I have a friend who does the hunting like it was done some time ago .. There are still many hunter who enjoy this format of hunting .
This is one of his stories
It was a bit after 10:00 am when Gary and I pulled out. The back of his truck was loaded with supplies followed by the ATV loaded on the large trailer. “How about you follow behind and pick up anything that blows out?” he suggested. My gear and I followed in the Land Cruiser. 30km later we made it to the edge of a grove of spruce and aspen without anything leaping out of the back of Gary’s truck.
Gary was eager to try out the new Tepee Tent and stove. He had already practiced setting it up and with a bit of help from yours truly it went up surprisingly quickly. The little stove was a remarkable design, well thought out with grill racks that served as a level cooking service when flipped over the stove, a warming/drying rack when flipped in the opposite direction and a carrying handle when adjusted a third way. Gary had insulated the pipe, the silver sections shown in the second photo, where it exited from the top of the tent. It was a cool, overcast day with occasional flakes of snow drifting down. The temperature hovered around the freezing mark. The stove would be appreciated.
The rest of the camp set up went quickly. Gary pulled out his Google maps of the farm and we discussed our hunt plans. Gary wanted to check out the upper fields where he had seen a lot of elk sign on our earlier trip out. Elk, moose (antler restrictions) and any whitetailed deer were open. After finishing lunch we headed, out planning to return after dark.
It didn’t take me long to find fresh sign fairly close to camp. A little earlier I had seen what appeared to be a small ‘scrape’ which might have indicated at least one buck was starting to become interested in the ladies. What appeared to be another scrape at the corner of a spruce grove turned out to be where some oats had been spilled and the deer had cleared the snow to get at them. The grain was nearly all gone, but a little pine squirrel was gathering what the deer had missed. The squirrel paused in its foraging and posed for a picture. It was nice to get a shot of “Rocky”, but the season was still open for ‘Bullwinkle’ and the larger of the duo had no intentions of being that cooperative.
Across a clearing some 200 yds away from the grain spill was a smaller clump of spruce and aspen that would provide a good place to wait. I pulled out my Garmin GPS, selected the “Trip Calculator” function and started walking towards my potential hiding spot. The GPS would give me the distance travelled. 159 meters it read when I arrived, about a 175 yard shot, well within the ‘reach out and touch’ distance of the 7mm magnum.
It was the perfect spot. A log to sit on and a branch from a fallen aspen that lay across at the right height to rest my rifle on. I cleared the brush away in front to give a clear shooting lane and then reached for my rifle to see how everything worked. I looked around. Whereinhell was my rifle?? Now that I thought about it I hadn’t leaned it against any of the nearby trees. It was still 159 meters away, leaning against an aspen where I’d taken the squirrel picture. I started to wonder if I should be out in the woods by myself, but at least I’d been able to remember where I’d left it. Damn good thing I wasn’t skydiving.
After retrieving my rifle I settled into my ‘blind’, removed my fanny pack and slipped into my down vest. It would be a long, cool wait.
Shortly before sunset the first deer, a whitetail doe, appeared. She nosed around the grain spill then moved out into the opening between the spruce groves. I was hoping for a buck to appear when a smaller animal came bouncing into sight, stopping as it approached the doe. She looked at it then paid no further attention. A second small deer appeared and the two of them bounced about while mother closed the distance between us.
No buck, and shooting mom in front of her kids wasn’t something that appealed, so perhaps now might be a good time for a picture. I very slowly lowered the rifle and leaned it against the downed aspen. Moving as slowly as I could I reach for the camera, but I could only turn so far. My ass was frozen to the log I was sitting on. It took some slow, careful wiggling to break free and get the camera. Mom continued to move but with 6 eyes watching I had to keep movement to a minimum so my rifle barrel produced a dark shadow in the picture. Now to get the camera put away in case something I’m willing to shoot appears. Much easier now that my backside was no longer frozen in place.
Suddenly the doe decided being out in the open wasn’t such a great idea and started trotting directly towards me. My three trips between spruce groves had made a convenient trail for her to follow and it was beginning to look like she was going to jump into my lap. She approached within 30 feet before she decided something wasn’t quite right and turned to my left and moved past before entering the grove. The two little ones followed, the last in line stopped and stared at me for a moment. The expression seemed to say, “That has got to be the ugliest tree stump I have ever seen.”
As it grew darker as second deer appeared, this time a ‘dry’ doe with no fawn. I brought the rifle up, waiting in case a buck appeared. Instead of walking into the opening this doe was more cautious and worked the tree line, walking across in front of me and being rather difficult to make out at times. After putting the crosshairs on her several times I decided it was: a) too early to end the hunt on the first evening and b) the only time my 7mm had taken an animal without horns was to shoot bear. If I were to take a doe I’d use a different rifle. Too dark for a photo, but the doe turned and came directly at me. This time when she got close enough she stopped and stared. I must have blinked or done something that stumps don’t normally do. She jumped away then turned to look over her shoulder at me for a second before running around the outer edge of the grove.
I sat for another 20 minutes. Because of the overcast it became too dark to properly identify animals before legal shooting time ended. I headed back to camp for supper and an early bed time.
My meal was a left over freeze dried thing from some previous hunt. Gary had to eat some left over elk steak, poor guy. Beer and a lot of salt and pepper made the dehydrated meal suitable to chew. We spent the latter part of the evening sipping coffee that bubbled on the Tepee Tent stove. Gary is a great student of western history. While we enjoyed the coffee he mentioned after the Indian wars had ended and things had settled down anthropologists had asked some of the Indian warriors how they went about putting up a tepee. The gentlemen just shook their heads and said they had no knowledge of such things. The women always looked after the tepees.
