Brent is another fellow Pope and Young Measurer from the San Diego area.  His infectious good humor brings life to what ever gathering he is at.  But when it comes to getting down to hunting Brent is all business.  Even though he hunts ducks (aka sky rats) he hasn’t lost his predatory prowess with a stick and string.  The framing contractor has made his bones with numerous hogs at Tejon Ranch and elk and deer hunts in the West. 

Brent got another nickname while on Safari…Bok Baard.  More about that later..

Brent’s note back to folks at home starts out…

I’m bringing home six animals. Five animals taken with five arrows. None of the first five went more than 40-60 yards.

On with the photos…

Brent’s Zebra that was a big team effort on Day Seven of his trip.

A duiker that has 2 1/2 inch bases and 4 inch horns. (Kinda reminds me of my first blacktail) 

a Hartebeest in the morning from the same blind as the Warthog later on day five .

Brent got this impala on Day Four.  It was the only shooter he saw in nine days. 

Day 2 is a story best told by Brent.  I can’t relate it in the same fashion as he can…

We went to a different ranch about 80 miles away. Animals were hitting the waterhole immediately. These critters consisted of warthogs, kudu cows and calves, nyala cows and calves, vervet monkeys, and eland, no shooters. The day was flying by. This stand was a raised platform built on four 5″ round posts. It was huge, maybe 10′x10′ and draped in netting. I was watching the eland, trying to decide if the bull was a shooter. I couldn’t remember all the criteria for identifying a mature bull for a dozen different species. I decided to pass on the eland bull as I really wanted a kudu and a gemsbok …

 In a split second the eland bolted. I could hear something that was big walking into the waterhole. I cautiously peeked out the observation window and was blown away to see a 2000 lb cape buffalo walking in, followed by another. Two monster bulls, dugaboys came into the waterhole and totally blew my mind. After about two hours of the cape buffalo hanging out and preventing any other critters from coming around, I made a call on the radio.

I asked the guide if I should spook the buffalo so they would leave. The guide’s response was that I should NOT do that because the buff might attack me. He said that they would be there just now to sort things out. Well, the buff didn’t appreciate the noise from the radio. They walked straight to my hide and looked up at me like I owed them money. Then, the biggest bull started thrashing a tree that slammed back and forth into my hide. Then, both buff started ramming the posts that held up my blind.

I was trippin’. This was the most exhilirating experience I have ever had. They rammed, slammed and beat those posts so hard that I was standing up trying to keep my balance. I was thinking that this might be the big one. I was planning for the blind to come down hard. I was locating trees that I might scramble to and climb for my life. I thought about shooting arrows into the posts so that I would have something to hang on to if I had to glue myself to a remaining post. Finally, the truck showed up and they rammed and head slammed the buff out of the way. Then, they told me that they had to offload a kudu and would return just now. They drove away.

The buff came right back and started rockin’ the blind again. After about five minutes, they stopped and went back to the waterhole. I was alive! Seriously, I was more alive then I had ever been.

Then, out of the who knows where, a dozen wildebeest came into drink. I picked out the biggest bull, and focused on him. I attached my release, stood up, drew on the big bull and waited for a shot. They were all squeezed in tight to the water. No shot. I let down. Finally, they started to spread out and I drew again. The big bull had the biggest bosses, was wider than his ears, and looked a whole lot bigger than the others. I placed my 20 on his shoulder and took a breath and squeezed slow. I drilled him perfect. He went 50 yds and collapsed. Whew! What a day. Taking photos of this beest was scary as the buff were only a 70 yds away. One guy stood guard with a .375. My first critter was down.

 

After reading about the adventures of my fellow Pope and Young Measurers I stand in awe, at what they experienced in a 10 day safari.   Both Nate and Brent are hard working, self employed individuals who had to save for quite some time to make this trip.  But to see, hear, and read the excitement that both of these hunters only fuels my fire more, whether it is local blacktail or a far flung destination, because these are guys like me, with businesses and families and work obligations.  If they can do it then I can, and you can too!

PS>  The Bok Baard story as told by Nate Treadwell:

Since we had 2 Brent’s the PH’s needed to keep them straight. They started calling Brent, Bok Baard. That means billy goat, due to his scruffy little goatee.

