Toby and Sara’s season

In April of 2008 we started working on the ranch, cleaning up the compound, scouting deer, and doing some pig hunting. This year was definately going to be a lot different than it had for the last 20 years. Aunt Alice had passed away. Deer camp without Alice had never happened before. We all wanted to adher to Alice’s standards of how the cabin compound needed to readied for deer season; keep up her traditions of how things were done. And above all, shoot the “big bucks” that she always expected us to come back with.

Sara and I had hunted the ranch since the archery opener, so we had had our encounters with some of the “big bucks” and had a few of them somewhat figured out, if you can do that with a mature blacktail. During archery season I had been down right schooled by a top of the mountain monster blacktail, chased sounders of hogs, stalked a monster boar only to be busted by does and yearling bucks. Sara even had a great laugh at my expense when I made a rookie move while stalking a nice buck with my recurve. I forgot about the does…never forget the does.

Opening weekend of rifle season was not a hunting trip. Sure, we had our rifles…but we were waking Alice above all else. We spread Alice’s ashes all over her ranch, had friends and relatives over for BBQ and drinks. Sent her off in high style.  

The second weekend was the opener for us. Sara and I, and our Rhodesian Ridgeback Brodie, had the place to ourselves. Brodie was new to hunting, and new to us, as we had just rescued him a few months earlier. Since then I have found that there is not much you can teach a Ridgeback about hunting…all the dumb ones had died in Africa.

We started the morning with the traditional morning hunt. We went below the cabin to the razorback ridge…”Below the Rock” we called it, or “Alice’s Rock”, which used to be her stand. This time though I put Sara on the Rock, while I went below. I left Brodie at the truck, since we still weren’t sure of each other. Alice must have been there, too, since as soon as I started my still hunt, four of the big boys came out from under the trees, hell bent for the safety of the bottom of the creek.

First in line was the King. All I saw was a set of 4 x 4 antlers, wide, tall, and thick, and an upright tail as he went over the side. Second and Third were just a tad smaller then Himself. By this time my Marlin 336c was up and tracking, 180 grain .30-30 in the chamber. The Second and Third had turned tail to me and followed the King, leaving the Fourth wondering just what the heck was going on and where was everyone going in such a hurry. Just about the time he realized he was in the wrong place at the wrong time he caught a bullet in the shoulder. He buckled and started to go down. I decided he needed one more and put another next to the first. I had shot the first buck of the season and he was a nice three pointer!

Sara and I managed to hunt the ranch almost every weekend this year. My brother and uncle joined us a few times, my nephews as well as a couple of friends. One weekend we had my uncle, my brother, one nephew, Sara and I. So we decided we had the numbers required to push the manzinita scrub on the front side of the mountain. Jim and Parker started the push, Uncle Bob was the block on the far side, and Sara and I did a moving stand/block on the top watching the escape routes. This area is a bedding area for big bucks and lots of deer. It is also the area where I was schooled by a bruiser during the archery season. Jim radioed up that he was already moving deer, and he had just started. The deer were going downhill though, not up through us or out to Bob. The push is a side hill hike, under the thick bedding area, to make the bucks move out or up. This usually works every other year or so, once each year. Not to say we d on’t try it more than once, but that is our success rate on this particular hunt.

 

Sara and I are moving across the top, according to Jim’s directions as to where he and Parker are. I bump past Sara, telling her to hold this draw, a nice escape route with lots of open, grassy hillside. I go down to the last stand, take a seat on a log, facing the direction that I know the deer will come from. The last deer killed on this hunt was by me, in this same spot, two years earlier. That buck was a very nice 3 x 2 with heavy, chocolate brown antlers. I hadn’t even settled in when Sara calls on her radio…”Big buck coming your way”… I stand up and look towards her direction and see a very nice buck trotting over the rise, coming sidehill to me. If his path holds true he’ll cross about 20 yards downhill from me. I raise the Marlin and cock the hammer, safety off, and start tracking him through the Ghost Ring sight. I think I’ve got him at about fifty yards so I pull the trigger, and miss. Too soon. Lever a round in, concentrate, leading him just so, right to left, he’s just below me now….fire! He barrels in to a downed tree and out of sight! I head down hill, hoping he wasn’t just kidding and was now on his feet running into the drainage. He wasn’t kidding. He was piled up next to the log. Taking no chances I give him one more in the neck for good measure. Then I take a deep breath and let the adrenaline of the moment go through me. And realize that I had shot another nice buck, with my open sight Marlin .30-30, not 20 yards from where I had shot a nice buck two years earlier. And I thought to myself…Alice would be happy about that. That buck was truly a group effort and a memory that we will share forever.