A chorus of coyotes sang us to sleep.
We were up early next morning, but not in the right place at the right time. Yesterday Gary had discovered the tracks left by his small “elk herd” were made by a single cow moose that was spending a lot of time in the area. He was off to explore another area. Gary had spent little or no time in the lower quarter section. I knew there was one ‘scrape’ in that area so spent my time hunting that area and checking for sign. There were a number of trails made by larger hooves that had been dragged over the shallow snow. Perhaps there were some bucks using this area. A good place to check out that evening. We were to return for breakfast around ten, so I completed my circuit of the field and headed back towards camp. As I approached the camp I heard a shot off to the north. Gary?
No sign of Gary when I reached the camp. I got the campfire going, the coffee warming and started preparing my breakfast, good ol’ Quaker instant oat packages of Raisins and Brown Sugar with lots of skim milk powder added. I took my breakfast with me and walked down the trail where I could get a look at the other fields in hopes of spotting Gary. No luck. By now it was well after 11. I was starting to believe Gary had an elk down so I cleaned up the back of the Land Cruiser and prepared to go looking for him. While in the middle of this process I heard his quad coming down the dirt road. It wasn’t he who had fired the shot.
It was getting close to lunch, so Gary decided that a package of hotwings needed to be cooked up over the campfire. It was after 12 and hunting was done for a while so we had a beer with the hotwings and waited for the third Musketeer, Don, to arrive.
Don pulled in shortly after the last wing had been eaten and the grill cleaned. We discussed what had happened and when I showed him the pictures of the three deer he gave me a bit of a bad time for not taking one of the fawns. He and I took a walk around the area I had watched the previous evening and he found what he considered to be a better place to watch the deer approach. I suggested he make sure he has his camera. If he shoots the doe he should be able to get some good pictures of the fawns as they watch him dress out their mother.
That evening Gary headed well east on his quad, past where I planned to be watching so we wouldn’t interfere with each other. Don had fixed himself up a nice blind and I had found where it looked like the deer were entering the field I was to hunt. About 200yds from that point a fence rail offered a fine rifle rest next to a small spruce that would break up my outline. As the sun set I settled in with rifle and binoculars. A large shape emerged from the trees a good 100 yds past where I expected the deer to enter the field. A damn steer! Then I heard them lowing. One after another the cattle trooped slowly along on the other side of the fence of the field I was hunting. They were all along the full length of the field. Trees hid most of them, but I could see the movement. There was no way I could fire in that general direction at all. The best laid plans of mice and men ... I hoped the mouse was having better luck.
With about 45 minutes of legal shooting time left I figured to change directions and slowly hunt the field behind me, moving towards camp. About 15 minutes later I heard a shot. Don? Gary? They were both in the same general direction from me.
Nearing the edge of the field I caught sight of a deer about the same time it saw me. I froze, it stared. I slowly knelt and moved as carefully as possible until some trees hid me from sight. Raising my binoculars I slowly eased back out to see the deer. It was too dark to make out whether it was a legal whitetail or a mule deer that was safe until Nov. 1st. I couldn’t make out antlers, so eased back and moved on towards camp in case my help was needed.
Gary had walked into a number of whitetails, but they were all fairly distant except for a doe that was about 200 yds out. Gary dropped to a kneeling position and squeezed off the shot. The doe took off like a scalded cat, throwing dirt and snow and ran over the rolling field out of sight. Gary expected to find a dead deer. No sign of hair or blood anywhere along the tracks. It was a clean miss despite the fact the shot looked good. I believe Gary is checking his rifle out today.
Don? Well, he set up in his spot and momma and the two kids showed up on schedule. He lined his new rifle up on them several times. Then he tells me that he started to think about what I’d said and held his fire. No sooner had he paused than the doe and fawns started trotting towards him. They were inside 30 yds when Don put his rifle down and started to pull out his camera. The movement startled the deer. Mom moved away fairly quickly with the youngsters following. Don finally got his camera out, turned it on, focussed it and, “...after doing all that I still got a good picture. That’s how close they were. Where’s the sport in shooting something that walks right up to you?” I just shrugged in agreement.
We all ate freeze dried for supper. My package had a small tear in it so as soon as I added the hot water it leaked all over my glove, It was a touch too warm to make any attempt to hold the package closed so I dumped it into my billy pot and ate it from there. So much for not having any dishes to clean. Beer and a whiskey nightcap finished the evening as the coyote chorus started.
It was cold that night and the morning brought a fog that felt like ice crystals. While we got a large campfire going Don took his rifle and went for a walk. In the same field he’d hunted the previous day Don saw a black bear walking down the fence line. He figured it was a good bear, but over 300 yds away, its black colouring all that made it barely visible in the thickening fog. It either caught his scent or its nearsighted eyes recognized something wrong and it headed for cover. The thickening fog soon reduced visibility to less than 50 yds. The melting snow of yesterday had frozen, making movement of any kind extremely noisy. We decided to break camp while we waited for the weather to show an improvement.
The sun struggled to burn off the fog and it began to thin. Gary insisted Don and I take a last hunt while he finished packing some of his gear. Don and I walked past the spot where he’d seen the bear. In the clear light the fence was about 150 yds away. The bear was a lot closer and probably a lot smaller than initially thought. We checked out the field where Gary had taken his shot and found signs of a great deal of recent deer activity. A good place to check out next time.
Lots of wildlife seen and the fact that we weren’t taking home meat was our choice – at least this time.
Kyle
Old gun dogs ha
