Post by: Seahawk12 on October 17, 2014, 04:26:24 PM
I returned home late last night with a thick layer of mud on my truck, a pack full of wet hunting garb, and a great relaxed feeling permeating throughout my mind, body, and soul.
After a hot shower and a full nights sleep I figured I would share my 2014 hunting trip with all the great people here.
Due to incredibly important obligations, namely coaching my daughters soccer team on Sunday, I missed opening weekend and left the house early Monday morning. After reading all the stories of opening days and the throngs of hunters rushing up into the hills I wasn’t very disappointed to miss out on that first couple of days. I figured arriving on Monday would mean better choices for setting up camp and slightly less pressure in the hills and valleys.
This would be my first time modern hunting solo on public land. The private lands I had hunted in the past were not available this year due to my friend squabbling within his family over the lands after the passing of his father. A bad situation that I didn’t feel comfortable sticking my head into, so I decided early on to find an area I could try out this year. After looking and reading and spending some quality time with many, many, maps I found something that seemed a good option.
I headed up to this new area several times during the summer with my family and occasionally with some family friends and spent many hours scouting the forests. I felt pretty good about my odds because of a few factors in my favor.
First, I found a good patch of woods on the far side of a river with a fordable spot. Not easily forded, but with a good pair of waders and some water shoes it was doable. Once through the river, there would be a thick bramble one hundred or so yards deep to work through until emerging in a wooded area with great fields of fire. This section was around a half mile wide and a little more than a quarter mile deep with the brambles and curving river forming one barrier to other hunters and an extremely steep hill side rising up on the other and climbing high up into the sky to form a rocky and nearly inaccessible ridgeline. The far side of the ridge descends down into a valley devoid of any roads before rising again to another ridge.
Second, I had seen some nice 4 and 5 point buck apparently residing in this patch of woods. Protected by natural features and with a huge selection of food plants to pick from they had grown comfortable in this area.
I arrived shortly after 11am and found that there was a good spot available right near the river. There was a large encampment with six or seven trucks close by, but I expected there to be because of the great area I was in. I was content and proceeded to set up my temporary home in the forest.
Nothing too spectacular, but enough to keep me comfortable. Here are a few pics:
Post by: Seahawk12 on October 17, 2014, 04:28:24 PM
After getting everything set up and squared away I decided to go ahead and go over to my picked hunting grounds and see if I could locate one of those bucks that I had seen on the scouting missions and that had since been running though my dreams. I put my waders on over my hunting garb and crossed over the river and then stashed them in the brambles.
I made my way through that thick and twisted wall of vegetation without very much noise. The recent rains definitely helped me immensely in that regard. I sat down and waited for 20 or 30 minutes to ease the fears and suspicions of anything that may have heard noises that I didn’t believe I had made in my intrusion into their domain. I sat and looked and listened. Then, I got up and started to stalk around and look for fresh sign.
Not as much as before. Mostly several days old, but definitely some track that was from that morning. Again, the rain was helping me by washing down and wearing away the older sign. I confirmed where I would work my way to in the darkness of early morning and as the shooting light faded I went “home” to my camp and made dinner and sat awhile by the fire.
In the morning I woke up around 4:30 and prepped for the hunt. With a few cups of coffee and a couple eggs in me I followed my previous path and slowly made my way to the spot I had decided on the previous evening. I waited for shooting light to arrive. I sat and watched and listened. It rained.
At mid-morning I decided to stalk for a bit. I fell back to the technique I used in my archery days of moving very slowly through the woods. One step, stop, look around by swiveling the head slowly, check for the spot to step next, breath, take a step, check the new angles through the openings between trees, repeat the process over, living in slow-motion. Be conscious of the wind. Look for the flicker of an ear or a tail.
Around 1pm I decided to head back for a short break. This was one of the benefits of finding this little haven a short hike from camp. It would allow me to go back into camp for a hot lunch. Not a bad deal when you’re hunting in a cold rain.
I kept it simple and heated a bowl of home-made cheesy potatoes soup with lots of chunks of bacon and a cup of hot and fresh coffee. I washed up, got my gear back on and headed out. As I was crossing the river I noticed that five or so of the guys in the next camp over were standing around and talking. I gave a quick wave and moved down the embankment to stash my waders and headed into the thick bramble.
Five minutes later the quick, successive, reports of handguns erupted from the camp area. I was surprised. I stopped in my tracks and my mind filled with images of bucks turning their heads towards the shots. Their natural suspicion and survival instincts screaming at them to move away at least a couple of miles. Their innate sense of fear at the sound of a firearm booming nearby driving them out of my little haven. As the echoing booms continued to slam through the area I shook my head and surrendered to my own instinct that told me to continue to hunt this spot was an act of futility. I turned around and made my way back towards camp. As I was crossing the river the guys shooting their handguns stopped to look at the hole they had made in the beer cans.
My annoyance got the better of me and I yelled over to them, “Why would anybody shoot guns in a deer camp? Do you have any consideration?”
