asaxon
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BJ, the Admiral and I scooted across the channel to Avalon on Sunday 9.11 on the ferry to help protect the native plants Catalina Island from those vicious alien browsers; i.e. hunt the non-native mule deer. After dinner with island friends, we did the paperwork for Private Lands Management tags (each of us is allowed one antlerless and one either sex tag), bought lots of health food for meals (6 containers of ice cream and 12 large bags of chips; my own special “trust me I’m a doctor diet”) (picture 1) and turned in early.
The next AM, we met up with RK just at shooting time to look for deer. Before we hiked far, we’d spotted four deer looking down on us from the ridges but it was so dark due to the heavy cloud cover that we could not get a reasonable shot.
As we turned a corner and started to hike up the main canyon, deer-eye RK spots a nice buck standing 500+ yards away on the skyline feeding next to a fence designed to keep deer out of sensitive areas up a side canyon. The others decide to work their way up the main canyon while I try to stalk the buck in spite of no real cover. This bad boy simply watches me get to about 200 yards but won’t budge off the skyline – he must know I can’t shoot without a backstop. Then he simply walks behind some bushes and next I see him 1/2 mile away heading down the fence line. As I get back to the main canyon, I spot a doe only 250 yards away but she also staring at me from a ridge line = again no shot unless I want to take the chance of hitting a Boy Scout somewhere down range. The doe and I have a staring contest for 5 min. when I hear something running down the trail toward me. No, it’s not a charging bison, It’s BJ – he’d been having a staring contest with a different skyline doe for 15 min. Apparently my arrival made his doe nervous enough that she dropped off the top but not where BJ could see her. In the end, both does simply vanish. The Admiral and RK then show up having seen a couple more does plus the buck I’d pushed but they too couldn’t get a shooting solution. We’d seen 9-10 deer in the area and not fired a shot. But now we had plans for next morning.
We headed for an area where a few Catalina island wild cherry trees still had some fruit. Glassing, RK spotted a nice animal 200 yards ahead on steep ground. As we crawled up to RK, the Admiral sees her quarry. RK and I each had to hold an end of her very widely spread shooting sticks for stability while trying to plug our ears but this put us in a position where neither of us could see the buck. The Admiral takes aim, mumbles something about “Texas”, and then after what seems a very long pause, Bam, an 85gr. Barnes 243 Winchester screams away. We ask; “What happened?” The Admiral replies; “It simply disappeared, I never saw it run or anything.” So RK and I climb to where she directs and find lot of scuff marks plus a very small blood trail. We follow what blood there is thinking this is not going to end well when some 30 yards straight down the steep rocky hillside to find a lovely big bodied buck. He is dead but there isn’t a mark on him. No entry and certainly no exit wound. WTF? Had it died of fright? Then we see some blood around the rectum. Had the Admiral shot it in the hemorrhoids only to have it bleed to death? Something was very strange here.
Together we drag the buck to a road before field dressing it as thankfully, the was a road down below us. When the Admiral joins us with the truck, we get “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”. She tells us that all she could make out was the antlers and the butt facing her. Seeing the hill/cliff was too steep for the animal to turn much and thus it could only go further away, she decided to take the infamous “Texas Heart Shot” – that’s right, shoot it right in the ass. She said the rectum looked just like a bullseye in a white target so she aimed a bit to right and down figuring she’d take out the pelvic bones and femoral artery. Well we looked again and sure enough, there is a small entry wound just where she said and that is where the blood on the butt had been oozing from. However, the most amazing thing was then when we then field dressed the buck, we see that while the bullet had gone through the pelvis and femoral vessels, it managed to essentially miss the intestines and stomach; the abdominal cavity was clear except of lots of blood. When I dragged out the abdominal contents, we did find a tiny hole in one loop of small bowel but it was not leaking until I pressed on it. The bullet was found lodged in the ribs on the right – thus no exit wound. Who would have believed it? We suggested “Luck” but the Admiral said “Skill.” You do NOT argue with the Admiral; it was skill.
