AK Blacktail Deer Hunt
10-01-2003, 10:53 AM
#1
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2003
Posts: 21
AK Blacktail Deer Hunt
Im going Blacktail Deer hunting on Kodiak Island (Afognak Is.) in November. Any suggestions on how to hunt these? From the ocean? Hike above the tree line? Spot & Stalk? I need to know what approach to take. Thanx!
10-01-2003, 03:35 PM
#2
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location:
Posts: 226
RE: AK Blacktail Deer Hunt
DS,
on Kodiak in November the deer should be patterning themselves to the tides and feasting on seaweed off the beaches. hunting from a boat is a very popular way to go. You can also spot areas the deer use as trails moving from the beaches up the mountains.
good luck and dress for wet, cold weather!
beej
on Kodiak in November the deer should be patterning themselves to the tides and feasting on seaweed off the beaches. hunting from a boat is a very popular way to go. You can also spot areas the deer use as trails moving from the beaches up the mountains.
good luck and dress for wet, cold weather!
beej
10-01-2003, 05:13 PM
#3
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: USA
Posts: 494
RE: AK Blacktail Deer Hunt
Long story followed by actual advice (skip to last paragraph for advice).
The only time I hunted Kodiak was first week or so in Nov. many, many years ago (I easily remember approximate date - we came out on election day). It was my first hunt for deer and one of my first big game hunts after a lifetime of bird hunting.
The guy I was with was (is) a good hunter and had been there before. He was also a very fit and vigorous guy. The conventional wisdom he liked to follow was that the " big bucks" (and most deer in general) were going to be high. There was no snow, and the weather was mild. Not a bad theory.
So, we busted our butts hunting high - get up early, hike up bushwacking in the dark, see deer, shoot same, pack meat out, avoid very large bears. I tell you, I' ve been around a lot of bears, but packing deer meat at dusk (or later) through brush gives you a severe pucker factor. We did indeed see many bears. We had good hunting up high, but it was very much vigorous exercise. We were camping and did not do any of the beach hunting we' ve all read about.
Until the last morning....
Last morning, we had to be back at beach by noon for float plane pick up. Not only couldn' t spend the time hiking up, but also set 9:30 am limit for shooting so we could take care of the meat in time to meet the plane.
So we decided to hunt low. Walking across the low areas to begin climbing previous mornings, we' d spotted trails and sign and it was pretty clear to me (even though I was a green novice at the time) that the deer were moving through there daily. So that morning we posted on little knolls overlooking a couple of trails a ways apart from each other within a 20 minute walk of the water.
In what I now know to be typical deer fashion, we glimpsed and heard deer around dawn and couldn' t get good shooting picture because of brush and low light. But, also typical of deer, we each got a deer within an hour of day light.
This was my first kill and really went well. I heard the deer for about 5 minutes coming through the brush but couldn' t see him. I finally saw him come down the trail, face-on, at about 75 yards. But, being a novice, I didn' t make the frontal chest shot within the window of opportunity, and he walked on and was again obscured by the brush. I really wan' t confident with that shot and hesitated. Hell, I' d only shot at one other deer in my life (the previous day) and had misjudged the distance and missed (aimed high expecting bullet drop - my partner advised me not to mess with that for any shot we' d be able to make in this country!).
Disappointed? He who hesitates is lost? Kicking myself for being such a wuss? I don' t have to tell any of you about it, I' m sure! I can still see that deer walking into sight head-on, and the shot I could have made. But what happened next, again typical, taught me a lesson in patience that has paid off throughout the years. A minute later, there he was, on the trail I had scouted, walking slowly broad side, just like it was scripted in the " How to Hunt Deer" books. Then he stopped, I carefully aimed and shot, and he walked on as if nothing had happened. But damn, I had practiced shooting at the range, and *knew* I' d aimed at the heart/lungs. Unless my scope had been knocked out, how did I miss??? And this time I put the cross hairs where I wanted the bullet to hit, not were I guessed it might drop to. I just couldn' t believe I' d missed (another lesson learned - you generally know if you' ve missed or not).
I' m sure my 20 minute wait was more like around 2 minutes. But I did *think* about waiting for a long time before tracking! So, I walked down there and immediately saw blood and hair where he had stood. I was a novice, but I just knew that bright red blood and hair were a good sign! Awwright, I almost yelled out loud. Turning the way he walked off, looking at the obvious blood trail, I almost tripped over him (actually, he was about 15 feet away, mostly out of sight, stone dead).
The two deer we shot that morning were very typical - no larger, but certainly not smaller - than the bucks we' d gotten up high.
Soooo..... I truely believe you can hunt blacktail at that time of year any way you choose. If I went back, I' d hunt exactly the way we did - some hiking up high and busting butt (it was hard work, but the views and the land we saw were incredible) and some sitting and watching. I have a different friend who' s hunted there many times out of a boat and, while he doesn' t shoot all of his deer on the beach itself, he never goes inland further than he can fairly easily drag a whole deer out to the beach.
If it snows up high, all the better for the low hunting.