They gave me no reply. I shook my head and went back to my own camp. I grabbed some still hot coffee and a map and sat to figure out what my plan would be. They started back up with the beer can massacre.
I had scouted a few other spots and so had some options. I checked my watch and swore at the situation. I packed what I would need into the truck and made the thirty minute drive up the rough, old, road and wondered to myself if I should have just let those guys be. It’s public land that they had every right to shoot their guns on (considerate or not) and I had opened myself to having my camp vandalized, my stuff stolen, or worse, having a drunk and rowdy neighbor visiting to prove how tough he is to his buddies. I decided that dwelling on a negative would be robbing myself of the moment and vowed to focus on the pleasures of the hunt.
I found a good spot to park the truck and donned my river crossing gear. This was going to be tight as it was already getting late. I made the crossing and followed a creek up the hillside. After about three quarters of a mile I found the spot I had in mind. I sat in ambush beneath a cedar tree and watched a large open area to my front with the creek babbling softly behind me. It was a beautiful spot. I felt relaxed and in a good mood.
I haven’t mentioned that I am a smoker. I figured out early on that smoking while hunting is a big no-no. Especially considering the methods I frequently use to hunt. Moving slowly through the forest looking for something to stalk. Feeling the part of predator. I have a nicotine vaporizer that I use when the craving hits me. Sitting under that cedar tree with around 45 minutes of shooting light left I decided to pull a quick drag and use the water vapor as an indicator of wind direction.
I drew in a puff and exhaled, watching the small cloud drift down and to my right. As I turned my head watching it drift I looked right into the face of a doe. Not 15 feet away. I turned my head further, slowly, and saw that she wasn’t alone. There were a group of five walking calmly, and oh so silently, right around my cedar tree.
HORNS!
One of them was a buck!
I’m right handed and my rifle was in my right hand and across my lap. I started to work out how to get my body from a seated position and into a posture that would allow a shot without warning them of my presence, all while still trying to count points on that buck. The low hanging cedar boughs were in the way. Just then that small dissipating cloud of apple scented nicotine vapor drifted right in amongst the group. Heads swiveled and eyes grew big. I waited for them to bolt, feeling chagrined for not realizing that the same rain that made a clumsy human as quiet as a ninja could make an already quiet mule deer as silent as a housecat sneaking across carpet.
Another surprise! They mocked my fear of their bolting by reversing course and calmly walking around my cedar hiding spot and coming to investigate further. As they moved around I took advantage of the obscured sight line and worked as quietly as I could to arrange myself so the rifle would be pointed where they were working towards. The lead doe got to within eight feet of me. She stared straight through me. It’s like she couldn’t recognize that I was there. I felt like I had on a cloaking device from the movie “Predator”. She just couldn’t make out where that scent had come from and started to move off and gave the next doe a turn. Like a line of gawkers they took turns coming forward and attempting to locate the source of their temporary fascination. My excitement was mounting as the buck moved around the boughs.
Was it going to be like this? An eight yard shot!?
As his head moved into clear view my rifle slowly lowered. A two point.
I smiled and silently thanked this little band of deer for giving me such a fun hunt as they resumed their quiet march down the hill.
I waited a bit so as not to spook them and made my own way back down the small mountain and to my truck.
Below are a picture of the little creek and the field I was watching:
Post by: Seahawk12 on October 17, 2014, 04:32:24 PM
Wednesday I got up early and noticed that I had been robbed. Not by my neighbors, though. Camp mice had chewed through my dry goods storage shelf netted face and hade opened some trail snack packages and eaten most of the chocolate. Also, they ate several pieces of paper towel. There must have been some residual flavoring from my evening meal that they just couldn’t resist. I threw away everything they had nibbled on and cleaned and moved they remainder into a heavy duty storage container that I had packed some of my gear in. Live and learn.
I made my way that morning back into the same area and sat for the morning ambush. A couple of does walked by within fifty yards of me. Calmly eating and moving slowly, giving me perfect broadside shots. Hunting is funny that way sometimes. Everything is working perfectly for the hunter except that one most important thing. I kept thinking, “Where’s your buddies with the big racks?”
In mid-morning I made my way up the hill. Around two in the afternoon I spotted some movement a hundred yards up through some trees. I moved a little to the side to get a better angle and scoped with my rifle to see what was up there. A couple of does. The same ones? I wasn’t sure. More movement to the left drew my scope over. BUCKS! They were practice fighting. I could see that one was a two point pretty easily, but I couldn’t tell on the other. His horns kept getting obscured by trees and brush. He was definitely bigger than the two-point. I moved again to gain a better vantage point. I was sure this would be my deer. Then they started to move off in a bad angle for me. I worked further out and up the hill trying to get into their flank with a better height advantage. This maneuver caused me to get out of sight-line with them for ten or fifteen minutes. By the time I got to where I wanted to be they had disappeared. The wind was going downhill, so I decided that unless they crossed the creek I would find them up the hill further, so I fell into my old stalking routine and painstakingly moved silently up the hill. After an hour of this I caught a flicker of movement to my right. I looked over and saw a huge, beautiful doe twenty yards away staring down the hill. Was this girl part of the same group? I hadn’t seen such a big and nice looking doe before, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t further up and out of my sight when I had spotted the group earlier. I had gotten pretty focused on the bucks. I waited a few minutes and thought about moving down a ways and trying to flank her so as to not spook her. Before I could take two steps I saw another doe bedded down fifteen yards away on my left! As I went to roll my eyes, two more came into view thirty more yards up the hill. I had walked right into the middle of a group that had bedded down here.
