Ice & snow and a road hunt doe

[Okanagan]

The short version is in the title.  But here’s a sample of casual western hunting, with a doe only permit.



At 4:00 AM Sat. the sloppy wet from melting snow and rain had turned to ice.  Slid around so much in my 4x4 that within a quarter mile I decided it was stupid to drive in such conditions for a deer.  So I went back to bed and started again at 8:00, sunshine & sanded roads.  Up on the pass on compact snow, a car coming toward me on the other side of the freeway crashed into the concrete center barrier right beside me.

A 20 mile detour due to closed freeway, plus a coffee stop etc. got me to my old hunting area in mid afternoon.  More deer tracks in 7 inches of fresh snow than I expected, migration and rut both.  And not a single vehicle track broke the snow on the roads I drove.  On my way to my main place, I called on the back trail of a big footed deer that crossed the road into timber.  Nada, but killed more daylight.  If something comes to a call it was a good hunting decision.  If not, I was stupid to waste the time!

Driving up the steep branch road to my favorite place, from a lookover 800 feet above the valley I spotted mule deer a half mile away in the partly clearcut basin below.  There were at least 7 does and maybe 9, scattered over a quarter mile.  I didn’t know which road led to where they were but intended to try.



Driving ahead to find a turn around, a doe trotted across.  I called to her from the road and glimpsed her twice in the thick Christmas tree reprod.  She snorted and blew at me for five minutes, gradually moving away.

Deer were moving so I made a quick drive to see a clearcut not far ahead before going down after the does below.  A snowdrift high centered me as the road crested the open logged off plateau, and it took 20 minutes to get unstuck.  On the way back past the viewpoint, all but one of the does below had disappeared, and I didn’t see any in the deepening dusk when I got down near them.

Cooked some Bavarian smokies (wieners) over a fire, flipped the seat back and slept where I could see a mix of clearcut, selectively logged and fairly open old growth pine and fir forest.

At dawn I didn’t start the engine nor turn on any but a small red light, and glassed the country around.  Nothing.  A foot patrol peek into nearby basins also came up empty.  Hmmm… Road hunting the many clearcuts and glassing was the most efficient way to find a deer so I took off driving, not that I wanted to turn on the heater or anything.

On the way back to the main haul road a mile away, I drove up each spur off the branch road.  On the second spur as the road curved into a clearcut, four does were on the hillside to my right, 60 yards ahead.



I stepped out, loaded my single shot Savage 111 (lost the detachable magazine a couple of weeks ago and have not received replacement yet), and shot the only one standing broadside.  25 yard drag to the road.



I packed the gutted animal with snow, turned it to drain for awhile and wiped the inside clean before loading it.

For the rest of the day I used the good weather and tracking to research branches of the migration route and spots where deer bunch up along the way.  I had another mule deer tag.  This late in the season the area is only open for bucks 4 points or better above the eyeguard.  I love to hunt that late season for big ones and wish I’d had more time.  Within a half mile of my doe, a fork horn stood in open timber at 130 yards.  Saw 18 deer total that day and called one doe to a stand intended for bucks.

[John_NY]

That's some nice looking country. A day out there and getting nothing would be a good day just seeing the scenery.

John

[HaMeR]

Nice doe. Nice write-up & Beautiful country up there!! Thanks for sharing.

[coyote101]

Nice doe. Nice write-up & Beautiful country up there!! Thanks for sharing.

I agree.

Pat

[FinsnFur]

I'm with these guys. Just carousing around in that terrain would be awesome

Nice job on the doe.
I hoping to have one yet. Were going to open back up for four more days in December.

[FOsteology]

Filling the freezer is always a plus! Scenic looking country side, but looks too cold for me!

[Hawks Feather]

Thanks for taking me along on the hunt.  Loved the views.

Jerry

[KySongDog]

Great pics!   And congrats on the doe.    

But I gotta ask.  Who owns all of that ground?     Down here you would have had to deal with 50 farmer/landowners to cover half that territory.  

[pitw]

      I'm sorry but I pictured Jimmie sleeping in the vehicle. 

   Nice read for a fact and the fact you got meat was most excellent.  I like playing on icy stuff but then I don't got them 800' falls. .  Semp I think the Pakistani government now owns that land .

[Okanagan]

Great pics!   And congrats on the doe.    

But I gotta ask.  Who owns all of that ground?     Down here you would have had to deal with 50 farmer/landowners to cover half that territory.  

Thank you all.  

The land is mainly what is called Crown Land (from belonging to the king or the "state" as in Federal government).  It is equivalent to national forest land in the US as I understand it.  

I drove through a good 20 miles or so of the Douglas Lake Ranch on a public through-road to get into this country.  That's one of the world's great ranches I've heard.  That's all posted as are several miles of Indian Reserve and another smaller ranch. FWIW saw two coyotes on the ranch on the way in, and one in the public land forest on the way out.  Slightly puzzling not to see more coyotes.  

[Okanagan]

FWIW I hunt the deer that are migrating from high country to winter grounds by driving roads and checking tracks till I figure out where most of the deer are.  Then I still hunt through timber patches that seem like they will hold the most deer, slowly hunting the opposite direction of the migration.

This is the second such doe I've ever killed in there from along a road.  Earlier in the Fall I have backpacked up on roadless ridges and taken some humongous bucks, and taken others still hunting in timber during the snow migration, calling them at times.  This past weekend, I had figured out where most of the deer were when I ran out of time.  

When I found this migration pattern years ago, there was one faint wagon road, 4x4 passable, that threaded through the main high valley.  They were logging the first clearcuts in vast unbroken timber.  Now vast swaths of it are logged, way more than I photographed.  The majority is open clearcut, partly due to trying to kill off the pine beetles.  Access is up with many roads, and deer numbers are rising with the increase in brush forage.  With the trees gone, sunlight gets to the ground  so grass, berries etc. all flourish, as do bears, moose, deer, etc. that eat such forage.

[bambam]

Beautiful country. Congrats on the deer.