Meditations on Deer Hunting

2012 Wyoming deer regulations - summary map.

    Deer seasons in the areas I hunt in SE Wyoming have all been cut by half, from two weeks to a single week; and now only  bucks are legal game. In some areas bucks must have at least three points on one side to be considered legal.  Mule deer populations have been crashing in SE Wyoming and Northern CO for a number of years. The changes to this years season dates and regulations are the first major ones since I've lived here. The changes are obviously an attempt by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to relieve hunting pressure on the deer populations.  Some people complain that these changes came too late - I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

    For the first ten years after moving to WY I hunted and killed a deer every year.  Never a doe, always a buck but sometimes a spike.  The last mule deer I killed was in 2008.  In 2009 I had a nice shot at a good 3x3 mule deer but I passed.  I was mainly focused on elk at the time.  I had real failures in the 2010 and 2011 seasons. I hunted hard for deer both years and did not kill one.  This year I had a very nice (and unique) 3x3 in my sights for more than 15 minutes and did not pull the trigger.  Still pondering the reasons why.  It turns out that not killing can be complicated.

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Monday October 1, 2012 -  Even with work piling up I managed to get out for a morning hunt.  I hunted the upper reaches of a small stream that flows west into the North Platte river.  The stream bed cuts quickly into the landscape forming a narrow canyon not far from its source. The north side of the canyon is heavily timbered and the south side is mostly open sage country with aspens  filling the draws that drop to the canyon floor. Shots from the north side of the canyon to the south side are, depending on exactly where, somewhere between 150 and 350 yards. It makes for a somewhat long shot - but in the mid-ranges is very doable with a 270 Winchester shooting 140 gr Barnes boat tail bullets.  I'd watched a mature buck feed up the open south slope one morning last year while hunting elk (after the deer season was over.)  On this day I walked a long way after getting a somewhat late start and only ever saw does.

Saturday October 6, 2012 - Hunted the same spot in the early morning with no luck.  Headed to the Platte river valley for the afternoon hunt.  Around three in the afternoon I walked into the wilderness area about a quarter mile from my truck to the rim of an aspen filled draw.  This is big open sage country and was not far from where I killed my best mule deer. As I slowly moved along just below the rim, I spotted a hunter coming down toward the draw through the open sage way up on the the far side. I decided to sit down and in the shade of a low rocky outcrop on the rim to see if he pushed any deer out.  I sat down an set up my shooting sticks to wait. Any deer moving down the draw would have to pass through an opening in the aspens giving me an excellent downhill shot at about 100 years.  The other hunter has seen me and he diverted his path but I still sat and waited.  It was 120 yards to the far side of the draw where the aspens ended and the sage opened up.  Glassing the thick aspen cover with binoculars I hear a branch snap somewhere below me, and then a few minutes later I spotted the rump of a deer.  Ten minutes later a deer stepped out of the sage and then there was a second behind it.  Amazingly, both were bucks, the first was a spike horn and the second a good three by three.  The larger of the two was a fine animal with long willowy antlers of a beautiful orange color.  The smaller buck was half the size.  I sat on the rim and watched them browse their way uphill on the far side of draw - alternating between the view through my scope and through the  binoculars.  Finally, they wandered into the  timber on the far rim and they were lost to sight.  I continued to hunt until dark though I did not see another deer.

Sunday October 7, 2012 - On Sunday I hunted mule deer and elk hard all day in a different area - closer to home where I could shoot a bull elk or a mule deer buck in overlapping seasons.  I did get onto some fresh elk tracks early but never saw the animal.  Other than a mature four-by-four lying dead in the back of another hunters pickup I passed on a remote forest service road - I did not see a deer.

