we were greeted by curiosity.  No one had heard the shot in spite of the proximity to camp.  We hung the buck and by 8:30am we were all finished up with him and having another cup of coffee around the fire.




For the rest of the trip we continued to try to find a moose for my buddy.  I spent a few long evenings up on a ridge which looks out over the valley, trying to glass up some activity so we could make a plan.  It seemed as though everyone else had been lucky and gotten their moose, basically on a road, but all we had seen the whole trip was the cow on the first day.

Not my photo.  Thank you Encyclopedia Britannica
On one of the last days we decided once again to head down the road to what has since become known as grizzly flats. On the way there, just before the first of the two turnoffs that leads to grizzly flats, we rounded a corning and saw what looked like a black bear cub.  My father in law and I both lifted out binos at the same time, and almost in unison exclaimed “A wolverine!”. We felt truly lucky to have seen such an elusive animal.  We watched him for a while until he trundled over the bank.

On one of the evenings towards the end of the trip, after having hiked up the ridge and glassed for the whole afternoon unsuccessfully, I was walking back down the road towards where I had parked the ATV when one of the guys from a neighbouring camp rolled up.   We chatted for a bit, but neither of us had seen anything.  I couldn’t help but notice his bubba mug from which he was continuously sipping and a truck bed full of dozens of empty 2 litre bottles of Captain Morgan’s.  Was he drinking?  I couldn’t be sure.  Was he sober?  He sure seemed to be.  Not a hint of inebriation.   Impressively high functioning or just keeping his recycling close at hand.  I’ll never know, but I do have my suspicions. Haha.  Just one of the many random and funny encounters in the bush.  We said our goodbyes and I headed back to camp.

At the end of the trip, as the elderly couple were packing up, they thanked us again for our help and mentioned that they would preach to us next time if they ran into us again.  No, thank you.  We spent the last couple days hunting and fishing to catch our limit.  We didn’t end up getting my buddy his moose, but he went home with a hind quarter and we got a white tail and tons of troubt.  It had been another great trip.

Wednesday 18 July 2018

White-tailed Deer 2016

2016 was a big year for me.  I bought a house, did a gut-job renovation, got married, went to Japan and China for work, and went on a honeymoon to Holland and France. When hunting season arrived I could hardly find any time to get out of the city.

I only managed to get out twice in October for day trips.  On the first trip all I managed to see was a ton of cows grazing.  The first one scared the crap out of me.  As I came around a corner I saw this huge black thing in the bushes and thought that I had bumped a giant black bear. Turns out it was just the first of many cows.


Cows... Not the animals I was after.
The second trip out was more enjoyable, but still no animals.  Both day trips went the same way. I came home from work on Friday and organized and staged my gear on the floor by the door.  At 3:30am my alarm went off and I loaded everything into my truck.  Then, I hit up McDonald's for a coffee and begin the drive to some prime hunting ground.  After several hundred kilometers and watching for the first hint of light, I pull off and ditched the truck.  In a few of these places, I have a good idea of where I want to go, so I can navigate in the dark with a GPS to the spot I want to be for first light.  The days were spent stand hunting at dawn or dusk, down wind hidden in a bush, and still hunting during the daylight hours.  After the sun went down, I began my trip back, unsuccessful for a second time.  I got back home around 11:30pm.


I like to find a spot at dusk with the sun at my back where I can conceal myself behind some cover.  I use my range finder to determine my reach, as in the farthest I would be willing to shoot.  I have practiced at the range to 200m, so that is my maximum range.


Even by late October, it gets chilly as the sun goes down.


.30-06 Browning X-Bolt Stainless Stalker with a Fulted Barrel, Harris Bipod, Primos Gen 2 Shooting Stick, Vortex HST 6-24x 50mm, 180gr Barnes TTSX  hand loads 47gr IMR 4064

So after two unsuccessful day trips, it was time go all in for the annual whitetail trip.  I needed a few critical supplies to turn the tide and improve my odds.