We’re in September now, driving the jeep on another section of the ranch, going to glass the front side. Just Sara, Brodie the Ridgeback, and I. We stop at an opening in the trees overlooking the back side and I glass…TIP!!! Always buy the best glass you can afford, and then some!…through my 8.5 x 42 Swaro’s. I see a line of movement in the trees, across the valley below. Pigs. We haven’t been seeing deer, so we both had the same reaction. Let’s go get some pork! We pick up the pace and in a couple of minutes I park the jeep on a hill top over looking where I had seen the pigs. Sara and I get out the long guns for this shot. Her Browning. 243 and my Thompson Center Encore in .270. We see the hogs about 130 yards downhill from us. They are crossing right to left, between trees down by a spring. Sara tries to line up on them but she can’t get a good shot. She tells me to shoot if I can. I’m lined up, and was being polite letting the wife get the first shot. As soon as the words are out of her mouth I drop the hammer. And eat my words…too high. The Encore is a single shot, and I’ve perfected the quick reload with it. Hogs are just milling around below so I get another round in, correct my elevation, and drop the hammer again. A pig goes down! Looks like a great shot! The other pigs clear out and I’m glassing the down pig. Da bugga gets up! Come on, I say to myself, I had just put 150 grains of .270 right in your pump station area, and you’re getting up? Three more rounds sent downrange with no hits and he’s now under cover.

I send Sara down to get on him, and I take Brodie and the jeep around to the bottom to block. I case the Encore and pull out the trusty Marlin. Get Brodie out of the jeep to get him on track (we know each other better now) and he and I start heading up the hill. We bust a lung getting up to the area where I think this hog went to cover. Sara is on one side of the ridge now and Brodie and I are on the other. I’m out climbing the dog at this point…I think he smelled Mom and went to go find her…And as I crest the rise I see my hog above me, walking very slowly and unsure of his next step, go behind ridge. I speed up again as I know where he’s coming out. I get around the little ridge into the next drainage and there he is, 100 yards uphill, standing broadside. I raise the Marlin and finish the job. Lucky me, he falls within dragging distance of a jeep trail! I gather Sara and Brodie and we go recover the hog. Sorry, no pictures of the pig. He turns out to be a nice eating size young boar, about 100 lbs or so. I turn him in to Bud’s Custom Meats and pick up a box of venison. Matt and I joke about my butcher’s bill.

It is the second to last weekend of the season now. And there is rain in the forecast! My brother and his friend had just left the ranch, unsuccessful, having not seen any deer. My deer tags are filled, but I still carry pig tags, and Sara has yet to fill her buck tags. One of my friends is coming up to join us for pigs this weekend. It’s Thursday night, and as we get to the gate…Giant buck in the headlights of the truck! Right above the cabin. Jim is not going to think this is funny, but I call him on the cell phone anyway…what’s a little ribbing between brothers, right? Hey Jim, what do you mean no bucks? I got one right here, at the gate, broadside. Big one too. Too bad it’s 8 pm. He’s not amused.

Friday morning we head out in the jeep. Brodie is in his usual spot in the back of the jeep. The ranch had been pretty well worked over by my brother and his friend, and his friend’s lab had searched the bedding areas to boot. We decide to sit and glass the front side of the ranch. We know there are animals around, and we start to see them move as the front starts to roll in. It is cold, misty, and staring to drizzle. At this point I’m guessing it’ll be raining in a few minutes. Sara and the dog are asking for more comfortable conditions…as in let’s go trade in the open top jeep for the F-150 so we have a roof and a heater while we’re glassing. So we start to motor on back to the cabin for the truck.

I swear, Alice is watching again. She’s always liked Sara and encouraged her hunting. We are driving on the main ridge road, back to the cabin, where Jim, his friend, and the lab had worked that drainage over big time the day before. I look to my left, as I always do driving this section of road, and there, in the pouring rain, is a buck and a doe bedded in the grass on the open hillside, a 135 yard shot. I know the yardage because Jim and I have shot many, many bucks on this same hillside, from this same spot, over the years. I stop the jeep, and tell Sara to get out and get ready. She’s kneeling in the grass on the side of the dirt road now, I’m glassing the buck over her shoulder. Sara and I have been hunting together for some time, so we don’t need say much to each other… Toby: “Good buck.” Sara: “Boom!” And again, I’m thinking…”Alice will be happy about this one.” 

I have to cross a pretty deep drainage and get up the other side to recover this buck. Brodie is as excited as we are and is bouncing all over the place, trying to decide if he wants to follow me or stay and “protect” Mom. I get up to the buck and he is dead. Sara had made another one of her surgically accurate shots. He’s is a nice 3 x 2 with a broken point and an eye guard. Would have been a 3 x 3 if that point hadn’t broken off.  I get the buck down the hill into the drainage, and up to a point on the other side where we can reach him with rope and drag him up with the jeep. The picture of Sara, Brodie and the buck is at this point. We winch him up almost all the way when I decide the winch is too slow and it’s raining harder. I re-rig, hop in the jeep, and reverse it up the road, pulling the buck up over the crest. Sara starts busting up laughing as Brodie is “chasing” the buck over the crest. We do the messy chores, and Brodie gets some goodies for his “help”.