For the next 10 days or so I’ll be in Northern California trying to fill my Late Season Archery tag.

Looks like conditions will be close to ideal for finding rutting blacktail bucks.  Friends have been seeing bucks with the does for the last two weeks. 

The bucks are winding up the rut around Sonoma and Marin County.  This buck was keeping an eye on a doe not far from my home.  I hope I can find one this “in love” this week.  If one would pose like this at 25 yards as well would be GREAT!

Weekend of Oct 24th

The trip started with meeting up with my hunting partner Rich Howarth, Friday night at our ranch.  We loaded his gear in the pickup and headed up to the hunting area.  We probably left at 9:00 pm.  By 1:00 am we arrived at the camp site of another one of my local contacts, also named Rich.  For story telling purposes he will be OLD Rich.  Old Rich had hunted this country since he was a teenager, and had 40 years of experience.  At first light we had loaded up in the pickup and went off to the spots he thought we needed to know.

We went to sleep under the stars like the weekend before.  This time with the acorns falling each time the wind blew.  

We spent the morning  learning more access points to the rugged areas we wanted to get to.  Each landmark had a hunting story, and forty years of history unfolded as Old Rich told of bucks taken and bucks that got away. 

We stopped back at camp for a bite of lunch.  Young Rich and I went for a walkabout that afternoon.  We only found a dead coyote, but we had boots-on-the-ground experience and found some vantage points we hadn’t seen previous.

That night young Rich panfried up some potatoes and onions that he served with bear backstrap from this years bear.  It was outstanding.  It was a testament to how good bear meat can be if prepared properly. 

The next morning we delved deeper into the fringes of our go-to spot.  We saw deer hanging in camps and heard shots.  We even spotted a doe and fawns feeding midday. 

We finally packed up at mid-day and bid fare well to Old Rich.  Since it was the last day of the Rifle season the road had a number of hunters headed home as well.  After a couple of stops to chat with other locals about our up coming hunt.  Each had a nugget of advice we filed away for future reference. 

We made it back to the ranch in the dark, and Rich still had to go home.   For the next 3 weeks we will stay in contact as we pull together our camp gear and make plans for a week long hunt.

I spent two weekends in my hunting area.  Those weekends happened to be the last two weekends of Rifle season.  One thing that told me was where the deer were now, and if there were folks hunting an area, then it has produced in the past. 

Weekend of Oct 17

I left work Saturday at 1:00pm and arrived at my hunting area at 6:00 pm with about an hour of light left.  All the way up the road I saw hunting camps occupied.  I found a relatively flat spot and pulled off the road.  I was near the center of the area I was focusing on and it was apparent that the Rifle hunters focused on this area as well.  I had three camps within hearing distance, and I estimate about 50 hunters in those three camps.

My camp was pretty spartan.  A cot and sleeping bag, a roll up table, and a two burner propane stove.   Dinner was a can of soup, some French bread, and a cold Fat Tire amber ale.  The forcast was clear so I slept under the stars in my 30 degree rated Western Mountaineering Megalite down bag.   I did put it inside of a Ti Goat Bivy sac in case of a heavy dew or rain shower. 

In the morning I enjoyed a cup of coffee and a bowl of instant oatmeal as I waited for the sun to come up.  Since I’d never seen this ground before, I wanted to wait for daylight to drive the roads in the area and familiarize myself with the lay of the land.  My first foray was down to a trailhead that lead into a DEEP canyon.  After chatting with some other hunters I found another trail on the top of a ridge that I thought would give me a good view of the heart of the area I planned to hunt. 

I left my pack in the truck since I was just walking down the ridge.   I carried my rifle and a bear tag on the off chance that I spotted a bear.  By 9:00 am I spotted a bear feeding in a patch of oaks below me.  300 yards of hip high brush separated us.  The bear was oblivious since he was focused on feeding on the acorns that were falling like rain.  I tried to get him in the cross hairs, but the bear kept moving around the tree and feeding out of sight.  Twice, he fed around out of sight.  I had nothing for a good rest. 

Finally,  I found a low spot in the brush and took a knee when the bear fed out at 303 yards at a 19 degree down angle.  He turned broadside and the crosshairs danced over his shoulders.  I took a Deep Breath and….

JERKED THE TRIGGER!

