An Outdoorsman’s Journal:

Pre-rut bow hunt and camping trip

Hello friends, I think that you will find this week’s column a tad bit different with an interesting point of view thrown into it. If you disagree, that is fine; but be nice.

Wednesday, Oct. 16 – High 63, low 27 My plan was simple: drive to the Durand area for a three-night, four-day bow hunting trip on the backwaters of the Chippewa River. This is a remote, very hard to get to location and if you are blessed with harvesting a deer, getting it out of the swamp can be a challenge. First setback: I am driving on the interstate and my mood is excellent when I realize I am one day off on the date that I have to leave for my Montana elk and mule deer hunt. Staying three nights on this hunt would only give me 48 hours at home before I have to leave. This hunt is now cut short to two nights.

Here is the zinger for this hunt. On my elk and deer hunt, both Selina and I have deer and elk tags; I am thinking we are going to make some meat.What I would like to harvest on my Chippewa River hunt is a buck or a very young deer. Why a young antlerless deer? Because the quality of the meat is absolutely incredible. Think about it this way: the taste of a 27-inch walleye compared to a 15-incher, a rooster compared to a young fryer, or a steer compared to an old bull.

On this hunt, I paddle to where I set up my portable stand and I have seen some beautiful bucks here. On my afternoon hunt, I saw very little sign of the rut but was well past due to sit in a tree and watch the world. A half hour before dark, I had a very large doe cross a marsh and come right at me. I made and stood by the decision that she was going to live because I wanted a young deer or a buck.

Thursday, Oct. 17 – High 72, low 35 I recently rebuilt my 14-foot duck skiff that had way too many leaks. Unfortunately, it still has a leak, but as long as I pull it out of the water when I get to my stand and back to camp, I am fine. For myself the adventure is what I seek in my bow hunts. I am pretty sure that by this point in my life I could have found a cushy situation for bow hunting and put a hurting on some big bucks, but that would bore me.

This morning I did not see a deer. This afternoon a humongous doe offered me an easy shot at 17 yards. She was actually smelling where my shoulder had brushed up against a tag alder branch. No matter what you think or do, they can smell you. This doe was the largest that I would have harvested in my life but she was given a free pass and I had no regrets. Friday, Oct. 18 – High 73, low 41 My paddles to the stand are either going to the stand in the dark or back in the dark, and as I have written in the past, I paddle by a beaver lodge and it is crazy funny and interesting how the local beaver family attacks me by splashing their tails in the water as loud as they can and in some cases I even get water on me. In the dark you have to have nerves of steel and keep on paddling.

I am always on my stand a half hour before daylight and I have to admit that for this hunt, I was simply too early for the rut but had no choice, as I am heading west. Just after daylight a young deer appeared from out of nowhere and was 7 yards away. It was too close to pull back on and then was in the brush. I had no cares, but it was the kind of animal that I am looking for; the big, old stuff will come in Montana. About an hour later I give a grunt on my grunt call and a deer comes at me pretty steadily from across a marsh and I am thinking, Tasty critter. At 10 yards I let an arrow fly that makes perfect contact, and thus my goal of a young deer was met. I hunted another two hours for a buck and had no luck. I dressed my deer, paddled it back to camp and in 45 minutes had it skinned, quartered and iced. In the future I am going to harvest more young deer, as no matter what anyone tries to say, the quality of the meat supersedes the“I’ve gotta shoot the old, tough-as-leather goat.” Montana and mountain adventure, here we come! Sunset

Mark Walters