This Weekend while opening the mail, I saw the January/February Edition of the Eastmans Bowhunting Journal.  Thumbing  through, I came across a familiar face in the members success pictures…Me!

Of course I started getting phone calls and e-mails from  all my buddies across the West with obligatory “Hollywood” jokes.  I had submitted a story along with a bunch of photos that I haven’t had the opportunity to share with my readers.  So I’ll do that here, now.

The Preparation

It was February when I saw that I was unsuccessful in drawing a Wyoming elk permit. I gathered my composure, and called my friend Shane, who lived in Oregon. Shane invited me to join him in Oregon where I could get an over the counter archery license. I was happy that I would have a chance to hunt elk this year.

In July, I received the news I had drawn a Wyoming deer tag. I was worried that the seasons would conflict. After numerous calls to my Wyoming and my Oregon hunting partners, we figured out a schedule that would accommodate both. I would spend 5 days hunting in Wyoming, then drive 12 hours to central Oregon to catch the last 4 days of the Oregon archery elk season. I knew if I was going to hunt for two weeks straight for two of the toughest game animals the West has to offer, I’d better get in shape.

Over the next 12 weeks, I had signed up with a trainer and began a regime of weights and cardio training 5 days a week. I dropped 4% in body fat and lost 25 pounds. I shot my bow every night, and competed in the local 3-D league with my daughters. By the middle of September we had all won our divisions. I also let my moustache and a goatee grow as a reminder to prepare for my upcoming hunts, much to my family’s amusement. My wife asked me when I was going to shave it, I replied, “When I arrow a bull elk”. Read the rest of this entry »

 On New Years morning 2008 I had an impromptu duck hunt with my daughters.  Now a trip of this magnitude does not require much in the way of  logistics.  Just load the shotgun and walk up to the stock pond.  The girls dressed in their FINEST Duck Hunting Apparel (Pink Camo and mud boots).  With the help of my father and Jake, the english pointer, the ducks flushed over our heads and in no time we had 5 ducks reduced to possession.  Jake even made a swim to get one duck that landed in the pond.  Poor dog was shivering after that! 

Here’s my Dad with Sydney after a successful hunt.  I think this picture really says it all for the REAL goal of the morning jump shoot.  Time together with three generations. 

After we got back to the house, Erin learned to breast out ducks and did a couple on her own.  We marinaded and BBQ-ed the duck breasts that night.  I’ve included the recipe below.
Grilled Duck Breast with Currant Jelly Sauce
4-6 duck breasts 

Marinade
2T. soy sauce
1/2 tsp. dry mustard
1T. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
3/4 cup dry red wine

Remove meat from breast bone remove skin and trim tendons.  in a bowl combine all marinade ingredients.  Marinade at least 4 hours in refrigerator.

Currant Jelly Sauce
4T Butter
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 10 oz. jar of Currant Jelly

Melt butter in a sauce pan and Combine the rest of the ingredients until jelly melts, and sauce boils.

Wrap duck breasts in a strip of bacon and secure with a toothpick. Grill for approximately 5 minutes per side. Duck should be rare to medium rare. Serve with currant jelly sauce.

I don’t remember what the actual date was I killed my first blacktail. I think it was in August of 1986. However it was memorable. It was in California’s A zone. I was 12 years old, and I was hunting with a Winchester model 64 in 25-35 with Buck horn sights.

We were hunting a canyon that emptied out into a creek that flowed from a large reservoir. I was stationed on a rise with a saddle on either side of me. My grandfather was a couple saddles over from me. When he dropped me off, he pointed out where the shoot and no-shoot zones were. There were other guys pushing through the brush so I had to choose my shots where I was shooting into the hill as a backstop, and not into the canyon.

As soon as the drivers got to the top of the canyon I could here the men and dogs working down the side of the canyon opposite me. Occasionally a dog would bump out a deer and you could hear the deer bouncing through the brush headed down the canyon with a dog or two in pursuit. Through my bino’s I could occasionally catch a glimpse of hunters pushing through the thick chemise. I watched the dogs as they darted through the openings, testing the air currents. After an hour or two, the line of drivers was below my stand position. I couldn’t hear the people below me since they were down below the curve of the hill, and the folks cross-canyon had moved under thick cover of pepperwoods.

