Muzzleloader deer

So Wednesday morning begins the season for muzzleloader deer in Utah and I have a tag this year. It's the first time that I will be trying it out. Not hunting, but hunting with a muzzleloader. It will seriously limit my range and I will most likely only get 1 shot at any one deer.

I decided after a number of years of hunting the general rifle deer season in Utah that unless I was going to either buy a large piece of private land, or spend a ridiculous amount of time and effort hiking, scouting and generally obsessing over deer that I needed to try a different hunt time. With any luck I should be able to see a few bucks this season as they haven't been hunted for two months straight yet and should hopefully not be overly gun shy.

I'll head up tomorrow and spend the night in my GI standard issue canvas pup tent that I have left from my ARMY days. It'll be cold but not terrible. The next few nights I have a friend that's coming up in his travel trailer and has room for me so... lucky me!

I'll be keeping my eyes out for a few blue Grouse as well. from what I've heard this is a bumper year for them. we'll see.

I'd be pretty happy to have some all natural venison to eat over the winter so wish me luck!
P~

Hunting season again

It's been hunting season again.

I've been able to spend some wonderful time in the high mountains around here, watch some beautiful sunrises and finished off a couple of good days with spectacular sunsets. I did see some deer, even had a chance to shoot at a small buck, but the little guy just wasn't ready to come home with me. Another couple of years maybe and we'll see.

I did get some nice pictures though, I shared them on my GRIT magazine blog last week, but I was holding out for a good buck picture for you, unfortunately there are none. Enjoy the ones I did get nonetheless.






This video I took at nearly 11,000 feet elevation up in the Uinta Mountains of North Eastern Utah. The view was worth the hike, but I sure wish I had found the four deer who's tracks I was following...



Alas, just like gardening, There's always next year, or in this case, the next season, which starts this weekend for my middle son. I hope he has a good first hunt.

Till next time.
Paul~

This and that

Just a little bit of this and that today.

Check out the girls at the buffet...

This is a backyard lawn view of the Chicken tractor moving along the lawn. It's amazing how well they will scratch up the dead grass and thatch, and will spread their manure. Our back lawn has loved it this summer!


This years trial plant was a little different. We usually try a new veggie, but this year, a new melon made the list.
It was the "melon charentais". An heirloom french melon that gets great reviews and for good reason; this is a great cantaloupe and it's a actual cantaloupe too, not a musk melon being "called" a cantaloupe like the things we here in the US get in the market. I made sure to save a good bit of seed too. This one's a keeper!

And thought some of you out there from back east, or from abroad may enjoy a look at the fall in the Rockies.
I was out hiking this weekend, scouting for the upcoming Deer and Elk season.
These pictures are from about 2.5 to 3 miles into the back country and after climbing from about 5200' elevation to 7200 feet. It was NOT an easy hike, but I'm happy to say that I've fared alright for as bad of shape as I expected to be in.
I'm thinking that this year, I'm going to camp under stars in the back country for a couple of days during the hunt. I've never pack hunted that far in before, but I've always wanted to. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.

Hope all's well with you.
Till next time.
Paul~

The Hunt / Selling America

Well as I said, I didn't get a deer this year. But as I also said, it wasn't for lack of trying. the photo to the left is a picture from near the apex of my hike last friday while I was trying to track my quarry. If you enlarge it you'll see the arrow that seems to point to the side of a hill, it's actually pointing to the valley beyond it. This is where I started my hike that day. All told it came out to be about 6 miles and a little over 1000 verticle feet, and still nothing. I can't say it was for nothing though, there's really not a better way of seeing this part of the country. I do have a little bitch though. While I was out hunting and walking my legs off, I came across a few others and learned that most of the area I was hunting had been recently sold off to a developer who was planning to divide it and sell it off into 10-20 acre "Ranchettes". I'm torn on this to a certain degree. On the one hand I believe that if a person works hard and can afford the luxuries that life affords then it is up to them to decide which of those they want to have. I am a strong believer in personal freedom and rights, and typically a very staunch opponent of governmental regulation. I can't however, get myself to a point where I think that it is OK for the goverment to sell off our country into ranchettes. My son in all his 12 yr old wisdom asked me, "What's the difference between that and where our house was built? It used to be farms right?" Yeah it did, and although that land was purchased from an individual, it originally was a possession to some degree of the government, probably homesteaded and claimed sometime along the way. So what is the difference? I guess time, and perspective. We are in a different time; we've moved beyond the point where we merely took and claimed land. As for perspective, the land that we live in is far less uncommon than the mountain lands that I'm talking about. I guess I see them as national treasures, things to be kept and maintained for posterity and shared by all. While spending time in the mountains over the last few years I see more and more private property areas. No trespassing signs are becoming the norm, and more and more the "common" man is being relegated to strips of land here and there where logging is common and hunting is scarce. It's a sad fact I guess. This being said, I would still like to have a small cabin of my own some day, not a Ranchette mind you but a small place where my family and I can be in and enjoy the woods, not necesarily own them. I learned to share when I was a kid and I don't have a problem with it today, but how do you justify selling just small portions and not large ones without regulation? See my quandry? What's your opinion?