The bullet kicked up the dirt behind and above the bear and I saw him wheel and dash into the trees.  I could hear his rhythmic stride and he busted through the brush headed to the deep and steep brushy draw below.  No bawl, no crash .  Just Thump-Crash, Thump-Crash getting further away.

And then the Fog rolled in.

At that point I decided to hike back to the truck and get my pack and wait for the fog to lift.  45 minutes later I was looking for the spot I fired from and eventually re-spotted the site of the shot.  I stepped off into the brush and fought my way down to the open oak patch.  A distinct bear trail lead through the oaks with bear scat every 6 feet along it.  I looked and found the tracks of my bear but no blood.  I did find a rodent chewed 3 point shed though.  After a Clif Bar and some jerky I fought my way through the brush to the top of the ridge.  That took me an hour to go 300 yards to the top of the ridge.  At that point I was glad I wasn’t weighed down by bear meat and a hide!

I spent the reminder of the day driving to lookout points and finding landmarks on the map.  I drove to the southern edge of the area my tag allowed me to hunt.  Doing that helped me to eliminate much of the area for a November hunt.  My one day of scouting had been worthwhile and I now had a knowledge base for the next weekend.

Cindy went on her first hound hunt near Porterville, CA this Fall and arrowed this black bear. Now Cindy has bow hunted in New Zealand, and across North America and she said that that bear chase was “Exciting, but kind of WILD!”

In related news, keep an eye out for Cindy in an upcoming issue of Eastmans Bowhunting Journal.  You may recognize the Elk….In fact in my latest issue of the Pope and Young Journal, it was on the back cover!

I’ll be taking a break from my big game pursuits to attend the California Waterfowl Association’s Celebration of the Harvest event.   It starts at noon on October 10th, 2009 at the Waterloo Gun Club in Stockton. 

It will be a chance to participate in a sporting clays fun shoot, watch a demo of Beretta, and Leupold products,  have some wine and cheese after and eat a great meal, all to benefit California Outdoor Heritage Alliance.

California Waterfowl created the COHA  in 2006 in reaction to the growing anti gun and hunting movement that threatens our hunting heritage. Proceeds to help fund California Waterfowl’s ongoing commitment to support the California Outdoor Heritage Alliance (COHA).

 If you would like more information, you can find a .PDF  flyer online .  Or you may look at the events calendar for the California Waterfowl Association.

Hope to see you there.  If so be sure to introduce yourself. 

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Many of you might recognize Nate from his African adventures chronicled here in past years. Well his far flung archery success hasn’t taken away his appreciation for his local deer. Once more he has produced a freezer full of venison with his bow.

I had just settled into my stand last night at about 5:00. I wasn’t expecting anything yet so I broke out my new book about a guy who walks the Baja Peninsula on a burro. I figured I’d kill an hour or so reading and then get serious. About 20 pages into it I glanced up just in time to see a lone deer cross an opening 25 yards below me. I put the book down on the seat of my treestand, stood up and grabbed my bow. She went behind a thick oak tree and out of sight. Several minutes went by and thought she had walked away, out of sight. A gust of wind came and started ruffling the pages of my book. I thought, well at least she’s gone now because the noise of the pages rapidly flipping would have surely scared her. I re-situate the book to quiet it. I look up again and the deer had stepped out into a small clearing. She had been there all along, just silently hanging out under the tree limbs, blocked from my view. I made one last check to make sure no fawn was with her.

She stood broadside at 28 yards, but not where I ever expected to shoot at a deer from out of this stand. I had to turn around in the stand,squat into the catcher’s position to get under a limb, and make a clean shot. I hit her right through the shoulder, cutting off the top of theheart and both lungs. She did a death run out of sight crashing into every bit of deadfall in the process. It sounded like a herd of buffalo crashing away. Then all went silent. I waited 20 minutes, went and checked a game camera, then went back to the site of the shot.

I found my arrow, broken in half, and a good blood trail. The blood was heavy. I followed it about 40 yards where I could see she jumped over alog and some deadfall. Right over the top of the log she lay. It was pretty textbook. I wished they all worked out this way.

She was very healthy and covered in a nice layer of fat. Surprising, given our drought conditions. Even the fireman who validated my tag remarked how good she looked. My only concern was that she did not get bred last season. She was totally dry. That is a good doe to take, but it still concerns me as a healthy doe like this should have had at least one fawn.