I heard the brush in the bottom of the saddle on my right start popping and saw the top of the 8 ft tall brush moving. I watched the branches rattle for 200 yards as the path of the disturbance moved up towards the top of the saddle to my right, 50 yards away. As the brush got lower, I could see a buck had snuck back through the line of drivers and was sneaking out as quiet as he could “out the back door” that I was stationed on.

All I could see was his head and neck. So I raised my rifle, eased the hammer back, and steadied the quivering bead that was wavering between his nose and ear. Suddenly he stopped as he saw me out of the corner of his eye, just as I squeezed the trigger. He froze in place, as the rifle roared, he disappeared in the brush.

I think I sat there and shook for 30 seconds before I stood up on shaky legs and began walking down the slope to the brush patch where I could see the patch of hide in the brush. I had hit the buck below the ear, breaking his neck instantly. He had fallen stone dead with his head under his body. When I grabbed his antler to pull his head out, the air still in his lungs was released and he gave a “BLAAAT” as I pulled on his head. It startled me so much that I jumped back confused. Pretty soon I could hear the other folks on stands laughing as they watched the scene through binoculars from their vantage points on the other side of the canyon.

Before long, my grandfather was there patting me on the back, and he helped me pull the buck out of the brush into a clear spot where we could open him up and eviscerate him. I admired my buck, a small fork, and relished the feeling of accomplishment, and a beginning of my hunting career.

Below are some thumbnail photos of bucks killed in the 2006 Season, from coastal California.  It goes to show how large deer can get in the region.  Notice the dark antlers they both have.  These deer were both taken in a heavily treed, brushy canyon that burned in 2005. 

Click on the thumbnails to see the full size photos.

The buck on the left was shot by my friend Matt , a businessman from Petaluma, California.  Matt had missed the majority of the 2006 A zone season due to his wife delivering twins that July. It wasn’t until the last weekend of the season that he was able to make it out to the Marin County ranch for a hunt.
“I was getting like 2 hours of sleep a night, cause I’d be up with one baby, and then the other one would wake up…I’d get a little sleep and then I’d get up and go to work all day. I was a zombie.”

He managed to stay awake long enough to spot the buck coming over the ridge toward him. Matt said he saw the buck and knew he was going to shoot.  “I saw this buck and I say to myself ‘Hey he’s got good backs’, and I let him have it.”

Matt became overwhelmed after the shot.  Immediately he was physically sick to his stomach even after he saw the buck fall.  He lost his lunch again when he saw the size of the buck up close.  While Matt’s reaction to the big buck might surprise some, he forewarns his hunting partners before they go out hunting.

“You should have seen the guide’s face this one time in Wyoming.  I told him ‘Hey , now don’t be alarmed if I puke after I shoot at a buck.  It’s just something I do.’”  Matt’s hunting partners have gotten used to it.   They just don’t stand next to him if a buck shows up…

The buck on the right was shot by my neighbor Frank, a builder from outside of Petaluma.  When his son skinned the buck, he suggested to his father that he have a shoulder mount done.  Frank dismissed the idea.  The antlers hung in the garage until this May when his son surreptisiously took them and a cape from another deer to the taxidermist. He hung the finished shoulder mount on the wall before an evening get together at the deer club and stated “Let’s see how long it takes for him to notice it.”

When Frank arrived he studied the pair of bucks pretty closely, and it wasn’t until one of his friends asked him if the big fork looked familiar that the light went on.

“I think I know that buck.” Frank said cautiously. When the rest of the crowd erupted in laughter, Frank’s son stepped forward and admitted his part in mounting the buck. Frank hadn’t even missed the skull hanging in the shop. He admitted that it was a good taxidermy job, and that the buck did indeed look good.

Both of these bucks go to show that while neither will make the Boone and Crockett book, that a mature blacktail deer is certainly a trophy to be proud of.  Both bucks weighed over 150 pounds field dressed. The combination of age and high quality browse regrowth after a fire both contributed to the great size of body and antlers for both of these bucks.

