Ryo
11-16-2016, 08:35 PM
All odds were stacked against me getting out early this season: travel for work, travel for family, a car insurance claim that left us with a rental for weeks, house guests, etc etc. To make matters worse, our household ran out of venison in April, having shared much of my delicious 2015 blacktail with my hunting and fishing partners.
Needless to say, I was extremely anxious as the days passed by. Finally, by the end of October with only days left in the "any buck" season in region 3 I was free, but was too exhausted to get out of the house! So on thursday morning, I dropped off my son and drove to the community garden plot to plant our garlic for next summer, late as usual, but trying to be productive with my time off. About 100 yards away were a couple blacktail does with a fork buck staying close. This is in Coquitlam, so these guys were off limits, but they were all the motivation I needed to run back home, and pack the car for a drive up to my spot in region 3, since my region 2 seems to hunt better late season anyways. Hunting region 3 would be all new for me, though I'd done some spring and summer scouting, and collected 9 dandy muley sheds from a particular area.
A few hours later and I was there. I gathered up my kit and hiked out from the FSR to the edge of the timber, overlooking the open country. About 300 yards away I immediately see 3 mule deer feeding. I pull out my 8x42s, and look for antlers. I see none, but I really want to, so I creep closer. Nope, no antlers. I scan the tree-line adjacent to the does and still see no buck. But Im feeling good: I've only been out of the car for 6 or 7 minutes and I'm into deer. I spend the next 5 hours or so hiking, bumping the same three does two more times in two different areas, but not seeing any bucks. I start to realize that all those old bucks that gifted me their sheds probably wouldn't be down this low in elevation yet, but I'm not discouraged - I need meat in the freezer, and meat is clearly wandering these hills, and I've got the time and the energy to put it together.
I don't bother setting up camp that night, I just put down the front seat and pull up the sleeping bag. After a less-than-comfortable night, I'm up and out of the car. I'm not rushing, as legal shooting light isn't exactly enough for me to be comfortable shooting in, but I find myself back into open country about 30 minutes before sunrise. Instead of hiking West, as I'd done the night before, I decide to hike East, looking for any deer catching some rays after a frosty night. I zig zag in and out of the south-facing tree-line, right through where I found my largest sheds in the spring. As I pick my way through a particularly dense area, I hear the tell-tale sound of multiple mule deer stotting away. Rather than follow the sound directly hoping to catch a glimpse, I head 90 degrees to the sound, for a small clearing to the north, keeping my cover. Sure enough, one of the deer, a doe can't help herself and come back over the rise to get a look at the handsome hunter. We have a stare down for a couple minutes, and I continue to circle north, trying to appear uninterested in the doe, deeper into the woods and farther and farther away from the tree-line and the open country. I make a .75 kilometre semi-circle around where I last saw the doe, and start coming back south. I pick my way down to the tree-line, and come out at the crest of a grassy knoll bathed in the morning sun. I creep over the crest, just in time to see 4 does nervously moving out of the draw, back in the direction they'd initially fled from.
I am feeling pretty good at this point, since I'd successfully circled and herded the spooked does into the open in a fairy controlled fashion. This is what hunting is all about! No bucks, but I was enjoying myself immensely. Just then, a fifth deer emerges from deeper in the brush of draw, and he's got antlers, and that's all that matters! I'll take a fork buck over a costco cow any day of the week. I get down low and pull my sitka balaclava over my face. I take a look into the draw, and the buck seems alerted by the does behaviour, but still curious. I slip off my safety and get ready to make a 150 yard shot into the draw if it looks like he's going to follow the does, but he doesn't. Instead, he starts working towards the tree-line in my general direction, looking for the spook. The faint wind is now 100% in my favour, so I get down on my hands and knees in the grass, hiding from sight. I pop up for another peek, he's at 80 yards, but still unaware of me and moving closer. I decide to wait till he crests the hill naturally, which will give me a perfect broadside shot rather than a quartering towards shot from above which I have now. I wait another minute or two, and pop up on my knees when it seems right: the fork buck is 40 yards away, broadside, and ... boom. He jumps straight into the air and darts the last 40 yards into the trees. It was undoubtedly a perfect hit, so I catch my breath, and walk over. As soon as I reach the trees, I look down and there he lays, another 15 yards away, head downhill in a pool of lung-shot blood. He had one last cough as I make my way down, and is dead by the time I am standing over him. I take a moment of quiet, cut my tag, and start the skinning and quartering. I have the buck broken up, packed back to the car, and home to Coquitlam by 2PM.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/7996k6g8d37a1rx/image2.JPG?dl=0
4 days aging over ice, and 10 hours of butchering later, and the freezer is half full, with clean, delicious steaks,a few roasts, and grind.. Still looking to fill the other half.
For the gun people: It's a Mossberg 800B in .243 Win. It was my grandfathers, and went into a closet when he died in 1989. When I got my PAL a few years ago, my father, who doesn't hunt or shoot, gave me the rifle. I shoot barnes bullets out of it, which may have saved my hide taking such a close shot with a high velocity bullet. Aside from one copper shaving, that ended up deflecting in the body and cracking the off-side shoulder (with the rest of the bullet mass exiting clean through the ribs), there was no bullet recovery, obviously.
