last hunt of the year for elkboy

[elkboy]

Well, I have one last tag to fill- a second deer tag (muzzy) out in the San Juan Islands.  This has been a crazy year at work for me, and I am almost looking forward more to the quiet of the forest than the possibility of a notched tag.  It is so therapeutic to slip along quietly on rain-soaked moss and leaf litter, eyes scanning slowly for the curve of a leg, the twitch of a tail, the shake of a head (no antlers!).  Can't wait for that ferry to cast off the moorings! 

I hope everyone is doing well. 

[gutsnthegrass]

Wait a second, everyone knows that eastsiders dont come to the wet side of the state to hunt!  Just kidding, good luck filling your tag.

[lokidog]

Good luck, we haven't been seeing much during daylight on Decatur.  Of course, we haven't been in the woods either.

[elkboy]

Passed on a young doe within a half hour of stepping into the woods. Saw a total of six deer today, but only the one shot opportunity.  Windy- the grand firs and Douglas-firs were really dancing!  Tomorrow should be good.

 

[GoexBlackhorn]

Anything yet?

[lokidog]

Anything yet?

Season's done.

[elkboy]

Well, it rained and it poured on Sunday the 13th, but I still-hunted through the woods of Shaw Island anyway.  After a few hours of still-hunting an area where I had seen deer, I decided to do a quick hike up over a ridge to a place where three small valleys come together, and where a lot of blacktail move through.  On this quick hike, moving up through open Douglas-fir and grand fir forest, I jump a small doe.  She runs off to a ridge-top cedar glade, into which I stalk slowly.  I see her at 100 yards, a shape that didn't quite fit in with the salal and the redcedar boughs.  The binoculars make her look big enough to be a respectable deer... and so, over an hour, I close the distance, tree to tree, to the large moss-covered base of a Douglas-fir.  I drop to a prone position on the left side of the tree, and eventually she walks from her semi-hidden position in the salal into the open.  She is now fifty yards away and slightly quartering towards me.  I glass her head again to the check for antlers, and take the shot. 

I wait a few minutes, and then walk forward, my steps dampened by the step moss and the soft forest floor.  No blood, no hair, no sign at all.  I do my five yard circle around the place where she stood, on my hands and knees, then the ten yard circle. Then the twenty, the thirty.  No sign of blood, and the rain does not help.  I drop off the ridge-top into a gully in the direction the doe was facing, and I find the tracks of a running deer.  Still not quite believing I had a hit deer, I follow these tracks.  At 70 yards, there is a sign- a foot-long drag where her hooves had scraped through the forest litter.  This gives me some hope, and I cast ahead for each new set of splayed out tracks.  At 130 yards from where she had been shot, there she was- a 1.5 year old doe (I checked the teeth- erupting pre-molars- not a fawn!).  My shot had gone in front of one shoulder, and exited behind the other.  She is not a massive deer, being both young and from the Islands, but like any deer, she is a gift.  And need I say, her venison can almost be cut with a fork.  Would I have taken the shot, had I known better her relative young age and smaller size?  Possibly not.  But it is a needless question.  The challenge of judging deer on a dark, rainy December day, the challenge of still-hunting through the branch-littered understory, the fact that any legal deer is a gift to be cherished- all these make it a moot point.  Whether a deer yields 25 pounds of venison or 80- it is a gift.  I choose to focus on the facts that I made a good shot, and I was successful in one of the toughest tracking and recovery jobs I have had.  Her strength in her final run was nothing short of amazing, and is no small inspiration to me.  These are things that can’t quite be measured in pounds of venison, or inches of antler, but are at the heart of the hunt. 

Happy Holidays!  I wish you all a great 2016.

[lokidog]

Great story and good job sticking with it. I'm sure a large percentage of hunters would have given that up as a miss, I might have depending how she ran off and not seeing any blood.

[elkboy]

Thanks, Loki- and to be honest, I almost did break off the tracking at one point.  But then I found where she had stumbled, dragging that hoof while on the run.  I then replayed the shot in my mind, and I knew I had to keep searching to remove all doubt! 

[MLBowhunting]

Great job on the recovery.  That rain is terrible for tracking at times. 

[Jonathan_S]

These are things that can’t quite be measured in pounds of venison, or inches of antler, but are at the heart of the hunt. 

Darn true!  Excellent way to articulate that thought.  What an adorable, tasty little thing    Great job 

Great job on the recovery.  That rain is terrible for tracking at times. 

My little bull last year was pouring blood out of a liver hit and in the pouring rain, couldn't even be blood tracked 5 mins later.

[Sabotloader]

elkboy

Excellent written description of the accounts of the day... and as I read it I was very confident about your feelings for the hunt and the animal.  I can somewhat identify with some of your thoughts after the shot since was in the same place a few days ago wondering and tracking..

Congrats!!! 

Now you have to return to the normal everyday life without hunting - for awhile anyway

mike

[MD36]

A great story well told. Congrats.

[boneaddict]

Congrats elk boy.  Thanks for sharing your write up with us.