A time to gather groceries.
Hunting Season
In this area, there are many people who use the opportunity to harvest deer, and other animals during hunting season. It is not an unusual sight to see trucks along the edge of the woods marking where a hunter has entered the woods. The bright orange that’s worn by hunters is seen here and there as we go about this community. For many of us, it is our primary meat source throughout the year.
With Montana having 10 national forests, with a total of 19.39 million acres, there is a lot of wildlife and areas to hunt. That is just part of the 94,109,440 acres of our wilderness and public lands. Montana is a big state.
Near the beginning of the hunting season, Al took me hunting in the Yaak. The Yaak is part of the Kootenai National Forest. Depending on the road conditions, it’s about an hour drive from our home, giving us time to visit.
As we left our area, I told Al I was grocery shopping today – not antler hunting. He said he never thought of it quite that way! Al has enjoyed many seasons of being in the woods, and he likes to find those trophy bucks.
I got to listen to quite a few hunting stories as we drove. For those of you that know Al, you know he is usually pretty quiet. But he does love to spend time in the woods, and hunt.
As we drove up over the snowy pass, he had lots of hunting experiences to reminisce from hunting this area over the years.
Snowy mountain pass
Going into the Yaak means driving up over a mountain pass. The road has lots of curves with those mountain drop-offs and covered with snow this time of the year. This road, even though it is paved, is not maintained in the winter months, leaving it slippery and snow covered.
We found the road getting continually snowier as we climbed in elevation. As we neared the top of the pass, the 4-wheel drive could no longer make the climb in 14-18” of unplowed snow. Stopping to put the chains on the truck, we waded around in the snow. The road has just two tire ruts – few people attempt to go over the pass at this time of year.
Putting chains on the 4-wheel drive truck
Being near the top of the mountain, in the middle of the national forest, all is quiet. Along the road I noticed a water drainage that has continual water flow. Even with the snow piled high around it, there was bright green moss growing in the stream. A beautiful contrast to the whiteness of the snow.
With the chains on, we made it over the pass, then took them back off to continue on through the Yaak.
We watch for deer as we go. The snow shows a lot of tracks. Seen wolf tracks, as well as lots of deer.
Parking the truck at an old logging road, we decided to walk a little way into the woods to see what we could find. It’s all uphill.
Since I had both a buck and doe tag, I could harvest either/both. This is a tag that you can use for whitetail deer or mule. We prefer the whitetail meat, so that was what we were looking for.
Walking up the trail we make a lot of noise as the snow crunches under our feet. I do not have proper hunting clothes, so my snow pants do the swish, swish with every step I take. Needless to say, with all the noise we made we did not see anything but the white tail of one deer as it ran away.
Walking and stopping often to look and listen, we only went about a mile into the forest. We were just ready to turn around when we found elk tracks crossing the trail and headed down the mountain. Al has a bull elk tag, so he wanted to follow those fresh tracks down the mountain, eventually ending up back at the truck. Elk in this area is rare.
I knew that with my swishy pants, he would never see them if I went with him, besides, I really did not want the rougher terrain – walking over logs and forest tangles, carrying my gun.
So, we split ways. I slowly went back the way I came, and he went down the mountain. I had hoped his activity below me, would move some deer my way, but I walked all the way back to the truck and seen no wildlife besides a pine squirrel – and he chattered at me, disturbed by my presence.
It was too cold to sit for very long, so mostly I had to keep moving. I knew Al would explore, going a zig-zag pattern down the mountain along with his hunting, so I had lots of time.
Sitting
Arriving back at the truck, I was still plenty warm enough form my walk. I decided to sit on a tree stump close by for as long as I could endure the cold, and watch for deer. Then I could warm up in the truck.
So, I sat.
All is so quiet; the snow muffles the forest noises even more than usual.
Yet the forest lives in the stillness.
Another squirrel chatters at me and scampers away with a pine cone in his mouth.
The larch trees are dropping their yellow needles on the white snow – coloring the snow under the tree with piles of gold.
Blobs of snow that have been stuck on the pine trees let go and flump down on the snowy ground.
Even the occasional bug is seen.
Yet all is still.
I sat until the cold seeped through my layers of clothing and I needed to go warm my toes again. Even though I heard no movements, I took one last look around –
There stood a deer! Only about 45 yards away from me.
The small buck had moved so quietly through the forest, I had not heard him.
He put his head down again, giving me an opportunity to lift my gun and wait for him to step out from behind some fallen trees.
He never knew I was there until I shot.
Rearing up, he took off through the trees.
Immediately I doubted how accurate my shot was.
Taking a few minutes to wait before following him, I make some mental checkpoints of where he was, and where he ran so that I could trace his steps.
Getting off my stump, and walking the immediate area I shot him I did not see any blood. My heart sank at the thought of a wounded deer, that’s not all the way down. Walking in a broader area I got excited to see a blood trail.
Don’t think I ever rejoiced to see blood before.
He had not gotten far before he fell. It was a small three-point buck.