This 1996 buck from Northern Idaho was my first whitetail. I spent three years hunting the countryside surrounding the college town of Moscow, Idaho before I finally was successful. I was rattling and still hunting through the lodgepole thickets of a canyon that lead down to the Clearwater River. I would set up to rattle for 30 minutes then I would still-hunt over to the next finger.

After about my third setup, I spotted a deer coming through the alders. It was two days before the end of the season, and my tag was good for either sex. As the doe materialized through the branches, I held the crosshairs on the white patch of her neck at 50 yards. Then behind her, I saw the antler tips of a buck. Well the wind swirled, like canyon winds do, and the buck bolted up the ridge from my left to my right. I swung my rifle through the blur of the buck to an opening ahead of the speeding deer. As soon as he entered the small break in the branches I mashed the trigger on the .300 Win Mag, and saw hair fly. The buck dropped on the spot. The 150-grain bullet passed through and broke the spine when it entered between the 3rd and 4th from last rib. There was no tracking required since he fell where the bullet struck him.

I field dressed him there as the sun began to drop towards the western horizon. I was 2/3rds of the way down in the river canyon, and the temperatures were in the 30’s. I decided to leave him for the night and retrieve him in the morning with a pack frame. When I returned in the morning, he was partially frozen which made the job of boning him somewhat easier. I removed the ham at the ball and socket joint and carved the loin off of the spine. The shoulders came off and went in the meat sack with the other pieces. I repeated the task on the other side, and retrieved the tenderloins. After sawing off the antlers, all that was left were scraps of meat on the skeleton, and the hide. I bundled the 70-80 pounds of meat together on the second hand pack frame in a cotton meat sack. I used a basket hitch and a crowsfoot just like when I packed a horse in the mountains and secured the horns on top with a hunter orange cover over the skullcap. I then shouldered the load and looked up the hill.

Now before you get the idea that I strode out of the canyon confidently with my head up high, let me assure you it was far from dignified. I LURCHED from tree to tree gasping for breath like a wind-broken nag. It was only ¾ of a mile to the truck as the crow flies, but the maneuvering made the distance more like a mile and a half. Later that week, I processed it myself with the help of a fellow student, and we were eating venison steak for the rest of the school year.

What made this buck a trophy to me was the fact that it was the first big game animal I had killed outside of California. It was the beginning of a number of new experiences and firsts for me. It was instrumental in building my confidence to take on other big game challenges in remote locations.

Dawn Bettinelli was hunting like she does every summer with a friend on a ranch near Santa Rosa, California.  A couple of bucks showed themselves at 150 yards, and she took aim on the biggest one.  One shot from her rifle put him down in a few steps out of sight.

“I thought he was a three pointer” she says.

When she walked up to her buck she was pleased. 

“I saw four points on one side and said ‘Yeah, a four-point!’”

Then her hunting partner pointed out the bucks left antler. Another point branched off with an extra fork.  A rare occurance for Sonoma County, where a forkhorn, or 3 point is considered a large blacktail deer.

Her buck had a the widest outside points of 19 and 7/8 inches, and a total of 12 scoreable points 5 on the right and 7 on the left. The buck, roughly net scored 107 as a typical and 120 as a non-typical.  It had a field dressed weight of 115 pounds. 

Growing up in a family of four girls and one boy she learned to hunt at an early age.  Her mother and her sisters also have accounted for some large racked blacktails from around Sonoma County. 

It helps that Dawn is in good shape.  She works as a massage therapist, and spends her spare time hiking in the hills near her family’s Petaluma dairy farm.  Her athletic build is evident to even the most casual observer. ”I get out and hunt.” says Dawn “You can’t kill a buck sitting on the couch. I really get out and hike those hills. I’m not driving around all day.”

When asked what she had planned for her second A -zone deer tag, she replied “I don’t know, it’s going to have to be a pretty good buck.”

Then with a grin she exclaims “It’s the biggest buck I’ve ever shot. I’m not gonna find one this big ever again.”

Dawn’s buck was the highest scoring A zone blacktail in three local big buck contests.  She won a belt buckle, $250 towards the mount, and a rifle for her efforts.

