Urban Outcast Music #49 - Storm by Mighty Oaks
October 8th, 2021 - Deer season this year started early with the family coming up for a scouting adventure. The pitter patter of little feet plus the dog conspired to keep all the big critters out of sight but their sign was plentiful and their antics were caught on the cameras (including my first flying squirrel).
After we had all the camera cards in hand, we hustled the kiddos off the mountain for some dinner and to get them rested for some rock scrambling in Pinnacles State Park in the morning.
October 9th, 2021: Pinnacles is a little state park where you never know if you are on a sanctioned trail or not but that is perfect for scrambling toddlers. It didn't take long to fill their pants and shoes with sand and they just kept on trucking.
Besides some time trying to fill in the river bed with rocks and practicing our warrior screams, that was the weekend and now I just had to wait a week before returning for the main event.
October 16th, 2021: Opening day was clear, bright, and mild. Good weather for hiking and snoozing with your back against a tree, not so great for getting deer out and about in daylight. Jerm and I posted up for the morning on two different ridges and waited for legal light.
I busted one deer around 8am being a little too cavalier with my road stalking but couldn't tell if it had antlers and that was the extent of the action until 6pm when I heard some snorts just inside of the state land. I'm pretty sure if I had stayed on top of my knob and not tried to get in one quick loop before dark, that deer would have finished walking out of the woods and into my lap.
October 16th, 2021: Sunday opened with an epic sunrise and stopping every few feet to try another picture did wonders for keeping my noise down. I made it around the same corner where I was busted before and this time a good sized buck bolted up from less than 50 yards away. He stopped at about 120 yards to take a look back but in my panic I hadn't gotten into a prone position and the crosshair was too jumpy to try a shot. I tossed the backpack down for a rest and got settled as he moved up into the trees and away from me.
At about 180 yards and at least 160' above me, he walked back out into open and I took my shot. He immediately hunched up but after a couple more steps he was around the edge of the knob and I had to sit down and hope for the best. Which is always a good practice but in this case I also needed to tend to my head wound as that very steep shot had required a poor rest for the butt of my rifle and the scope gave me a nice slice between the eyebrows (the scar is just about gone now).
Around 9am I started up to the buck's last location and was immediately on a blood trail, although lighter than I would have liked. That was going smoothly until he got onto this sandy slope with lots of recent deer tracks in every direction. It was dry enough that each step could kick up enough dust for him to unintentionally hide the blood. But once Jerm arrived, we were able to do a tracking tandem approach that got us through eventually. It took a full three hours of staring at the ground to work through just the first half mile.
But the promising part was that instead of getting less frequent and lighter, there was starting to be blood on almost every step and bigger deposits. Jerm was even brave enough to say what we were both thinking but it turned out to be a terrible jinx because out of nowhere the trail went completely cold. I went from at least 95% certainty that the buck was down nearby to a much darker and sadder place...
We tried to puzzle it out, failed and then had to start circling farther and farther away. It wasn't until 4pm that I stumbled on a big splotch of blood over 150 yards away from where we had lost the trail but my renewed hope only lasted a few feet and a couple more splashes before it was completely gone again. In all we spent over 7 hours covering less than 2 miles but had nothing to show for it. Except of course knowing that I had left a wounded animal in the field which is still eating at me even though I procrastinated getting to this post for a good 7+ months... It really highlighted for me that I still have a lot of room to grow as a hunter, most glaring was knowing if I had dropped to the ground immediately and been ready for the level, 120 yard shot I could have avoided taking the longer, straight uphill shot. And I had plenty of time to ponder it at home as one of the kiddos had a runny nose over the weekend and I was on-call if they weren't cleared for daycare on Monday.
** Jerm was able to keep hunting and actually found one drop of blood on the embankment of the county road on Tuesday morning so we know he made it another quarter mile to the neighbor's place. Wednesday was Jerm's last day and he finally got to see a buck but it was on the move and though Jerm gave him a standing four round salute, buck fever had struck another victim and this buck escaped unharmed.**
October 22nd, 2021: I made it back out for a daytrip on Friday and I was wet and cold which meant only good things headed my way. For the morning I had permission to check the neighbor's place for my injured buck but the rain had washed away any hope of finding the trail again. I did find two other discarded carcasses just off the road which made me very grateful to be on the uphill side of the county road.
Despite the promising weather and mixing it up with a combo of tree sitting and hiking, the only large mammal I saw the whole day was another hunter glassing the property while standing just inside the state land (which is also off limits to hunting). He was a giant of a dude and said he worked for the FBI, which sounded more credible in the moment, but he was very pleasant to talk to. After dark I crawled back into the truck and headed home for the weekend. All that was left of my season would be Monday/Tuesday if the boys stayed healthy.
October 25th, 2021: Thank goodness for dry noses! I was able to slip away again for a dry, cold finish to the venison quest. It started just as quiet as the Friday hunt with no animals anywhere. Nothing remarkable to report or anything that I can even remember at this point... Looking back at my pictures I did a lot more sitting and waiting for a miracle.
Then around 2pm, things finally started to happen! It was a couple weeks ahead of schedule but there was a doe in heat and that meant her and her three friends were being pursued by a couple bucks. The buck I got a good look at was just a spike but the one doing all the grunting and heavy breathing was clearly bigger. They all ran over the next ridge and I jumped up and tried to get over and above their last position. Didn't work though, my two hour loop turned up no sign of them. And yet... when I returned to my ridge and started on a late lunch I could hear that buck grunting again. Apparently they had just done an even bigger loop and were also coming back through. With six deer milling about in the trees it took awhile to confirm he was legal and get a clear shot but I was snuggled down tight on my backpack and when a 200 yard shot opened up, I was able to make my attempt. I couldn't immediately tell if it was successful but after the obligatory wait and the sickening feeling of not seeing blood, I found him only 50 yards away. As a young, barely legal buck, he was easily the most tender and mild venison I have brought home and we have thoroughly enjoyed plating up a variety of dishes.
Below is a comparison of the 2020 buck (bottom) with the 2021 buck (top). Impressive antlers are nice but there is something to be said for bagging an "eater" and giving your back a break packing out the animal. Overall, I was grateful for so many days in the woods and something to show for the effort but a bittersweet season knowing I didn't make a clean shot on the first buck. With less than two months to the bear opener and 4.5 months to the deer opener, I'll have a chance to do better soon.