Sacramento Bee RSS Feed
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2009
- Messages
- 442
- Reaction score
- 1
Here's what it's all about for deer hunters – and photographers. In addition to hunting deer, Oscar Ramirez enjoys capturing images of them. With hunting season near, though, most of the attention is turning from camera viewfinders to gunsights.
Deer adapt. They learn. They overcome.
"When they smell you, they are gone," Ramirez said. "You might not have even known they were there. … When you get lucky and get an animal, there is a lot of satisfaction."
Ramirez, 40, and many other California hunters especially prize deer because they are limited to taking only two per season. (Fewer than 10 percent of hunters in the state reach this limit.) In the Midwest and South, it's not uncommon for one hunter to be allowed to take up to six deer.
Ramirez hunts every year. His passion was born 22 years ago when a friend asked him along on a hunting trip.
"Before that, I had never entertained the idea of me hunting. I had no clue of how to do it," he said.
On that first trip, Ramirez got up early, hiked for a long distance, shivered with cold and adrenaline, cooked primitive food, watched deer in the wild and observed his friend. They didn't kill an animal that weekend, but Ramirez was hooked.
"I don't have the big brother, the grandpa or the uncle who hunted," Ramirez said. "That is not in my family, but I read a lot and taught myself."
Ramirez's older brother Edgar took up hunting around the same time, and Oscar offered guidance.
"He told me about what I should bring, what clothing I should wear," said Edgar Ramirez, now his brother's favorite hunting buddy. "He is probably a better guide than he is a hunter. Actually, I have harvested more than he has. He just enjoyed the process."
For eight years, Oscar Ramirez went out but didn't succeed in bringing home a deer. He didn't give up hope.
"I was consistent and diligent," he said. "I went every weekend. I would go every chance I got."
He has developed a routine over the years. He checks the weather for his destination. He studies a map of the area where he'll be hunting, and he writes an itinerary for his family in case of emergency.
His skills have improved, and he has brought home seven deer. These days, he hunts in both the archery and rifle seasons.
A father of four, he is passing his knowledge to his children. He has taken two of his three daughters and his son on hunting trips. Hunting stuck with 10-year-old Oscar, but his dad wants him to wait until he turns 12 to get a hunting license.
"Every time he saw the pictures I took and overheard me and friends talking about hunting, he just interrupted, 'Can we go hunting, Papa?' " Ramirez said.
In Ramirez's spare time, he trains new hunters and volunteers with the California Department of Fish and Game as a hunting safety instructor. He teaches in English and Spanish.
"Oscar has put a tremendous amount of time into our hunter-education program. He has a very good knowledge base of hunter safety," said Harry Morse, a DFG spokesman.
For Ramirez, hunting isn't just about putting venison in his freezer or mounting a trophy on the wall.
"I enjoy the beautiful scenery," he said. "I take a lot of pictures. I cook new things. I don't even have to come home with something.
"Stuff tastes so good when you are out there hunting. You just come down after a long, hard walk, you make a fried egg-bacon sandwich. … You come back to your house. You make the same sandwich. You would only say, 'It is OK.' "
More than 20 years of hunting have made a conservationist of Ramirez. He volunteers for the California Deer Association and served as the president of its Sacramento chapter, raising funds and conducting projects to protect and improve deer habitats.
"If there is a burned area, deer would starve to death. So we would plant trees they like," he said. "We help to keep their number at a sustainable level.
"I am not only there to take," Ramirez explained. "I am also there to give back."
One can come across interesting things while out hunting – as Oscar Ramirez did here at the crash site of a North American PBJ-1D bomber (a Navy variation of the Army's B-25) in the Trinity Alps. (The wreck was documented in 1944.)
More...