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    So on Saturday, after a textbook perfect hunt, I had what I was hunting for in my sights.  It was an easy shot at close range with no wind off a secure rest - and yet I did not pull the trigger. Why? I'm still thinking about it. There are a number or reasons I can think of  but none provides a really satisfactory explanation.  My first suggestion is that, in the back of my mind, I carry the thought that my wife and I prefer elk meat to deer meat.  Elk populations are up so I, perhaps unrealistically, expect to kill an elk this year.  A second reason is that, although I do not really consider myself a trophy hunter, I have killed a number of deer that were "better" than this one.  Irrationally, I had it in my mind that I would find a fully mature four-by-four buck within the following twenty-six hours before the season ended.  Another reason is that, with deer populations so low, killing a not quite mature deer seemed unnecessary. And also, I was just plain tired. Hunting big game alone is hard work: field dressing and packing out an animal is even more work.  I was dog tired after a long day of hunting on foot in steep country.

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José Ortega y Gasset

  Not pulling the trigger raises the issue of killing or not killing while hunting.  In his book Meditations on Hunting (originally published in 1944) Ortega y Gasset famously wrote: "one does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted".  It is true that even though I did not kill that mule deer I know that I surely would have pulled the trigger on a more mature buck - so I would claim I hunted - I think.  My interpretation of Ortega y Gasset's remark is that he was getting at something  else.  Every kill is different and each one builds into a store of experience that cumulatively makes the hunter who (s)he is.  Much of that knowledge is technical knowledge that can not be gained in any other way except by killing.  How well (or not) did the bullet perform?  What was the extent of the wound it caused? How far did the animal go with the wound it sustained and how quickly did it die?  How much blood was lost - was there a blood trail? These are aspects of the hunt that we perhaps prefer not to discuss.  Even hunters ready to discuss the finer points of butchering and cooking game meat rarely discuss these points.  And yet, these technical aspects of actually killing are part of the hunt that can not be experienced without  pulling the trigger. That body of experience is what makes books like John Taylor's African Rifles and Cartridges  or Elmer Keith's Big Game Rifles and Cartridges truly substantial works.  I think this experience is required for a hunter to have hunted.

     In his excellent book The Why of Hunting (which will hopefully be published very soon) Gerard Cox argues that Ortega y Gasset's aphorism applies only to sport hunters in the European tradition from the middle of the last century. These were Ortega y Gasset's audience for his essay on hunting.  It may be unfair to Gerry to publicly argue with is book before publication - but based on not killing this year,  I think Ortega y Gasset's remarks hold more true than Gerry admits.  

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Although I did not kill a deer this year  - and so missed the rich aspects of the hunt that come after the kill - thankfully, the story remains.  And also, there are still two weeks left in the elk season.

Snipe Recipes

Snipe at Dawn - Aiden Lassell Ripley (1986-1969)

Dan on the Rock asked about cooking and eating snipe.  As snipe are small birds - it takes more than a few of them to provide a real meal.  I combined the two I killed recently with a single dove to make some tapas before a more substantial meal of grouse in blackberry/pepper sauce.   After a long day in the field, the expedience of just breasting the birds out seems to be the way to go.  If you have more time, a plucked and roasted bird is a perhaps more fitting way to prepare them.  If you're short of snipe recipes, they can always be cooked in the same way as woodcock, though woodcock may provide slightly more meat.  The first game birds I ever managed to kill were woodcock near Williamsburg Virginia.

Snipe and dove breast tapas.
 

Sauteed Snipe Breast on Toasted Baguette RoundsIngredients: As many snipe breasts as you can muster; butter; salt, freshly ground pepper and a medium hot chili powder; rounds cut from a baguette; and (optionally) a few drops of truffle oil.Method: Breast out the birds. Salt and pepper the breasts and sprinkle on a dash of chili powder. I use Fernandez Chilie Molido Puro which is available in my Safeway store in 7 oz. bags. Slice the baguette into thin rounds - about 1/4". Melt a generous portion of butter in a frying pan, add a drop or two of truffle oil and then dip the bread into the butter and place them on a plate in a warm oven.  Add the breasts to the butter and brown them on both sides until medium rare.  Place them on the toast and enjoy with a favorite glass of wine.  A dry white or a light red like a Pinot Noir goes well.