Butt Pad
 When I whitetail hunt I like to sit by game trails or sign for hours without moving.  There is nothing quite as difficult as having a cold butt or cold feet.  Therefore, a new thicker butt pad would definitely help me stay absolutely still.  I may be a new hunter, but I know what works for me for white tailed deer hunting.  For me whitetail hunting is a mental challenge to deal with the cold, the boredom, the discomfort of sitting silently and motionlessly, typically under a tree or inside a bush behind some cover. I like to be in a spot by no later 6:30am, which is about 45 minutes before dawn and I stay there until around 10:30am.  In the afternoon I try to get back to a spot by 2:00pm and stay put until it is 30 minutes past sunset, typically around 4:30pm.  I have been very lucky doing this.


Without a doubt, the best shooting bullets in my rifle.

 I joined my, now legally and officially, father in law and we headed to the eastern Okanagan to the usual spot.  As always it wasn't hard to find deer...


4 deer behind the motel, in town... Why are the largest bucks in the A&W parking lot?
With the busy year I had had, my freezer still had enough moose and venison so my father in law and I decided we would set the bar higher for ourselves and only go for 3 points or more.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not in it for the antlers, but since I was not in a meat crisis I was ready to pass up less mature bucks and let them grow up another year. 


We set off on November 17th and got to camp on the 18th.  It rained, and rained, and rained some more.  For the first day I went to a spot where I had been successful in the past, but there was no sign at all.  The following day I headed up to a new spot, but it too was devoid of any sign.  There was a lot of logging in the area and I managed to convince myself that the human activity was the culprit.

That afternoon I hopped on the ATV and went exploring.  I went up and down the hills and mountains, popping up above the snow line and back down.  There were a few buck tracks up there, but lots of wolf and coyote sign.  It was a little disappointing.


There were nine of us on the trip that year and no one was seeing anything.  The camp next to us managed to get a 3x3 at 10:30 am while it was crossing the road up above the snow line where all the wolf tracks were, but apart from that, no one had seen anything.


On the third day, one of our guys managed to get a 3x3 while it was crossing the road, this time down low at around 1:15pm near the creek.  This was his first whitetail on this annual trip in spite of coming here for over 10 years.  He was rightly elated.


The next morning I decided to go for a morning road hunt with him since everyone was shooting something on the road (FSRs) it seemed.  As we were driving, I caught a glimpse of a white tail vanishing down over the bank.  I tell my friend to stop and I hop out, but the deer, probably a doe, was now long gone.  We continued along and as we rounded a bend I saw my first buck of the trip in the distance crossing the road right behind a doe.  I hopped out of the passenger side and my friend confirmed it was a spiker, or a two point.  I wasn’t really keen on it since I had set my own bar at 3 or better, but for the life of me I couldn’t chamber a round after I popped in the magazine.  By the time I realized that the bolt is locked when the safety is on, I only had time to raise the rifle just to see the deer vanish into the trees.  We unloaded, drove ahead and saw the two of them again.  We got out, loaded up, and this time I actually managed to chamber a round.  We couldn’t get a clear shot at the buck as he bounded away, but at least I had finally seen a buck.


At that point I knew the teasing would be relentless.  I deserved it for not being able to chamber a round.  Normally I go to the range at least once a month, if not twice. I practice, practice, practice and so I am ready when the shot presents itself. No excuses. I had not practiced as much as I should have that year. That night plenty of good natured ribbing was sent my way for my fumble.  Anyways, before we got back to camp, we went up a winding little road to a slash and saw another doe.


This is how my trips have always seemed to go.  I don’t see anything, everyone else seems to have success, then I go driving and scouting, find deer or sign, and then make a plan.