I slowly took a knee. My thought at that moment was, “Now what smart guy?”
I made the decision to wait right there and see if those bucks were a part of this group and if they would give themselves away like their girlfriends had. After thirty or so minutes they all got up and moved up the hill. Never once had any of them looked at me. My cloaking device was still working. I got cocky and followed them. I never let them get more than sixty yards ahead of me and several times got to within thirty yards. It was exhilarating. As we got to the top of the area, two very steep sections of hill came together to create a narrow pass for moving over the ridge and into the next valley. The group veered off and headed to my right skirt to face of that steep incline.
I had thirty minutes of shooting light left. And with the sun going behind the hill the wind would change as the warm air started to rush up out of the valley below. I decided to work back down along the creek and see if I could locate those buck. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any luck finding them and ended the hunt in the dark still an hour up the hillside. Another day come to an end with some really great memories and I walked on through the rain that had never seemed to cease falling throughout day three of my hunt. The experiences were enough that I felt great all day and the smile stayed put until I fell asleep that evening back in the comfortable digs of my camp.
Thursday I got up and moved quickly to get back up on my hillside hunt grounds. I had decided the night before to work from the bottom upward and to the right to see what was in the area that the deer from the night before had headed into. I sat in ambush and watched as a two point and a couple doe walked by me about seventy yards out.
I had been looking for human sign all the while that I hunted and I saw zero evidence in this area. I never saw a single track, flagging tape, litter, or the color orange outside of the road. I had seen many, many, deer. Just not the right kind yet. The one deer I wanted to see most of all, the kind with multiple points on each side of his head. I moved out from ambush and into my stalk with that in mind. I only had a few hours left for my hunt this year.
Around 10AM I stalked forward and my eyes caught onto a small doe bedded down in some grass. I hunkered and scoped around looking for that elusive legal buck. Up ahead I saw a head looking down towards the bedded down doe. I looked closely for several minutes. It was another two-point.
I waited and watched and listened. My time was up. I had to get back to camp and pack things up. First, I was going to see how close I could get to that doe. I pulled out my little, inexpensive, camera and moved forward.
Picture 1 is the doe bedded down.
Picture 2 is her standing up after I had gotten to within 20 feet.
Picture 3 is funny. I had started to click my tongue at her and she stopped and squatted down and peed all over her back legs.
Picture 4 is funnier. She started to lick the pee off her leg.
I headed back to camp. It was another very fun day.
Post by: Seahawk12 on October 17, 2014, 04:34:26 PM
Once I had gotten back and had a quick bite to eat I started to break down camp and pack things away. Just as I was doing this two guys walked into my camp. They were in their early fifties and just walking around chatting it up with other hunters. They asked me if I had seen any deer and I told them I had seen tons of deer, but nothing legal. Turns out they had been hunting the area we were in for over 35 years. They were life-long friends and shared several very funny hunting stories to prove it. They gave me advice on a couple of spots to try out that they were sure would hold some legal bucks. I really enjoyed their company and wish I had met them sooner as I would have cooked them up some good eats just to hear more of their stories and shared their company. They talked to me for thirty ort forty minutes and then headed off to their own camp to take advantage of a rare sunbreak by reclining in their camp chairs.
I finished packing my truck and made the drive home.
I didn’t harvest a deer this year. I have no meat in the freezer to break out for barbeques with friends next summer, and no trophy rack to prove to people how great I am at hunting. I feel like I had a successful hunt though. I have some great memories and I now have a huge question I will have to answer before next year. Do I go archery next year and go back into this bountiful area, or do I give modern another go and see what these new areas that my experienced guests gave me?
Lots of time to consider it.
Post by: buck man on October 17, 2014, 05:17:49 PM
Post by: elkoholic1 on October 17, 2014, 05:21:53 PM
Post by: full choke on October 17, 2014, 05:53:12 PM
Post by: Boss .300 winmag on October 17, 2014, 05:55:24 PM
Post by: Seahawk12 on October 18, 2014, 10:08:10 AM
All the weeks leading up to the season, with the growing anticipation and preparation, cumulated into an awesome little adventure.
The harvest would have been the cherry on top, but I was so busy enjoying the cake and icing that I didn't really feel let down.
I will be back at it next season and have another shot at topping the story of 2015 off with that elusive cherry.