There is a nice web site devoted to snipe hunting. They have a  list of recipes including the old standby, snipe wrapped in bacon.  Also a favorite way of mine to cook dove - wrap a small piece of jalapeno in the breast and then wrap the breast with bacon - grill until the bacon is nicely browned.  Hank Shaw at Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook has done some nice writing about snipe. He has a somewhat elaborate recipe and a plainer one too.   The Derrydale Game Cookbook by L. P. Gouy lists 24 recipes for woodcock and any could be used for snipe as well.

Morning snipe, afternoon grouse.

You may be shooting too quickly on snipe.  If memory serves, an old snipe hunter explained, "First they zig, and then they zag, then they shit, and after that they straighten out and you shoot 'em."  I spent many happy hours snipe hunting on the flats of the Skagit, but unfortunately I didn't know this technique. -- Personal correspondence from Gerry Cox

A brace of snipe on the counter.

Went after snipe on Sunday morning and grouse in the afternoon with my son who was visiting from Portland.  I can't , nay won't, say exactly where we hunted the snipe. Look for marshy country and cross your fingers that they are in.   I killed the first snipe on the first flush with one shot from the right barrel on Sidley.  I'd rather not say how many shells were expended by both of us before Garrett managed to drop the second one.  Once again, the open right barrel on the Sidley proved it's worth.

Two snipe in the field with the 20GA boxlock.

In the afternoon we drove up high to a spot I know for grouse.  Erdos was past tired after slogging through the muck all morning - but he hunted hard for us and we (Garrett) killed two birds.  On the first flush, two birds went up with Erdos on point, I hit one at some distance, feathers flew and the bird wobbled and glided into the forest.   Did not find him until we managed to flush him about an hour later from where he'd hidden in a tree.  Garrett dropped him.  Of course it is hard to know if it was the same bird, but we both thought it had to be.  We hunted more and flushed another four birds, one of which Garrett also managed to drop.

A brace of grouse taken up high.

Not a bad day at all, two snipe in the morning and two grouse in the afternoon. 

Rainy Afternoon Grouse

 “The physics of beauty is one department of natural science still in the Dark Ages. Everybody knows that the autumn landscape in the northwoods is the land, plus a red maple, plus a ruffed grouse. In terms of conventional physics, the grouse represents only a millionth of either the mass or the energy of an acre. Yet subtract the grouse and the whole thing is dead. An enormous amount of some kind of motive power has been lost.” – Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac”

In the quote above, Aldo Leopold was writing about Ruffed Grouse, here in Wyoming I hunt Blue Grouse.  Hunted behind a dog, blues are not all that different from their ruffed cousins. The blue grouse is a bit larger, probably a bit slower, and possibly dumber - but they inhabit the same kind of cover as the ruffed grouse and they perhaps hold a bit better for a dog than a ruffie does.  In terms of their ability to escape from danger - they are no less wily, they somehow always manage to put a tree between themselves and the hunter before they embark on their  thunderous escape.

Blue grouse hunting starts on September first in Wyoming. It's the first bit of the hunting season. For me, there is a nice symbiosis between grouse hunting and hunting for deer and elk.  Grouse tend to inhabit the edges of the best elk habitat and they live in the same country mule deer do.  This means that a grouse hunt is more than a casual deer and elk scouting trip. And it works the other way as well, I have found my best grouse coverts by noticing birds while hunting deer and elk.

Hard work on a rainy afternoon in the grouse coverts.

One day earlier this week Mike and I managed to get away from work a few hours early to hit some favorite grouse coverts.  I prefer to not say which day that was. We did not plan on the rain - hell, it hasn't rained here in weeks.  Never mind, I followed Erdos carrying the new Sidley 20GA SxS and Mike followed his setter Luna carrying one of a pair of 16GA Woodwards. We got into birds, big males in one covert and some young of the year in another.

