Urban Outcast Music #61 - Need the Sun to Break - James Bay
Even though it was a weekday, I figured this confluence of access had not escaped the notice of every other urban hunter so I arrived at the gate a couple hours before daylight. My presence didn't deter two other vehicles parking before I had even finished getting geared up and by the time I headed home in the afternoon there were five other rigs... Figuring that kind of competition was fair for my lack of original thinking, I hiked in about a mile onto a spur road and jumped onto an old cedar stump to await for daylight.
I'm not easily swayed by UFO sightings but I was pretty disturbed to have the darkness interrupted by a perfect cone of white light pointing straight down, maybe a mile away. The cracking of branches nearby was less disturbing and might have even meant I had deer or elk nearby. Daylight resolved mystery #1 by revealing the cone of light was a canvas tent, housing two additional hunters who must have packed in a powerful lantern. It also revealed that a blacktail doe was sneaking noiselessly across the road about 50 yards away from the regrowth into a really nasty blowdown area. I was a little disappointed that she didn't have antlers but also floored that I even got to see a deer. I have spent hundreds of hours hiking trails and hunting grouse on the west side without ever seeing a blacktail in the mountains (walking around in the suburbs is a different story).
I scanned from my perch for another 30 minutes but the fact that the doe was heading to bed before sunrise had me convinced the wary bucks would have cleared out even earlier. Without any better leads, I decided to follow the doe as best I could to see if she happened across any companionship. But moving slowly through the woods, looking at the ground, turns out to be very distracting to the shroom obsessed. Pretty soon, the mushroom mesh bag was out of the backpack and I was stocking up on button chanterelles.
At some point I forgot to be sneaky in my mushroom search and I bumped the doe. A couple more hours of looping around netted two pounds of chanterelles. I had even spotted and photographed my first winter chanterelles but I didn't know what they were at the time. Not only did I not get to sample them but I didn't put a pin on the map of these pretty reliable repeat bloomers.
So ended my 2023 deer season but I would be back to these woods soon as mushroom picking is always easier without a rifle!