Several more hours produced nothing except passing through an area of serpentine rock which has recently been found to contain naturally occurring asbestos. The Admiral showed her distain for non-aerosolized asbestos by licking one of the rocks.
After another hearty meal of ice cream and chips, we headed out around 4:30 pm with DT to look at some other spots. We perched on a very steep hill/cliff looking down some 240 yards onto scattered cherry trees. Sure enough, there were deer that were just getting up from their beds. We saw a spike, and a couple of yearlings – no shooters. After about 10 minutes BJ spotted a nice sized doe on a small knoll pretty much at the bottom of the cliff some 200 yards away. The actual horizontal distance probably was only 60 yards; yeah it was steeper than hell. Bamm, he fired (Winchester 270 with 130gr Federal Trophy Copper) and this deer also “disappeared”. Rather than climb all the way down and back for potentially nothing, DT went part way down and using his spotting scope located a very still doe lying on her back with four legs in the air. The Admiral and I then decamped to another area to hunt while DT and BJ spent the most of the remaining shooting light getting the doe up the mountainside. Good thing DT is less than half our age and runs marathons. We did have one more shot opportunity with 10 min of shooting time left after the others caught up with us. A nice doe ran across from us only 100 yards away. I saw her stop and walk behind a bush but then she “disappeared” Apparently, the brazen doe simply walked away right in front of us in the open. Only T with his young eyes saw her go. The other three of us couldn’t make her out in the failing light in spite of DTs directions as to where she was walking. Damn heavy cloud cover again. And of course, night vision like everything else goes to hell with age, indeed I wish it was only my night vision…
Next morning after an early breakfast of what else but ice cream (we skipped the chips), we head back with RK to where we’d been the morning before but now with “a plan”. BJ is going to walk over the hill and come down the main canyon while we walk up. We will trap the deer between us. No more than 10 minutes after we start up the main canyon, the Admiral who is in front of me shouts; “Running deer.” I look around and see a large doe running real fast down the canyon across from us about 70 yards away. Almost as a reflex, I put a round in the chamber, aim, fire and miss – behind and high. With that “encouragement”, the deer is now really streaking. I jack another round into the chamber, swing way in front of the animal and fire again. Boom = 168 gr. Barnes Vortex 30-06 goes down range. To my utter amazement, the doe staggers and falls down the hillside where I quickly put a round into her neck to end it.
I felt like Bart Simpson when he’d say: “Did I do that?” The hardest part was acting as if I’d expected to hit the fleeing doe. Turns out I hit her in the pelvis even though I was aiming 3 feet in front of her chest. Probably the best (aka luckiest shot) I have ever made. While we are dressing out this deer, we see a group of nine deer including two bucks heading up canyon from us so we hope they will head for BJ. But it turns out BJ never made it into the area planned. A big male Bison had taken a dislike to him and whenever he tried to get around it, it would raise its tail (a sign of trouble) and move to block his path. No, you can’t shoot a bison unless it is in the midst of stomping on you and you have pictures to prove it…Only thing worse is shooting a Boy Scout. You do either one and the paperwork will kill you.
We then spent a few hours looking around for deer near water and saw a few animals but nothing we could get a shot at. One water hole had a veritable deer highwaygoing to it, lots of tracks but it was too late in the morning for the deer to actually be there.
As we were getting ready to head toward home, old eagle eyed RK spots some deer. He says; “See the deer?” and we all say; “What deer?” After a frustrating few moments where we are all looking too close, we spot a buck, a doe, a yearling and a spike. They are probably 300 yards out, at the limit of our ability. We all get set, plan not to shoot the yearling or spike and fire. Bam, Bamm, Boom. Not one of us gets a hit. We checked the area after they all ran off - no blood. Turns out to be a good thing. There was a 5-foot-wide ravine with a 10-foot vertical drop and lots of difficult uphill carry distance between us and where those deer had been. Always good to miss, keeps one humble.