That afternoon I decided to go back to the slash at the top of the winding road and see what there was to see.  When I got there and walked through the slash all I saw, everywhere was sign.  It was an absolute highway.  I saw several fresh rubs, prints, and droppings everywhere.  From what I could tell there were about 6 or so separate game trails.  I even saw elk sign too.


I hiked up to the top corner of the slash so the wind would be in my face and to look out over the whole area.  I waited and like magic, at 4:00pm a little two point walked out from behind me out to my right at only 10m distance.  He didn’t notice me in my camo, sitting between two bushes.  I watched him for 20 minutes as he scraped, nibbled, and walked down the slash only 20m in front of me.  I would have thought that he would have smelled me, but I guess he hadn’t or didn’t seem to care.  Anyways, I felt really good about this spot now.


View from the top corner

I went back to that same spot for the next 3 days, sitting silently for hours with the wind in my face around dawn and dusk.  I saw deer each time I went.  8:30 am in the morning, and exactly 4:00pm in the evening.  The trouble was they were either does or running inside the tree line.  On the plus side I managed to get a Ruffed Grouse with my Ruger 10/22, so lunch was a nice change.


At the end of every day, getting down from my perch in the top corner was quite the challenge.  The terrain is steeper than it looks and in the pitch black, with only my headlamp and GPS to  guide me, it was more than a little bit treacherous.  Since it was no longer shooting light, I strapped all my gear to my pack, including my rifle, in order to free of my hands for clambering down.  I also had my shooting stick to use as a walking stick, but nevertheless, a few stumbles were inevitable.  

As I made my way down after the 3rd evening of sitting in the top corner nothing seemed out of the ordinary.   When I got to the bottom and started to follow the trail down to the truck I was struck by the green reflection of two eyes staring at me from low in the grass at the side of the trail. Suddenly they surged towards me.  Scared that it was a cougar or a wolf, I shouted "Hey!" and kicked at the dirt, stomping my foot.  The eyes retreated a foot or two, still staring at me intensely.  Then in lunged towards me again a few feet and stopped, crouching in the grass.  By this time my heart was pounding.  It was a cougar, I was certain, and I need to get my gun off my pack.  While trying not to make myself any smaller, I struggled with all the straps and clips on my pack and wrestled with my rifle.  It pounced forward a few more feet.  I cried out "Hey cat! Hey!".  I jammed the loaded magazine that I keep in my pocket into my rifle, and with it still strapped to my pack, shouldered it, chambered the round, flipped the safety and took aim.  The light from my headlamp made it impossible to aim and still see the eyes. If it came to it, I would have to shoot from the hip. 

The standoff with the cougar lasted another 10, maybe 20 seconds until it suddenly ran across the road and turned into a white tailed doe...  That's right, it was a doe all along.  

It turns out that beside the trail was a ditch filled with tall grass and that is where the doe was lurking ready to pounce.  Because of the depth of the ditch its head was just slightly higher than the surface of the trail making it look like she was a cougar ready to lunge.  In the darkness all I could see were the eyes reflecting back at me.  My heart was pounding in my chest, and as I calmed down it struck me how my mind had built this whole rational around why it must be a cougar.  

Normally, I would have had bear spray with me, but at that time of year, late November, we have never see bear sign and I assumed they were all hibernating.  In the absence of having a canister of bear spray on my hip, I would never again strap my rifle to my pack and make it so hard to get to in an emergency.  Also, I am really glad that I didn't unintentionally shoot a doe and have to claim it was in self defence.

Waiting for dusk to come.

On the last day of the trip, between the 9 of us, we only had that 3x3 hanging.  I had seen two 2 pointers, fumbled one and passed on the other.  My father in law had passed on a spiker.  To make matters worse, on the previous day, I was driving behind the guy who got the 3x3 on the way to my little slash before first light when a doe and a monster buck jumped out in front of his truck just before first light.  He missed the doe with his truck and through his passenger window he could see the monster buck skidding to a halt as it stared at him through the passenger window just before wheeling around and bounding back into the inky blackness of the treeline.  That same day an absolute monster buck probably 165 inches or more, was taken by a another camp just down the road, and wouldn’t you know it, it was crossing the road at dusk.