Mike and Erdos in good cover. Where Luna?

The grouse theorists pretty much all say that at this time of year the big males will be up high and the young of the year down lower near water.  It's all about the altitude - when you find birds - stay at that level and you'll find more.  This theory may make perfect sense along the Front Range in CO where the forest starts around 6000 feet and goes up to around 10,000 in a kind of continuous rise.  Here in southeast Wyoming, the forest starts around 7500 feet and in large areas there is not a lot of elevation gain or loss for many many square miles.  There are grouse there and they don't migrate up or down as much as the biologists might have us believe.  I think they a re more keyed to water than altitude in these areas.  Once the snow flies, they are freer to find the big Firs they like for winter cover. My evidence is that I tend to find grouse year round in the same spots every year and it seems to have little to do with altitude.  Where I mostly hunt - it's all high - around 8000 feet or more.

Sidley 20GA with a brace of Blues.

In the first covert Mike and I hit we got into a large covey of big male birds. There were at least eight birds, maybe more, I lost count.  I only managed one bird there though a good shot might have had her limit and an unethical hunter even more than the allowed three.  The bird I shot was a big male as were the others in covey - or so I believe. In the second bit of cover we hit, one I had never hunted before but which looked good, Erdos went on point and a bird flushed as I moved up. It uncannily managed to perfectly place a tree between me and his escape.  As the bird exploded out of the cover, I shot the tree and the bird flew off unharmed.  And then, for the first time this year, Erdos did not run off after the escaping bird. He has a great nose but he suffers from having had a poor trainer. (That would be me.) When he does run off after a bird he bumps the others in the covey on his way and I am reduced to watching them all bombing up and flying off into the distance. A beautiful sight - but not the one I hope for.  This time, with some serious urging from me, he stayed with me.  He pointed another bird quite nearby and as is flew up I managed to cleanly drop a mature female.

Mike and Luna with a brace of grouse.

On the way out, we spotted a covey crossing the road.  We stopped and moved in on the birds and  Mike managed some nice shooting and dropped two birds on the wing as darted off between the pines.

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Even though all of us, dogs and men, got very wet, it was a wonderful afternoon.  The symbiosis of the grouse and elk hunt was working too, in anticipation of upcoming elk seasons, we spotted two nice bull elk on the drive out.

Gun Trading

Trading is a great way to do business, no money exchanges hands and (hopefully) everyone gets what they want. The problem is finding someone who has what you want and is willing to pass it on and that same someone must want something you have and that you are willing to give up.

W. R. Sidley, 20 GA British boxlock  with 30" barrels and chambered for 2 1/2" shells. 

Recently, Stephen Bodio and I have been corresponding about guns, hunting and life in general. Our mutual friend Gerry (who introduced us to one another) knows that I've been looking to replace my 20 GA Citori Superlight with a SxS boxlock (preferably British) and he also happened to believe that Steve might be interested in thinning his battery.   Steve recently acquired a gun that makes his 20 GA British boxlock redundant in his own battery.  Bodio got this very interesting shotgun in a trade a few years ago. He wrote about it on his blog under the heading Gun Deal.

British 10 GA - Steve's ideal in a sitting turkey gun.

 Based on Gerry's suggestion, I suggested to Steve that he might have a gun that I might be interested in. Steve quickly constructed a rather interesting trade.  He was willing to trade his light weight 20 GA boxlock (with elegantly long 30" barrels and beautiful wood ) for a 10 GA Damascus barrelled gun that he sees himself using for turkeys. Of course the glitch is that I don't own a 10 GA, Damascus barrelled or otherwise, so how are we to trade?  Steve had his eye on a 10 GA that he wanted and quoted me the price.  I sent him the funds for the 10 GA (plus the cost of shipping the twenty to me) and before I knew it the Sidley boxlock was at N. L. Heineke's shop in Laramie.

