An Outdoorsman’s Journal

By: Mark Walters

Return of The Red Brush Gang

Hello friends, This week and next I will be writing to you about the 10 days I spent at deer camp with the Red Brush Gang as we lived in our 18x36 foot shack, hunted hard and most certainly enjoyed our evenings as well. Our camp is in northern Juneau County and we hunt public land. It is just as much of a physical challenge as it is to see a deer.

Saturday, November 23 High 42, low 29

Today would be the 53rd year in a row that I have watched the sun come up here in northern Juneau County with the hopes of harvesting a buck. My brother Mike would be hunting about 300-yards from me, and he has now seen 55 sunrises in this part of the world. Altogether, 15 of us hit the woods well before dark with very high hopes, but also realistic expectations as our camps harvest as well as most hunters in this area have had low results for a number of years.

Long story short, there were some interesting stories including Doug Cibulka having a pack of wolves howl up a storm and then den up next to him. Ugly story short, not a buck was harvested today by the Red Brush Gang.

Sunday, November 24 High 45, low 33

This morning it was kind of more of the same for our gang. One buck was missed and most of us came to camp for lunch, which we do not often do on Saturday. Our good luck charm came to camp at this point and that was my 23-year-old daughter Selina Walters. Selina lives in Missoula, Montana, is a biologist for USFWS and wanted to come home for camp and so she did.Mike was going to hunt a different spot so I was going to put Selina in my stand and I was going to hunt Mike’s for the afternoon hunt. Just before we left camp my “Old Buddy” Jeff Moll pulls into camp. This just happens to be“Jeff, Mr. Lucky Moll’s”50th year in a row here and I invited him along with Selina and I. Long story short, I put Jeff in Mike’s stand, set up Selina and then went on a hike to find a spot for myself.

Just before quitting time there was a shot from Jeff’s direction, you know the spot “yours truly was supposed to be in,” and I get a text from Mr. Lucky, buck down! I have to tell you, that honestly made Selina and I very happy. Jeff is one of Selina’s favorite people in the world. None of us wanted to go into “The Sunday Night Party” with zero bucks on the pole and let me tell you, there was some solid energy in the festivities and Riley Schuster won our dart tournament.

Monday, November 25 High 35, low 27

Today is the last day of our Big Buck Tournament and Mr. Lucky’s fork horn had a solid lead. The buck bet ends on Monday because back when we were kids that is when camp used to end.

We do drives the rest of the season including today, and though we did not see many deer, a very large buck was missed with more than one shot. On one of our best drives in a heck of a trying spot where the pushers are walking on a lot of floating bog (horrible experience), we were confident no one else had done it this year and right at the end came to wolf/deer kill that was only a few hours old as the meat was still warm and not completely consumed. Long story short, the wolf beat us to the deer.

That evening it would just be Jeff Moll, “Mr. Lucky,” who now was drinking out of the buck cup and flaunting it to Ross Moll, Doug Cibulka, Jordan Moll, who is 9 and this would be his 3rd year at camp, and myself. While sipping on a very tasty brandy and consuming a fine meal we had a fire side chat and came up with a fine plan for the next day that would yield excellent results.

No matter what comes at us, we plow forward and have constant fun!

Sunset

Jeff Moll and Selina Walters at a very happy moment in our hunt.

Two of the Shuster boys, Riley, Trent and and their father, Dick, cooking up a storm at camp.

This deer was killed the same day we made the drive when we came upon it.