Some of our guys were feeling pretty bummed having not even had a chance at a spiker.  The rain was miserable and normally we expect to be in snow.  My father in law and I decided to spend an extra day hunting and so while the group packed up and went home, by father in law and I decided to hunt for one more day.

That morning I decided to try something new.  I went to an slash which one of the other guys usually has lots of success with.  When I got there I noticed two sets of fresh truck tracks in the snow.  I agonized if I should turn around to avoid over hunting someone, but I thought it looked like a set of tracks in and and another set of tracks out out so I decided to go ahead.  When I got up to a Y in the road I saw a big doe bounding away.  I hopped off the ATV and followed on foot for a while, but no luck.  So I got back on the ATV and continued.  As I came around the corner I saw a pickup truck with dual back wheels…dammit.  As quietly as I could I turned around and left.  I felt bad that I may have ruined that guy’s hunt, but I think he was in the back area so it was probably okay.  I would have expected him to park at the Y where there was a natural pullout.

That afternoon I took the ATV back up to where I had seen the buck tracks and wolf tracks way up high for my final afternoon hunt.  I found a good spot just off the road to sit with a great view down and across the steep ravine.  The wind was in the wrong direction so I figured I would just enjoy the last few hours and a nice sunset.  I glassed that hill and ridge line across the ravine for 2 hours straight, seeing nothing at all.  As 4pm approached I begin to think about packing up and going home the next day.  As my mind wandered I saw a brown dot appear in the middle of the hillside across from me.  How did it get there? I expected that I would have seen it come up from the creek or over the ridge.



I lifted up my binoculars and saw it was a doe.  I was happy to see a doe during my afternoon hunt on the last evening of my 2016 season. I watched the doe for a while and decided that I should probably look around the doe in case there was a buck nearby.  To my surprise, there was clearly something standing near her, inside of a nearby bush.  As the doe wandered from bush to bush nibbling at the tips of the branches I watched that bush, trying to see what it obscured.

Suddenly an animal stepped out from behind one bush and then in behind the next one.  It was a buck.  How big was hard to tell, but I could see it indeed had antlers.  I chambered a round and  picked him up again with my scope.  I watched intently for the next 20 minutes as the doe worker her way across the side of the hill.  The buck never left her side and I never got a good look at him.  I only occasionally saw a flicker of the tail or a brown blur which may have been a log.  I was somewhat disappointed, but happy none the less that I had seen deer on my last afternoon of hunting for the season.

The light had faded by this time and there was only 11 minutes left of legal shooting light.  I watched as the buck and doe left my field of sight into the treeline some 250m away across the ravine.  Out of nowhere, something clearly startled the pair and the buck bounded out and away from the treeline into the middle of my field of view, right on the ridgeline.  At this point I could only see a broadside view of his head and saw he had a lot going on up top.  He then turned his head in my direction and I saw the width of his rack and knew he was fairly decent size.  He took a few steps forward and gave me the classic perfect broadside shot.  I paused, steadying my sight picture.  Click goes the safety. I let my breath fall to a natural pause while I pondered how far away he was and the steepness of the terrain between me and my quarry.  BOOM! This is what adventures are made of.

The split second later as I inhaled the cold snowy air, I felt like I had seem him take the hit.  I slowly lifted my head and saw him bound down the ravine towards me, towards the creek, and then lost him in the brush.

It was getting dark quickly now.  The sun had set twenty minutes ago.  On my GPS I saw a small logging road which forked off from the main road a kilometer or so back which should bring me nice and close to the bottom of the ravine. I hopped on the ATV and burned around to find this path that would bring me closer.  As I got to the fork it became apparent that this old road had long since been deactivated.  Trees six inches wide and fallen logs rendered it impassable.  I had to act quickly or else it would get very difficult to recover the deer.