I waited a bit, thinking Al would soon be back. I cut the notches out of his tag, and warmed up in the truck while I waited.
The Next Job
One big reason Al and I were hunting together is so that he could gut the deer – I have never done that. Nor have I had instructions on how – and really didn’t want to know how!
Still Al was not back.
I knew that the sooner the deer was gutted, the better for the taste of the meat.
But Al had the knife in his backpack.
I rummaged around in the truck and found Al’s Leatherman. Not a very big – or sharp knife, but it would have to do.
I grabbed my latex gloves, and headed uphill, back to the deer. To attempt my hand at gutting. Ugh.
I carried my rifle back with me – it was getting heavy by this time of the day. But there was a possibility of finding a doe to harvest yet.
Then there is the risk of a bear or lion finding my kill.
So, how do you start gutting a deer? I was feeling somewhat clueless, and having a dull scrawny knife was not the best of options.
Just start, I guess.
My first mistake was to cut the gut area.
Talk about STINK!
But I was glad it spilled out on the snow, rather than inside the cavity, affecting the meat.
I managed to slowly get a good start on the gutting, but just did not know how to continue, it was a s.l.o.w. process.
By then my toes were frozen, so I went back to the truck to warm up again. I was rather frustrated that I could not finish the job.
After getting warmed up again, Al came walking in from the road – I sure was glad to see him!
Al confidently and quickly finished the gutting, explaining some as he went. He is more particular than many hunters and takes special care to get it cleaned well. Getting as much done as I did was a good thing, to cool down the deer as quickly as possible. Guess I did something right.
As Al was coming back to the truck he saw very fresh grizzly tracks only about 1/8 of a mile behind my deer. Not a very comforting thought when you understand a grizzly can smell a gut pile a full 18 miles away. It was good I had taken my rifle back with me to the deer.
Nice to have a hubby who drags the deer out of the woods for you, too. It was getting dark, and time to head home. We had hoped I could get a doe yet, but the dark was upon us.
Back up that snowy pass, we went – I really do not enjoy driving through deep snowy ruts that pull you to the edge of the mountain if you get out of the rut. The darkness amplifies the danger.
Then we saw the BIG BUCK.
He flashed into our headlights and just that quick he was off again, down over the steep side of the mountain. Al would have been very happy to have that one!
So goes hunting.
I was tired from trudging through the snow and carrying a gun all day. (the gun is a 280 – the stock too large for me)
When we picked up our children, I was so blessed by our friends giving us a homemade pizza for our supper!
We dove right into that pizza, then Al took the deer down to the shop and got it hung and skinned.
Thank you, Lord, for answering our prayers for groceries today.
To Finish the Hunt
Al had made a couple more trips over to the Yaak during the hunting season, and he filled his tags with a 4-point whitetail buck and a doe.
He seen more grizzly tracks then, too. A friend that went with him, seen drag marks from three deer that were harvested, and grizzly tracks followed each one of them.
I had hoped I could finish filling my tag right here at home. But the end of hunting season was upon us, and I still did not have my doe.
So, on Friday, before hunting season closes on Sunday, he took me back over to the Yaak. The weather had warmed up a bit, so the pass was not as deep of snow, still, we had ruts to drive in.
As we were headed up the mountain we saw a snow bunny. He sat O so still, thinking he was camouflaged with his white coat in the snow. Instead, he was in stark contrast to the brown forest floor.
Snow bunny
The children enjoyed seeing that before they all fell asleep as we drove over the mountain.
Since the children were with us this time, hiking into the woods was not a good option, so we drove slowly along, looking for deer.
Called road hunting. We passed quite a few others, apparently doing the same.
By the end of hunting season, the deer get spooked easily and change their typical travel patterns. We felt like we saw less deer because of that.
It was getting close to dusk before we spotted a doe. I got out and walked into the forest, using a fallen tree for a shooting stand. Al stood behind me with binoculars, making sure it was what we wanted.
The deer was standing mostly with its hind quarter towards me so that I could just see a bit of her side. She was about 75 yards away. I found it to be a trickier shot and was concerned that I would not hit it right.
Al said shoot.
I did.
Waiting a few minutes to go see, we got the children out of the truck, along with the backpack.
She had gone down immediately.
Al made quick work of the rest, and we were soon loaded in the truck and headed home.
Again, thankful for the provision of meat.
Preserving
Now Al has been butchering, and I do my part of helping with packaging and canning. It is a big project, as we are rather slow at it.
We had 5 deer since some friends gave us a mule to butcher as well.
I am ready for this hunting season to be over and move on to other things.
But oh, so blessed to have meat on my shelf and in my freezer for another year. We were down to our last frozen package of deer meat from last year. God is good.
I got a little tickled.
It is not unusual for hunting stories to be exchanged as we visit with each other after church. I found out that Al was telling the men he was impressed with my shooting. (all hit the heart). I have a good teacher.
As Al has butchered, the children have been at the shop with him, watching the process and playing. When Al found the bullet in my doe, Walden (6) was quite impressed and had to bring it home and wash it up.
~ Sheila