No apologies here. I like venison and these deer are some of the best on the table. This is a heavily hunted public land area in San Diego County where success is very low, even for filling an either sex tag.

She’ll be a welcome addition to my freezer. Even better, I still have another tag left! We’ll see if I have the restraint required to holdout for a buck.   Probably not!

While John is pursuing Colorado Pronghorn, he left a few stories that you might find enjoyable. He will be back on the 22nd.

Now most people might be surprised that hunters are pretty tender hearted when it comes to young critters.  I don’t know anyone who hunts that wouldn’t smile about this story of an unlikely pair rescued during the fires in Southern California. 

More than likely these young ‘uns will go into a captivity program and not be released into the wild.  The lack of parents and contact with humans would probably be detrimental to their survival in the wild.  But if i am wrong…let me know!

The Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara, CA this year caused these two to take shelter together. The fawn is about 3 days old and the bobcat about 3 weeks.

They immediately bonded and snuggled together under a desk in the Santa Barbara County Dispatch Office for several hours.
Animal Planet is reporting the bobcat kitten was rescued near Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ranch, where it was dehydrated and near death.

They rescued the fawn during the wildfire. Although wild animals, especially of separate species, are never placed together due to regulations, in this emergency situation, they had no choice. During the mayhem of the fire, they were forced to put animals anywhere they could, since they had run out of crates large enough for the fawn. The kitten ran to the fawn, and it was instant bonding.

I’ve made some good friends through archery, running and online forums.  Rich is one of those.  We have hunted together, he has beat me in trail races, we have shot together, and we banter back and forth on Sage Creek Forums.   

Below is his epic saga.  A tale of overcoming obstacles to succeed, that even a motivational speaker would have a hard time topping. 

I set off for my 5 day adventure to the place I killed a bear a few years ago. I headed up the trail intending to reach my destination of 7 miles in time to hunt that evening. I don’t recall it being that tough, maybe I’m getting old, but it was a rough haul. I found the whole area burned, even where the stands of timber were still viable, the understory was taken out. That could bode well for the next few years, but I noticed there was no sign the whole way. Previously the trail was littered with bear tracks and scat, now the only track I came across was a big cat (I think).

I set up for the evening but spotted absolutely nothing, nor the next morning. I was pretty discouraged (and tired), but decided it was time to come out and relocate. When I made it out, I made camp at the trailhead and made a new friend. I left my UA heatgear shirt out and hunted out from camp. When I returned, I found the doe trying to make a meal of my shirt — yum, salty.

I got up the next morning and drove another couple of hours to another spot I wanted to check out. I’d not been in there before, but it looked promising, at least on paper. By the time I reached the trail head, I found to my dismay, the trail was closed that morning due to fire. I was starting to feel that I was the victim of a nasty conspiracy. Even so, I decided to take off in the other direction. No map, no idea of the kind of territory, nada. Up the trail, a bunch of weekend hikers were coming out, great, I thought, just what I need are tons of people around. Eventually I made it up to a ridgetop overlooking a small basin. I glassed it until late in the evening and it was not looking positive, no deer, no bears.

 

I decided to move my vantage point way around the other side and my mind starting wondering if I should just call it a trip. I hadn’t seen didly and it was frustrating me to no end. But I finally persuaded myself to stick it out and see if my luck might change.

I awoke to a gorgeous sunrise and set up to glass. After about an hour and a half, after spotting nothing but a small herd of cattle, I did a double take when a decent sized black bear appeared at the bottom of the basin. It was nearly shear faced at my location and it was going to take me a good 90 minutes to go back around and down to get in position, but the game was on. Packing up my gear, I slowly made my way around to a finger ridge that would take me down to where I thought the bear may be hanging out.

Once I reached the timber, I slowed myself down to still hunt mode and tried to keep the wind in my favor. Before long, I heard a buzzard fly up out of the forest floor. I thought there may be something dead in the area and went to check it out. As soon as I spotted the deer carcass, the bear that was guarding it spotted me and busted out. I stood there silently cussing, but I took out my camera and headed down to take a few snaps. I got 10 steps and the bear busted out again; it had come back and apparently wasn’t ready to give up its meal.