Have fun and be careful of mr. bruin. -zeke
The only time I hunted Kodiak was first week or so in Nov. many, many years ago (I easily remember approximate date - we came out on election day). It was my first hunt for deer and one of my first big game hunts after a lifetime of bird hunting.
The guy I was with was (is) a good hunter and had been there before. He was also a very fit and vigorous guy. The conventional wisdom he liked to follow was that the " big bucks" (and most deer in general) were going to be high. There was no snow, and the weather was mild. Not a bad theory.
So, we busted our butts hunting high - get up early, hike up bushwacking in the dark, see deer, shoot same, pack meat out, avoid very large bears. I tell you, I' ve been around a lot of bears, but packing deer meat at dusk (or later) through brush gives you a severe pucker factor. We did indeed see many bears. We had good hunting up high, but it was very much vigorous exercise. We were camping and did not do any of the beach hunting we' ve all read about.
Until the last morning....
Last morning, we had to be back at beach by noon for float plane pick up. Not only couldn' t spend the time hiking up, but also set 9:30 am limit for shooting so we could take care of the meat in time to meet the plane.
So we decided to hunt low. Walking across the low areas to begin climbing previous mornings, we' d spotted trails and sign and it was pretty clear to me (even though I was a green novice at the time) that the deer were moving through there daily. So that morning we posted on little knolls overlooking a couple of trails a ways apart from each other within a 20 minute walk of the water.
In what I now know to be typical deer fashion, we glimpsed and heard deer around dawn and couldn' t get good shooting picture because of brush and low light. But, also typical of deer, we each got a deer within an hour of day light.
This was my first kill and really went well. I heard the deer for about 5 minutes coming through the brush but couldn' t see him. I finally saw him come down the trail, face-on, at about 75 yards. But, being a novice, I didn' t make the frontal chest shot within the window of opportunity, and he walked on and was again obscured by the brush. I really wan' t confident with that shot and hesitated. Hell, I' d only shot at one other deer in my life (the previous day) and had misjudged the distance and missed (aimed high expecting bullet drop - my partner advised me not to mess with that for any shot we' d be able to make in this country!).
Disappointed? He who hesitates is lost? Kicking myself for being such a wuss? I don' t have to tell any of you about it, I' m sure! I can still see that deer walking into sight head-on, and the shot I could have made. But what happened next, again typical, taught me a lesson in patience that has paid off throughout the years. A minute later, there he was, on the trail I had scouted, walking slowly broad side, just like it was scripted in the " How to Hunt Deer" books. Then he stopped, I carefully aimed and shot, and he walked on as if nothing had happened. But damn, I had practiced shooting at the range, and *knew* I' d aimed at the heart/lungs. Unless my scope had been knocked out, how did I miss??? And this time I put the cross hairs where I wanted the bullet to hit, not were I guessed it might drop to. I just couldn' t believe I' d missed (another lesson learned - you generally know if you' ve missed or not).
I' m sure my 20 minute wait was more like around 2 minutes. But I did *think* about waiting for a long time before tracking! So, I walked down there and immediately saw blood and hair where he had stood. I was a novice, but I just knew that bright red blood and hair were a good sign! Awwright, I almost yelled out loud. Turning the way he walked off, looking at the obvious blood trail, I almost tripped over him (actually, he was about 15 feet away, mostly out of sight, stone dead).
The two deer we shot that morning were very typical - no larger, but certainly not smaller - than the bucks we' d gotten up high.
Soooo..... I truely believe you can hunt blacktail at that time of year any way you choose. If I went back, I' d hunt exactly the way we did - some hiking up high and busting butt (it was hard work, but the views and the land we saw were incredible) and some sitting and watching. I have a different friend who' s hunted there many times out of a boat and, while he doesn' t shoot all of his deer on the beach itself, he never goes inland further than he can fairly easily drag a whole deer out to the beach.
If it snows up high, all the better for the low hunting.
Have fun and be careful of mr. bruin. -zeke
10-01-2003, 10:08 PM
#4
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Auburn WA.
Posts: 1,396
RE: AK Blacktail Deer Hunt
When we lived on Long Island, we would use a Lohman' s doe bleat and it worked like we had the deer on a string, a couple notes on it and wait about a half hour. We' d always bag a couple deer apiece every year
10-02-2003, 07:40 AM
#5
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location:
Posts: 226
RE: AK Blacktail Deer Hunt
I would agree with zekeskar in that if there is a lot of snow high and the weather is bitter cold, stay low because the deer will be low. if the winter is extremely mild, it might work to go up high. regardless of that, hunt however you want to...
10-05-2003, 09:44 PM
#6
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 11
RE: AK Blacktail Deer Hunt
Depends on the weather...lately it' s been really warm wet air coming up from the south...old tropical storms and such. Nice and windy, too...
Anyhow...if it' s cold and there is snow, the deer will be down on/near the beaches. If it' s as wet as it was last year (18" of rain in November!!!!) they' ll still be in the mid-low elevations.
Good luck!
Anyhow...if it' s cold and there is snow, the deer will be down on/near the beaches. If it' s as wet as it was last year (18" of rain in November!!!!) they' ll still be in the mid-low elevations.
Good luck!