The Sidley arrived in Laramie - on the leather covered counter at N.L. Heineke.

Nathan Heineke in his shop - a former bank building - looking for some 2 1/2" 20 GA shells.

Steve's twenty (now mine) is indeed a very elegant and light gun. When I first picked it up I was astounded by how light it was and good it felt in the hand.  Light guns are not necessarily favourites of experienced gunners - that's because they tend to not have enough inertia through a swing,  The 30" barrels make up for that on this gun.  In one email regarding the gun Steve wrote: 

You will rarely see any 28 as slim and elegant as this 20 -- if you are not used to good English shotguns its lines will amaze you, and the smallness of the action.  I wanted it the moment I saw it, and all romantic analogies apply!  Good Brit 20's compare in looks with US 28's and 410's and pattern better.

It really is a light gun, I believe Nate's scale read 5 lbs 2 oz.  He went over the gun carefully and declared it sound.  The gun shows more wear on the outside than it does inside with the locks in near new condition and it's had some work done on it to try to mitigate that difference.  It was reproofed in London in 2002 and, based on barrel wall thickness measurements, it is still in proof. The right choke is a "bell" or "trumpet" choke (-.005") and the left barrel is what Nate called a tight quarter choke at (.009") - others would call it Improved Cylinder.  We patterned the gun and it shoots to point of aim.  I thought the gun balanced perfectly - Nate says it could loose 2 ounces from the butt end and be better balanced.  To prove it to me he taped 2 ounces to the barrels about 14 inches north of the triggers.  I have to admit that there was a subtle but noticeable difference.  This is one of those ineffable things.  You can't specify the point on the gun (say 4" in front of the trigger guard) where it should balance, it should feel balanced when you naturally hold it in your hands.

A twenty  chambered for 2 1/2" shells is essentially the British equivalent of a modern twenty-eight. The standard load in a 2 1/2" twenty gauge shell is 7/8 oz of shot while modern 28 gauge shells carry 3/4 ounce - an eighth of an ounce less.   So a light weight 2 1/2" twenty is a lot like a twenty-eight carrying 16% more shot.  You can find 7/8 ounce loads for the twenty-eight (Fiocchi makes them) and you can find 2 1/2" 20 GA shells loaded with a hair less than an ounce of shot (Gamebore makes them).   In fact, I was able to buy a few boxes of these at Jax in Fort Collins so I do have some shells - if not grouse loads.  These heavy loads are pushing the limits. The standard loads for my gun are made by RST and they sell them by the flat (250 shells per) reasonably priced and in every possible configuration you might like.

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In the end I'd say this was a perfectly constructed trade.  Thank you Steve!  He'll get what he wants and I'm very happy with what I got - even if it may have seemed to Steve at some point that I was dragging my feet.  I took the gun out chasing Blue grouse for a few hours yesterday and although we did not flush even one bird (unlike the day before) I did get to spent a few hours in the field with the new gun and am even happier with it than I was before.  I'm hoping it will turn out to be a magic grouse wand.

Rob Kelly (1956 - 2006)

Rob Kelly leading the Great White Book on the Stately Pleasure Dome, Tuoloumne. 1987

My friend Rob Kelly died on this day in 2006. I've been thinking of him all day today and thought I'd put up some of the photos I have as a remembrance. We shared real adventures together in some of the most beautiful places in the world.  He was a reliable and trustworthy climbing partner and friend and he died too young.

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In 1986 Rob, Don Hamilton and I climbed in the Canadian Rockies and the Bugaboos in British Columbia.

Rob Kelly on the summit of Mt. Athabasca in the Canadian Rockies. 1986

Lunch on the summit of Pigeon Spire in the Bugaboos, BC.  1986

The Howser Towers peeking over the Snowpatch (left) Bugaboo (right) col. 1986

Approach to Pigeon Spire, the view from the Snowpatch Bugaboo col. 1986

In 1987 I climbed with Rob in Tuoloumne Meadows in the Yosemite high country.  We did many of the classic rotes including the spectacular Regular Route on Fairview Dome.