P~

Snow and Fire

I've been in the mountains since Friday with the family; mom, dad, and the wife and kids. My dad, my son and I hunted hard through the weekend, but unfortunatly came up empty handed. We expected cold weather going into the hunt, I mean it wouldn't be deer camp without brisk fall mornings and perhaps a little snow....

Um, I said a LITTLE snow! We got there Friday and scouted a bit, decided on where we wanted to sit the next morning and then ate a great dinner and got to bed. The next morning we got an early start and hiked the mile and a half out to the ridgeline we wanted to hunt and watched for the sunrise. Then the wind picked up... and up... and then the snow started to come. It was just the little flurries and the wind, then the big flakes came. By the end of the day the ground was white, and by morning we had nearly a foot. The snow came on and off through Monday. Yesterday morning we decided to get a late start expecting it to be too cold for anything to be up and moving, it was 15 deg when we got out, it had been only 5 deg that morning according to the camp caretakers. I do have to say though that the cabin we stayed in was very comfortable, and if I was going to spend a cold hunt coming home empty handed then this was the way I would want to do it; spending the evenings playing cards, telling old stories and singing tangy old country songs (Much to my wifes displeasure!).

When we got home today we learned about the fires raging in San Diego county. I grew up there, not many miles from one of the fronts. My parents learned about the fires and spoke to my sister in Temecula who can watch the fires from her bedroom window. We've had friends of the family displaced from mandatory evacuations and others including my sister prepared in case they are called. I guess this is just how life works. Snow and Fire.

Carmel Mountain Road fire photo credit: ALBERT JOHNSON / For SignOnSanDiego

I hunt, therefore I am.

I eat meat. A lot less than I used to but yeah, I'm a carnivore. I'm also trying to be more responsible about what I put into my body. This isn't why I began hunting, but as I see it, it fits in perfectly.
Hunting is always something that I wanted to do. I grew up in Southern California, and although it's not a barren wastland for hunters, as you may expect, it's not a very common thing. My dad grew up here in Utah, and as a young man he and his brothers hunted every year. It was a very different affair then than it is now. He has told me of the nights sleeping in a "shepards tent", a wool blanket on top of a tarp then flipped over the top of you. They also didn't only hunt for the sport of it; meat was expensive, and they weren't rich. I think that this perspective may have lead my father away from taking me hunting as a kid. I am glad to say that for the last five years, last year excluded due to a broken arm with two metal plates and 12 screws, my dad has made it a point of coming up here and sharing the experience with me. This year, I will have the privilidge of sharing it with my 12 yr old C~.
In todays fast world, where nearly everything we consume is cut cleaned packed and prepared with little to no interaction from us, I think it is important to share something that brings us into intimite contact with where our food comes from. It helps us to define anew our position in the world, and in the food chain. Growing a garden is much the same thing but the relationship is different. I can neglect my garden from time to time, pick some and perhaps not use it soon enough, but the plant persists and completes it's life cycle. To hunt, at it's most elemental, is to take a life to sustain another. There is a level of responsibility in that action that exists nowhere else. I am responsible to the animal that I take, to respect it by ensuring that I am effective and concise in my taking of it. I also have a responsibility to my son, and to other hunters, to ensure that I pass on not only the craft of pursuing the game to him, but the ethics and sense of responsibility in it. Also, much in the same way that my father hunted for meat, I too hunt to eat. I would take a trophy buck if one presented itself, but that is not my purpose. No matter how hard I've looked, I've never found a good recipe for antlers.
I know there are a lot of people out there that look unfavorably on hunting and in turn on hunters. They see it as an unnecessary act, a cruelty and a barbarism held onto by beer guzzling partiers with guns. Let's be realistic, in some circumstances that is true, but hunters are also some of the greatest conservationists in the nation. Without them and the fees they pay, many of our national parks and game preserves would not exist. As humans we are not removed from the wild world, as much as it may seem at times. Because we live here, and because our impact is felt regardless of how hard we try to reduce it, we have a responsibility to manage our herds and to optimize their range and numbers. I hope to be a part of that managment program, but I'll leave that to the fates.

I'd love to hear from you on this. What are your feelings? Are you opposed? Will you never read me again because of it? I'm curious.
P~