Posted on 10/23/2017 4:28:54 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Darwin is at work out there in the wild, where some way, somehow, deer, especially the big bucks, seem to know when it is deer season.
For most of Northern California, that is now. In a sign of the times, field scout Tom Hesseldenz stopped at a crosswalk last weekend, the opening of deer season, in order to allow a trophy buck, a 4x4 black-tailed deer, to stroll right past the front of his car.
I couldnt believe it, right in front of me, Hesseldenz said. I pulled out my phone and took the picture.
In the photo, you can see how the deer is walking across the street between the white lines that mark the crosswalk.
From the Marin Headlands, a panorama of the town of Mendocino, often a sunny paradise in fall Mendocino: Falls sunny side of paradise Perry Norris, executive director of Truckee Donner Land Trust, looks out on to the meadows of Carpenter Valley near Truckee Calif. Wednesday, September 6, 2017. World-class adventures abound on the Sierras western slopes A rare California long-tailed weasel appeared in the courtyard at the
Hesseldenz is a landscape architect, the former director of the organization Cal Trout, and is responsible for leading crews to build some of the best trails in Northern California. In the past month, he said hes been working a job in the north state in Yreka, and sighted the big buck walking across Main Street, of all places.
These kinds of encounters are becoming more common. More than anything, the deer seem to know the safe zones. That includes golf courses, parks, RV campgrounds, open space, inside the city limits of rural towns and the backyards of those with a little acreage.
Many deer also now spend their entire lives in a 5-mile radius, often in areas where there is no hunting, according to a GPS collar study by the Department of Fish and Wildlife. These deer can seem like a newly evolving species, The Black-tailed Domesticated Deer, nearly tame and comfortable around people. Most hunters, who pledge fair chase in the wilds of the mountains, have no interest in them.
For the most part, the once great, mass migrations of the large, wild herds, from the high Sierra Nevada to the foothills above the Central Valley, are gone, blocked by highways with no passage and expanding cities. Thats what happens in a state that has grown to 39.5 million people and counting.
Even then, within the wild stocks in remote areas with little contact from people, the deer somehow know when hunting season is afoot.
One year, before the mountain deer season started, my two boys, Jeremy and Kris, made several trips to scout the prospects. They traced out game trails to find where deer were bedding down, drinking and feeding. They then intercepted many deer on these routes to learn their patterns, and on the Friday before the season started, sighted a giant buck with 5x5 antlers.
The next day, opening day, that deer vanished. Each day that followed, there was no sign of it, not even a mark. The big ones, for instance, will leave marks in the dirt from the tips of their antlers when they feed. Without ever seeing the deer, you can then measure the distance between the tip marks in the dirt to gauge the spread and get an idea of how big the antlers are.
Years ago, about 20-30, my grandmother was in a very rural area and had too many wild farm cats and wanted them thinned out. You went over to her place and cats were sitting everywhere. On the wood fence, stumps, everywhere. She had a nephew who was a hunter and bragged, I will clean them out for you. He came over one day and bang, shot one and all the rest disappeared. Thereafter, every time he drove over the cats would mysteriously disappear until he left. He was only able to shoot one. We still laugh about it. I think he thought they would sit there like it was a shooting gallery.
Bucks know when they smell nookie.
they should allow spear hunting in those areas.
“Hunter’s Blood” could be considered a deer camp movie. Billy Bob Thornton’s first film.
“My neighbors husband used to sit on his back porch in his wheelchair with a few beers.”
I saw some gag greeting card yesterday. Old guy in a hospital bed with the drip IV and a nurse. Out in the woods with his rifle in his lap. “Well - I reckon this might be my last hunting trip.”
“watched one get clipped tonight on the way home from work, the first one ran across so i hit my breaks looking for others but the guy coming towards me never slowed down and clipped the second one”
I went to a car show in Oklahoma last weekend and one of the attendees hit a deer with a beautiful ‘57 Belair convertible. Because of the extra foot of space in front of the radiator he was able to make it to the show. It about brought tears to my eyes.
” It about brought tears to my eyes.”
—
About the poor deer,I assume.
.
Living on a ranch all my life I have seen the deer move before hunting season. You get used to seeing where deer are hanging out, then like clockwork they move and change patterns, usually right after most hunters that scout the area ahead of time do their scouting. Not everyone believes this, many say they think it has to do with Fall weather changes and it is a coincidence that it happens right before deer season. I have seen it happen many years when the change in weather had not been distinct enough to make me think that was the reason.
Animals are far smarter than most give them credit for being, anyone that is around them every day can tell you that.
Here in Montana, I have noticed a couple of deer traits,
one is that does will drop their fawns very near houses. I think they do that to avoid the abundance of predators that are here. It almost goes without fail that I will have a newborn fawn or two dropped within several yards of my house every spring.
In the fall, once hunters are hitting the national forests, I see an increase in the number of deer (especially bucks) on my land.
Should’a had someone else drive the car away.
There are highways around here that you can literally throw a rock from one deer roadkill to the next during rut. I have barely missed a number of them and have been in the vehicle when other were not so lucky.
It is a shame that deer did not end up in someones freezer but my feelings were for the Belair.
You should see the ones at the Presidio of Monterey, huge and such cervid slackers you’ll see them eating laying down.
When we lived in Idaho we’d drive by this place in the country set back off the road a bit and there was always a huge buck flaked out on a couch on the front porch, just watching cars go by (and it wasn’t stuffed).
We’d hunt the impact area at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia and sometimes it would be a suck day and on the way out in the evening past shooting time the deer would be just lined up at the edge of the woods. We joked they must have spent the day submerged in all the ponds breathing through reeds.
Don’t forget what follows the deer into cities and towns when they’re thinly populated and savvy in the country, cougars.
It’s not just deer. I’ve seen a dozen GIANT buck antelope pile into a dozen-acre mountain resort during hunting season. They seem to declare a temporary truce with each other while hiding out in the safe zone. They sort of mill around, while ignoring the tourists in the resort.
I saw what you did, there... ‘-)
No cougars (yet) in Alabama. An occasional Florida Panther (which technically are still Puma Concolor). Blacks bears are just starting to make appearances in my area. Soon they’ll be permanent.
I love to see extirpated species reclaim their original area, actually.
It would be so nice to have panthers, red wolves, elk and bison back. Also American chestnut forests and elms.
Then again, why not bring back the Columbian Mammoth, mastodons, giant sloths, and giant bison!
Savvy hunters put hunting season when bucks wander.
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