I burned back to where I had taken the shot and marked on my GPS where I was and where I thought the deer had been standing.  I frantically prepared to hike down and across the ravine to look for sign that I had hit this deer.  I knew this would be a heavy chore so I stripped down to my base layer on top and decided quickly that rather than leave any gear at the ATV, I needed my parka and equipment with me in case I became stranded or injured and had to spend the night on the mountain.  A moment crossed my mind where, all within the space of a second to two, I convinced myself that I must have missed the shot, I regretted taking the shot, maybe I wounded him, there was no need to go looking for the deer, he’s fine, what am I talking about, these are crazy, thoughts, obviously I need to go looking, this is going to be hell, I am going to slip and fall, snap out of it, you love this, this is what it is all about, you got this.  The mind is a funny thing.

As I organized myself to set out I radioed my father in law.

My father in law was back at camp, getting ready to enjoy a last drink before putting some dinner on the stove and starting to break camp.  He had been unsuccessful that day, but when he heard the shot from atop the mountain above camp he must have rolled his eyes as he turned on his radio. He tells me he heard me say that I had taken a shot and where I was, but it was pretty garbled.  So he got in his Tacoma and started making his way up to me.

As I descended the steep side of the ravine in the ever growing darkness I was so thankful for my headlamp.  I can’t imagine the days before headlamps.

I picked my way down the side of the ravine to a creek about six feet wide.  I found a narrow spot and leapt across.  In the last moments of light I saw the ridge line on which I thought my deer must have been standing.  As the inkiness of a cloudy night set in I started up the the ridge towards its apex.

With each step I half expected to come across blood, but as I reached the crest of the ridge line I had not see a drop.  By this time snow had started falling, but the hike left me pleasantly warm in my merino shirt.  I felt as though my world was only as large as the area illuminated by my headlamp.  It was almost claustrophobic.  

As I walked around the top of the ridge I found a large patch of blood…  The adrenaline began to flood back in as I grab my radio and blurt out incoherently that “I made contact with the deer. I mean my bullet.  I hit it.  Found blood.”  I hear a reply for the first time.  I assume it must be my father in law.  I can’t make out anything he is saying.  One word gets through “...help…”  more static and garbled noises.  Through whatever sounds and noises are making it through the static I infer he is asking if I need help.  “Yes.  Please come help. Yes.  Please come help.  I’m up the <name of FSR removed :P >.  Up at the top.  Right at the end.  You’ll see the ATV. Yes.  I’ll need help getting it out.”

I marked on the GPS where I was and conveniently found that my Garmin etrex has a blood drops symbol.  I then saw that the shot was 225m in distance.  I start following the blood, marking it as I went.  40 m back down the ravine towards the creek, in an odd pattern of zigging and zagging, eventually it hooked back up the hill and there he was.

Both his ears were split.  He was clearly a fighter with half his tines broken off and scars all over his face.
I poked him and it was clear he was well and truly gone.  I cracked a couple glow sticks and bent down two nearby saplings so I could hang them as high as possible.  I took a few photos and then set to work.  Just as I got to the goriest part my radio crackled to life.  At this point I could clearly hear my father in law.  “Yep, past the bridge, stay to the right.  Just keep going until you find the ATV parked on the side of the road.  Look out there and you’ll see me. Look for the glow sticks.”

The dark spot is the bullet exit point.
I realize how dumb this looks, but it was the only angle I could get with me and the deer.  You can clearly see all the broken tines.
I saw the light of the truck and heard it coming up the road.  My father in law pulled up and parked beside the ATV. I wiped my hands off in the snow and we started chatting on the radio about how this next part was going to go.  My father in law asked me if I wanted him to come over and I replied “No, no.  I’ll come to you at the road and we’ll make a plan.  It’s too damn dangerous to climb down here in the dark.”