I worked my way back up the hill about 100 yards and sat down to wait for him to return again. I thought it would be an hour or two, but no more than 15 minutes passed before I heard the bear starting to drag the carcass through the brush. I removed my boots and sneaked down the hill. I side-hilled my way above the bear and suddenly heard the unmistakable sound of a bear woofing. I peered into the brush below me and saw the bear looking in my direction and woofed again. I couldn’t see its body clearly, but the head seemed big given the tiny ears. I was thinking this was the bear I spotted that morning. It didn’t appear that it would abandon the deer easily, and although it was only 25 yards away, I could not get a clear lane. After about 10 minutes the bear worked its way back to my left and started feeding again. I maneuvered my way left about 10 yards. There was a bright sun and the shadows were deep and, finally, the bear moved into a spot where there was a gap in the brush about the size of a pie plate with his vitals exposed – 20 yards. I decided to take the shot and settled my top pin in the middle of the gap where I thought was the sweet spot. I let off a smooth release and my arrow zipped through the gap to put the smack down on him.

He roared, did a few spins and took off. He crashed off through the brush and I kept a mark of the last location. After I went back up the hill to collect my things, I went back down to the shot location. Half of my arrow was laying on the ground. I tried to follow the trail, but it was torn up by him dragging the deer around. I searched and searched and found not a single drop of blood. Not good. So, I set out on a grid search to cover the whole basin if I had to, but it only took me an hour to find it.

The bear had definitely lost weight since I last saw it, ground shrinkage was severe. Turns out it was a sow, and not the bear I spotted earlier, about 175 – 180 lbs. The shot was not ideal, I put the FMJ400 with a Hellrazor broadhead right through its shoulder blade. The broken end of the arrow was sticking out and the broadhead ended up just at the edge of it’s chest and was still in perfect condition. Did the job, but it left nary a blood trail.

I was a little surprised at how small she was, but the best thing was I was only 50 yards from the trail. Suhweet.

If any trip convinced me of the value of not to giving up, this was it.

Lucas Spence is a fellow California hunter who put the work in to apply for some of California’s Draw Archery hunts. Not many folks think of California as a Mule Deer state, but there are opportunities for respectable bucks and even an occasional magnum muley along the Sierras from Oregon to Nevada. It just takes some work to find them .

Lucas sent me a picture of a nice velvet muley from the Northeastern region of California. After my Nevada hunt, I can really appreciate his well deserved success.

I shot a very nice 4X3 Muley which was 24 wide 17 tall and had actually 2 nubs starting on his right which makes him a 5×4. He weighed somewhere in the 250 to 300 lb weight. He was a huge bodied buck. Shot him at 40 yards one shot put him down within 40 yards. Was a great hunt and got to share it with my dad

Great clean archery kill Lucas. I look forward to seeing more from you in the future.

On the Second Sunday of the California A-Zone General Season my father, and our pointers, Jake and Gator were successful and connected with a Blacktail buck.

Dad was hunting with a group of us as we made a traditional deer drive in Northern California. California permits the use of dogs (one per hunter) during the firearms season, and it is one of the few ways that hunters on the coast can root the secretive blacktail deer out of the thick coastal brush in the steep canyons.

The morning hunt started in a canyon that had a fire some years prior and the brush has grown back with a vengeance. The brush runners entered at the top of the canyon, while other hunters watched the historic escape routes. Old Jake (13 years) made long forays into the steep canyon,and after bringing out a doe, was done in. Luckily he was smart enough to go back to the truck and shade up, so Dad gave him some water and the rest of the day off. Returning to the canyon,Gator wanted to dive off the point of the ridge,but Dad called him to the left side to investigate a likely looking patch of brush. He rousted out a small forkhorn that ran past a hunter on a stand who let him go by.

Young Gator came back, looking for more action. Dad followed Gator down into the patch that had interested him earlier. In a matter of moments he started barking wildly and made a run far down the canyon. Shortly after, the buck apparently circled back up the ridge and came out of the high brush weaving through some lower stuff up towards Dad. His first shot missed and the buck turned and headed up and across the ridge. The second shot entered the top of the shoulder, angling through the neck. Gator made the scene shortly after. Dad remarked “It was just a quail shot” referring to the instinctive follow up snap shot that successful California deer hunters just seem to master with the fleeting opportunities the coastal blacktail offer.

So young Gator got a buck, as seasoned dog runners would put it. With 4weeks left in the season, it’s anybody’s guess as to what the canyons hold,but I think there is a pretty good chance he will roust out a few more before the season is done.