I spent the summer of 1993 in Idaho while attending the University of Idaho, as a packer and guide for St. Joe Hunting and Fishing camp, now known as St. Joe Outfitters and Guides. Will and Barbara Judge tutored me in the skills necessary to be a proficient backcountry horseman. For that I am eternally grateful. Here is a story that ranks as one of the strangest occurances I have seen in the backcountry.

I’d just returned from packing in groceries and propane on horseback with a 6-horse string from the trailhead downstream on the St. Joe River. We didn’t have any clients in camp and it was about an hour or two before dark. I had unsaddled and fed all the horses. I was walking back to the lodge and saw a coyote in a large clearing on the way back to the main camp from the horse corral. The coyote was barking at the tree line and acting pretty agitated. About 500 yards to the left along the river a couple of horse campers had set up camp and had staked out their horses. I figured they were close to the coyote’s den and that’s what had the coyote agitated.

As I walked closer to the coyote, it would look over its shoulder at me, then turn and look at the tree line and yip and bark. It did this three times. Each time it barked and looked away from me I moved closer. Pretty soon, I was 50 yards from this coyote. As it looked over it’s shoulder one more time, a cougar came bursting out of the trees, after the coyote. The song dog just about turned inside out and ran to my right, directly through the Lodge compound, between the lodge and the clothesline, and out the front gate with the cat right on it’s tail.

I was standing there amazed at what I had just seen. Two secretive animals had just been seen feet from where we slept each night. It was then that I realized that it was as wild and untamed a place as I might ever be, despite the 70-year-old log buildings we used as our headquarters.

When we hit camp at about 1:30 or 2 pm., folks started boiling out of tents as we walked in. The guide started apologizing profusely for leaving us alone up there but when he got back to camp, the other guide had taken the pack horses to pack out a bull my uncle had killed (remember the shots we heard?) They weren’t even back yet.

The guides were amazed that a CALIFORNIAN could pack out an elk much less quarter one…I just grinned and told ‘em they just needed a copy of Joe Back’s book, Horses Hitches and Rocky trails! Besides, even a Cali country boy can survive!

By the end of 5 days we were 4 for 5 on bulls. My brother in law killed a nice 6 point 3 days later at 80 yards, Jerome killed a heavy 4×4 bull 1 day later, and my uncles bull from that day was a 3×4. The pack horses got a work out every day! We had a good time in the evenings!

The only pic I have of Mike’s bull. (Pretty good for a first elk huh?)

From left to right Jeromes, mine, and my uncle Colby’s elk racks

Now that we had the bull down it’s pretty straight forward right?

I sent the guide back to get pack horses, and to tell my dad and brother in law I had one down. They finally came up to my location after I walked down to the creek a 1/2 down canyon and waved to show them the way. We got out my Wyoming saw and started quartering the bull, in anticipation of pack horses arriving soon.

If you have never sawed through a back bone of a mature bull elk, let me tell you….You had better pack a lunch! It is one of the hardest tasks known to man. Just before you make it through another Vertebrae, the blade binds. You try to position the critter so that you can pull the saw, and finally, you hear the bone crack and you start sawing on the next vertebrae. All the way from the tailbone through the neck! Imagine sawing a juniper tree lengthwise in half that is about 10 feet tall and 6 inches thick…

I am done quartering elk with a saw. I will go gutless from now on….More about this in another column, I promise…

We finished the quartering job, and cut the antlers off and sat down for lunch with our eyes on the treeline 100 yards away. I had told them both about our bear run in and so we didn’t want to stick around a kill site very long. I stated as we worked on our roast beef sandwich that if the pack horses weren’t here by the time I finished my lunch that I was going to load the quarters on my saddle horse and walk out. Mike, my brother in law volunteered his horse also. We didn’t want to meet the local “Golden Bear”.

We loaded the front quarters on my horse with a basket hitch and crows foot, using 50 foot of 3/8 kernmantle climbing rope that I always carry in my pack (I was going to get rid of it but not now!) I half hitched it around the horn and looped it around the cantle of the saddle. The hind quarters I used a barrel hitch with 100 feet of Parachute cord, that I won at our annual 3-d archery shoot raffle! I put the liver in a garbage sack in my Badlands 2200, and put the rack in the meat packing pullout and we started down off the mountain on our 6 mile hike back to camp.