Rob on the Great White Book in Tuoloumne. 1987

Fairview Dome, Tuoloume. 1987

Rob Kelly high on the regular route on Fairview Dome, Tuoloumne. 1987

Rob Kelly after a swim in an icy lake in the Yosemite high country. 1987

Drifting the North Platte

Blue heron watching / Patient at the waters edge / Speared rainbow wriggles

For someone who mostly wades rivers, floating is a different approach, it provides a different perspective.  Drifting downstream, the path of the river through the landscape unfolds before you. When wading, the river passes you by, flowing around your legs as you work to keep yourself well planted to the bottom.   On a float, each bend reveals something new: an osprey dropping into the river and coming up with a large trout in its talons; a lone buck antelope silhouetted against a deep blue sky; a blue heron patiently waiting for and unwary trout. You'll see many of the same sights while wading but floating streams them to you in continuous succession.

You can't argue with results - nice rainbow hen taken on a WD40 emerger.

And of course there is the difference in the quality of the fishing.  I've always felt that carefully and successfully working a run on foot is the best demonstration of an anglers skill.  Drifting in a boat, with your line overboard, waiting for a hookup, seems rather stochastic.  Hookups come as a surprise.  It seems to me that it has more to do with the skill of the oarsman - who works hard to keep the boat tracking through the best water - than it does with the skill of the angler.  I haven't done much drift boat fishing so maybe I am not tuned to the finer points.

A boat gets you to water you could not otherwise get to but, without some superhuman rowing on the part of your oarsman,  you may not be able to fish it as thoroughly as you might like. In Wyoming we have the absurd law that, even for navigable waterways, the bottom of the river is the property of the landowner.  This means that dropping an anchor is a form of trespassing.  Notoriously, there are posses that patrol the private stretches of water.

John with a nice rainbow early in the float.

In the photo above the rectangular red sign over John's right shoulder indicates private land upstream of the sign.   The opposite side is blue indicating that downstream of the sign the banks are publicly accessible.  Sometimes this is through the generosity of a land owner who has granted access to the public (thank-you) and other times it really is public land - state or federal. Red private - blue public.

They don't call them "greenbacks" for nothing - a nice rainbow being released.

Grousing about access aside - we had a great float. We hooked, played and landed plenty of good fish. Great thanks to Jeff's friend and neighbor John D. Baker.  Aside from being our generous host, John is an artist, a falconer, a master angler, a hunter and a generous oarsman.  I can recommend his website: ravenstudioarts.com where you'll find an array of wildlife art.  I especially like the drawing of the stooping peregrine on the front page of his website. 

We floated from the Gray Reef Access to Government bridge.

We floated from the boat ramp just below the Gray Reef dam to the takeout just below Government bridge, a distance of 10 miles. It was a lazy trip and we stopped and fished from the bank when possible. The float times listed here is six and a half hours for a raft; drift boats times can be faster. John's boat is an RO skiff, which has to be just about the perfect rig for the North Platte. It had plenty of room for the three of us with casting stations fore and aft and with its lower sides it is less affected by wind.  We took our time, shoving off from Gray Reef at about 8:30 AM and getting off the water at Government Bridge at about 5:30. Next time I think I'd take out at Lusby - although we caught fish, the section between Lusby and Government Bridge is slower water and not quite as interesting.  This was John's recommendation - wish we'd taken it.

John with a nice cutbow.

Throughout the day we hooked up on a number of patterns.  I started out with a two fly rig, a bead-head caddis pupa and a  mercury midge on the point. Eventually I switched the point fly to a WD40 and then switched to a dark leech pattern in favor of the caddis pupa. I hooked fish on all the patterns though the WD40 was the most productive pattern. Interviewing some others who came into the ramp after us Jeff found out they'd had a rough day with few fish - couldn't tell it by us.