A Wet Snowy Hunt Thoughts - Without Bucks

October 3rd was opening day of buck mule deer rifle season and it got off to a pretty lame start, a blown tire and inoperable jack. Once that was straightened out I managed to get myself into the mountains, which were in the process of getting six inches of very wet snow that was sticking. Not too promising.

For my more urban readers I present the following as a beginner's primer.

Mule deer depend on the three senses of sight, smell, and hearing to stay alive in a world containing things that want to eat them. Sight is the least effective of those, from practical experience I can state that what alerts them is motion that is separate from other things. Despite very human appearance in jeans and flannel shirt standing still with something as a background (rock, tree, whatever) does not bother them. Neither does it bother them that I have moved from one place to another if they don't see the actual motion. Their visual acuity or processing of information so gained is limited.

A mule deer's nose is a pretty fantastic organ, it picks up very little very quickly, being down wind from them or in a condition that knocks odor out of the air quickly (like rain or lots of wet snow falling) is about the only defense against their nose.

Mule deer get their name from the size of their ears, great whacking ears that pivot toward sounds at the least provocation. If a human can actually hear himself moving a mulie will hear it at over 100 yds.

This information is all important to a hunter or even nature viewer. There is a lot of spiritual hoohaw around about thinking like your prey or becoming one with it. Please give me a break. A deer's mind (or pick your critter) is a complete mystery. It does not operate in a world you can comprehend, its senses are not developed in a manner anything remotely human and figuring out the processing requires some kind of mind meld that belongs to a Spock. What you can do is understand what works for the animal and try to avoid falling into its range or not looking for them where those senses are compromised - since they'll stay away from that.

I mentioned the wet snow, trying to walk quietly in that stuff was ludicrous, every foot fall was a deep bass crushing sound. When the snow finally started falling from tree branches it began to cover my noise with something similar and pervasive. I became sonically invisible. Understanding this, one should not look for deer in areas with something like running water, they may need to go there for a drink but they will not haunt such a place.

Scent pretty much leaves you at the mercy of the wind, bow hunters will go to great lengths to cover their scent with something common to deer. That works to an extent, you still stink. Mountain air is difficult, it swirls and eddies, you do your best. You can know some things, like cooler air sinks and warmer air rises. This means that in the early morning the air will slide downhill, as the day warms it will move uphill until finally at the cooling of the evening it will once again begin to move downward. You want to be on the receiving end of moving air, pretty simple, so your position in terrain is determined by relative temperatures.

Avoiding the sight of deer isn't that complicated if you see them first, a challenge. Deer depend on that weakness of processing visual information as their first line of defense, staying still in some form of cover, even a slight depression. That doesn't work quite so well against a human's highly developed sense of sight and complex processing of that information. We recognize that something has changed, that it doesn't belong. Deer don't seem to. By moving only when deer had their heads down eating I have moved in wide open ground to within 60 feet of them, covering over 100 yds in wide open. The air shifted and they spooked otherwise I am unsure how much closer I could have gotten, they were clearly beginning to get nervous, something was bothering them.

You cannot think like a deer but knowing their abilities can help you to think a way around them. Fortunately for having success in this heavily stacked game you have the ability to reach out, whether with a weapon or camera. Reaching out is meaningless if you can't find them or you alert them well beyond your effective range - and you will. Someplace is always downwind of you, something will make a sound, or they will see you first. I'm not talking about hunting tame deer, these are wild animals and in OR the bow hunters have been in the woods for a month prior, stinking it up, making noise, and leaving gut bags and other remains in or near deer habitat.

Mule deer are creatures of habit, it takes a great deal to move them out of their patterns and their area. People knocking around in the woods will disrupt their habits and break up groupings but not move them far. Hard droughts and extreme icing conditions in winter will move them. Deer will, within those circumstances, be not too far from where you have previously found them. Not too far is a relative term considering deer, it may involve some pretty extensive human foot travel to match their nearby. There is the rub, if you have to move around the game is all on their side.

Having a nice accurate gun and knowing how to hunt doesn't mean success will happen, luck is still a large piece of the puzzle. Despite some presentations, a hunt is not a slaughter of defenseless creatures. I don't trophy hunt, but as in this hunt I will sometimes pass on deer for being either too difficult to get out once down or being too small. The distinction in too small is this: it is very nearly the same work after a kill if a deer weighs 100 pounds or 25o pounds and it is a lot of work. You have to gut it, you have to get it out of the woods, you have to skin it, you have to hang it, and you have to butcher and package it. A large dead animal is no joke to deal with. This time I've managed to give all that work a miss, next year; maybe.

Buck Season

Saturday, October 4th was opening day of buck deer rifle season and my wife and I were fortunate enough to draw tags. My wife was not interested in getting up early Saturday and the weather was ugly; so I went by myself. I worked over my usual places and found sign of does with yearlings and nothing more. I've hunted that area for over ten years and never found so little. Archers had been telling me this for a month. By late morning I moved to another area all together.

About 11:30 I spotted a doe with 2 yearlings and an outlier forked horn. Because it had been raining most of the morning with mixed fog I had left the M98 Fabrique Nationale 30-06 covered and locked in the truck and was carrying the Vaquero Colt .45 in a shoulder holster under rain gear. The forked horn was at 60 yards uphill in scattered second growth. The doe was getting nervous so rather than close the distance I took the shot. The buck went down immediately though it took a finishing shot. He had a decent sized body with a small rack, but racks aren't really edible. By 2:30 he was in the double sinks in sections and covered with ice and my wife and I left to see if we couldn't find her one.

Nothing was happening where I'd been earlier but there was an area I hadn't looked. Part way there, lo and behold, a tree was down across the road. The area had been thinned at some point and there were stumps every where which were serious obstacles to going around. Oddly enough, the '78 K20 had lifting rope aboard and its ability to be very mean to a gallon of gasoline also means it can deal with things like a tree down. In the lower picture you see my wife standing across from the tree looking to see if the branches are clear of the road.

That is what we bagged for the rest of
the day. You can't eat one, but a camera will make a trophy of it.

This is a great old truck even if it is over thirty years old. It is on its third transmission and third engine and lord only knows how many windshields. For the informed she's running a 400 small block with a stage II turbohydro 400 and to my endless irritation a full time 4x4 transfer case and automatic hubs. My irritation is due to the fact that the transfer case constantly turns the front axles sucking gasoline pointlessly. Folks this thing's ordinary running weight is in excess of 7000 pounds and that takes gasoline without any extra draws, like 8 miles per gallon. If you're thinking that a smaller engine or such would be helpful, you're neglecting that anywhere I go that is out of town I have to cross mountains and it is not unusual for the truck to then weigh in excess of 8000 pounds.

I stay away from mud bogs, this is the wrong truck for that and neither is it any good for side hill running, if it is slippery at all that heavy back end will end up down hill - an awkward situation. I like to leave as light a footprint as I can and tearing up the woods or the roads isn't responsible behavior.

The buck generated quite a bit of jerky and around twenty pound of sausage as well as steaks. Due to his young age I didn't hang him and so far the results are fine. The sausage and jerky are quite nice, the liver went to a concrete contractor pal and the heart was tonight's dinner. He was a fine animal who will provide many fine dinners for the expense of 5 gallons of gasoline and two hot 365 grain .45 Colt rounds. Another reason I live where I do.