With the deer now field dressed, I packed my gear up and started heading back.  Down and across the creek and up the other side I went. By the time I got to the road and to my father in law I was breathing pretty hard.  It is now snowing heavily, but steam was still rising from my back and head.  My father in law handed me some water as I sat on the tailgate and unburdened myself of my pack.  He asked me about the buck.  I told him that he was a good one, bigger than my first whitetail, a 5x5, but with all the tines broken on one side, so actually a 5x2.

My father in law has about 600m of this rope that is high strength, stretchy, and very low friction.  He suggested that I should take the end and walk it to my deer as he pays it out from the reel, tie it onto my deer and he would slowly pull the deer up and out with the trailer hitch.  It sounded a lot easier than the two of us dragging it out.

As I got my breathing under control and finished a second bottle of water my father in law told me how nice it was that I hadn’t asked him to come down to help me across the ravine.  I told him that I needed him to not get hurt so that he could rescue me when I break by leg during this next part.

With my father in law there now, I decided it was safe to leave my pack back at the truck and take only by rifle and the end of the rope.  I started making my way back down the ravine until I noticed that in the infinite blackness of the night that I had gone wrong way.  As I was forced to double back, and gather the rope as I went, I saw the two glow sticks high on the opposite hill and I set out in the right direction.  As I crossed the creek for the third time pulling the rope behind me, past each tree and over every log, the resistance on the line had noticeably increased since I first set out.  I started to make my way up the far bank to my field dressed buck, but the resistance was so high that I was forced to pull off some slack, walk a few feet, and so on for the rest of the way.

I reached my buck and looped the rope around his nose and tied it to his antlers.  After a little discussion about the radio commands I was ready to set off.  I radioed “Coming up easy,” and my father in law slowly started to drive forward on the road.  I could see small trees bending and the rope loading up.  Suddenly I could tell my deer is about to move.  I grabbed ahold of his antlers and started guiding him down the slope.  With a surge and a lurch the rope was pulling him down the hill as I steered the antlers around each tree.  “All stop,” I radioed as the bucks body got caught between two trees.  I repositioned the deer and my father in law took another bite on the rope.  It went on like this for quite a while, me calling out to go up easy, or all stop, as I wrangled this deer down the hill.

At the bottom of the ravine there was still the matter of the creek.  I needed to cross it for the fourth and final time.  As I radioed “Coming up easy” and my father in law started to pull ahead, I was trying to wrestle the deer over a log, but just as his body got up onto the log in the middle of the creek he started sliding towards me.  I didn't have time to move.  The deer was on top of me in the creek, on my leg. This was bad.

Gore-Tex is a marvellous thing.  As I pushed the deer off of myself and radioed frantically to “All stop” only a little water got into one of my socks in the boot that was fully submerged.  Otherwise, my legs were well protected by my pants.  I gathered myself up and gave the signal to continue.  In the chaos I hadn’t noticed that I was minus a glove and also that the snow had turned to rain. 

As we made our way up the last slope to the road I was surprisingly feeling pretty good.  I thought I would have been far more exhausted.  Once at the road, we shook hands on a job well done and admired the deer.  We loaded the deer and respooled the rope and I apologized jokingly about doing this on the last minutes of the last day of the last hunt of the seasons.  My father in law said “We come here for the adventure.”

At that point he looked at me and said that he would take the ATV and that I looked cold and wet and should drive the truck.  I refused a few times, but didn’t put up much of a fight.  When I turned the key and saw the time it was just about 8:30pm.  It had taken over 4 hours to get to this point from the time I had pulled the trigger.

We made our way back to camp as the rainy snow came down.  When all was said and done, the deer was hung and skinned at camp, and we could barely keep our eyes open long enough to eat dinner.
I love hunting.  What an adventure.  What a day.  What a great memory to enjoy every time I cook a meal or eat a delicious dish.

 

One of the many meals thanks to this wonderful buck.