It’s time to end it for the morning so we head for the Middle Ranch. When we are about a mile from the main ranch road, a doe dashes across and disappears into the brush about 40 yards in front us. The Admiral bails out of the truck to see if she can spot the doe further on when another doe goes the same way but she is simply strolling along. She should have been running. Bam, the Admiral puts her down and we now have two for the morning. After dressing, dragging and loading this doe, we are definitely ready for our ice cream and chip lunch. But no more than ½ mile later, RK whisper/shouts as he stops the truck; “LOOK TO YOUR LEFT!” Holy Tartar Sauce Sponge Bob, a lovely doe is just standing no more than 20 yards away. BJ slides out of the back door on the other side while the doe simply stands there and bats her eyes at him. Quickly this doe joins the others in the back of the truck. Our only explanation for this animal’s odd behavior is that she must have recognized BJ who is a very accomplished wildlife photographer and was functioning under the misconception that he was going to take her picture. NOT. So all of a sudden, we have a 3 rather than a 1 doe morning.
We skinned out the 3 does, put them in the cold room and finally got our recharge of ice cream and chips back in Avaloln. After a short rest, we headed back to the ranch. On the way, we passed a place near town (no shooting of course), where, in spite of DFW signs not to, folks leave “food” for the deer; a poor idea as the deer are severely undernourished on a diet of lettuce and other garbage foods. Here we saw what is the oldest looking doe I’d ever seen. She has white spectacles and a totally white muzzle. Wow, made even me feel young.
When we got to the ranch, it was 5:30 pm. Time to go out and try to finish it off. My either sex tag was all that was left. BJ, the Admiral and I took off with RK wishing us luck and saying he had “a good feeling.” We headed for where we’d seen a couple of nice bucks on the first day but to get there we had to drive along the same road where we’d taken the last two does. No more than 200 yards from where BJ harvested the last doe, two really nice bucks head down the hillside below us. We pile out and find them 170 yards away across a shallow valley. They are walking slowly in a clearing area going nowhere in particular. Not a good plan on their part but great for us. I simply had to rest the Browning A-bolt on my sticks and squeeze the trigger. Boom. The buck staggers, takes a step forward, two steps back and falls over. The other buck walks around looking confused while BJ is so very excited that he whisper/shouts; “Shoot the other buck!” The Admiral and I quickly disabuse him of this idea by pointing out to him we are out of tags. It had been only 10 minutes since we left RK.
The hardest part of this buck was getting him out – not because the terrain was particularly difficult for Catalina but because the combined ages of the 3 hunters was nearly 210 years.
We field dress him and see the bullet had gone through the very top of the heart and removed it and the aorta; a quick end. BJ had taken the deer back pack but when we got to the buck, it was very very clear none of us was going to put the beast, even gutted, on our backs. So BJ and I dragged it the first ½ downhill and then used a rope to pull plus one of us pulling on the antlers with the Admiral helping unload the weight via lifting the rear legs to get it uphill to the road. We got to the truck just as the sun was setting at 7 pm. What a photo that made and we even got a green flash!
This 4 x 4 buck had very asymmetrical antlers with those on the right looking like a whitetail plus one tine having a knob that looked like an onion about to flower while the left side was standard four-point mule deer.
That night we celebrated with a special meal of chocolate ice cream and chips but added Port wine.
Next day was spent butchering/deboning deer so we could transport the meat home. Our six deer hanging in the cold room made quite a sight. That last buck had a remarkable amount of fat on him for any time and especially in light of this being the 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] drought year in a row on Catalina. He is the one in the rear to the Admiral’s left with the all-white (fat) back.
Got home on the mainland and put all the good cuts in the freezer except for the what we planned to eat fresh and then dropped off all the rest at the butcher to grind. So ended another wonderful time with friends on Catalina as we helped the Island by removing some pesky invasive browsers. And due to my special diet, I didn’t even gain any weight through I don’t want to think of what happened to my blood sugar.
In case you haven’t figured out the Hunting math:
2 days x 3 hunters + two amazing shots (one skilled, one lucky) = 6 deer.
2 days x 3 hunters + two amazing shots (one skilled, one lucky) = 6 deer.
*No Animals were harmed unnecessarily in the telling of this talk but the truth was somewhat bruised.