Needless to say, I was extremely anxious as the days passed by. Finally, by the end of October with only days left in the "any buck" season in region 3 I was free, but was too exhausted to get out of the house! So on thursday morning, I dropped off my son and drove to the community garden plot to plant our garlic for next summer, late as usual, but trying to be productive with my time off. About 100 yards away were a couple blacktail does with a fork buck staying close. This is in Coquitlam, so these guys were off limits, but they were all the motivation I needed to run back home, and pack the car for a drive up to my spot in region 3, since my region 2 seems to hunt better late season anyways. Hunting region 3 would be all new for me, though I'd done some spring and summer scouting, and collected 9 dandy muley sheds from a particular area.
A few hours later and I was there. I gathered up my kit and hiked out from the FSR to the edge of the timber, overlooking the open country. About 300 yards away I immediately see 3 mule deer feeding. I pull out my 8x42s, and look for antlers. I see none, but I really want to, so I creep closer. Nope, no antlers. I scan the tree-line adjacent to the does and still see no buck. But Im feeling good: I've only been out of the car for 6 or 7 minutes and I'm into deer. I spend the next 5 hours or so hiking, bumping the same three does two more times in two different areas, but not seeing any bucks. I start to realize that all those old bucks that gifted me their sheds probably wouldn't be down this low in elevation yet, but I'm not discouraged - I need meat in the freezer, and meat is clearly wandering these hills, and I've got the time and the energy to put it together.
I don't bother setting up camp that night, I just put down the front seat and pull up the sleeping bag. After a less-than-comfortable night, I'm up and out of the car. I'm not rushing, as legal shooting light isn't exactly enough for me to be comfortable shooting in, but I find myself back into open country about 30 minutes before sunrise. Instead of hiking West, as I'd done the night before, I decide to hike East, looking for any deer catching some rays after a frosty night. I zig zag in and out of the south-facing tree-line, right through where I found my largest sheds in the spring. As I pick my way through a particularly dense area, I hear the tell-tale sound of multiple mule deer stotting away. Rather than follow the sound directly hoping to catch a glimpse, I head 90 degrees to the sound, for a small clearing to the north, keeping my cover. Sure enough, one of the deer, a doe can't help herself and come back over the rise to get a look at the handsome hunter. We have a stare down for a couple minutes, and I continue to circle north, trying to appear uninterested in the doe, deeper into the woods and farther and farther away from the tree-line and the open country. I make a .75 kilometre semi-circle around where I last saw the doe, and start coming back south. I pick my way down to the tree-line, and come out at the crest of a grassy knoll bathed in the morning sun. I creep over the crest, just in time to see 4 does nervously moving out of the draw, back in the direction they'd initially fled from.
I am feeling pretty good at this point, since I'd successfully circled and herded the spooked does into the open in a fairy controlled fashion. This is what hunting is all about! No bucks, but I was enjoying myself immensely. Just then, a fifth deer emerges from deeper in the brush of draw, and he's got antlers, and that's all that matters! I'll take a fork buck over a costco cow any day of the week. I get down low and pull my sitka balaclava over my face. I take a look into the draw, and the buck seems alerted by the does behaviour, but still curious. I slip off my safety and get ready to make a 150 yard shot into the draw if it looks like he's going to follow the does, but he doesn't. Instead, he starts working towards the tree-line in my general direction, looking for the spook. The faint wind is now 100% in my favour, so I get down on my hands and knees in the grass, hiding from sight. I pop up for another peek, he's at 80 yards, but still unaware of me and moving closer. I decide to wait till he crests the hill naturally, which will give me a perfect broadside shot rather than a quartering towards shot from above which I have now. I wait another minute or two, and pop up on my knees when it seems right: the fork buck is 40 yards away, broadside, and ... boom. He jumps straight into the air and darts the last 40 yards into the trees. It was undoubtedly a perfect hit, so I catch my breath, and walk over. As soon as I reach the trees, I look down and there he lays, another 15 yards away, head downhill in a pool of lung-shot blood. He had one last cough as I make my way down, and is dead by the time I am standing over him. I take a moment of quiet, cut my tag, and start the skinning and quartering. I have the buck broken up, packed back to the car, and home to Coquitlam by 2PM.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/7996k6g8d37a1rx/image2.JPG?dl=0
4 days aging over ice, and 10 hours of butchering later, and the freezer is half full, with clean, delicious steaks,a few roasts, and grind.. Still looking to fill the other half.
For the gun people: It's a Mossberg 800B in .243 Win. It was my grandfathers, and went into a closet when he died in 1989. When I got my PAL a few years ago, my father, who doesn't hunt or shoot, gave me the rifle. I shoot barnes bullets out of it, which may have saved my hide taking such a close shot with a high velocity bullet. Aside from one copper shaving, that ended up deflecting in the body and cracking the off-side shoulder (with the rest of the bullet mass exiting clean through the ribs), there was no bullet recovery, obviously.