Here's a few more pictures of some A-zone territory. By the way, some of you know me as Sobenk, I recently changed my handle here for the occasion of my 50th birthday. Anyway, the whole week was my vacation, I headed up to Pozo, CA on Sunday the 17th.
I'd been up there before and ran into some guys who camp there every deer season. So it was a little like old home week.
Well, I arrived about 3 pm and headed out for a little hidden canyon. I found a clearing, walked to the edge of it, and looked up for a good ambush spot about halfway up the hill. I got to the spot and around 6pm heard some crashing through the brush. There were two deer sized shapes coming through the shadows. A doe was in the lead, and came right up to where I'd been standing, and stopped. I had a perfect shot from above, maybe 60 yards. I started to get nervous, hoping the second deer was my buck, and that they'd come right on through.
But she stopped to check out the clearing, and possibly smelled where I'd been standing. She looked nervous. She started swishing her black tail, and then backed out of the clearing. Then they started scoping me out, moving around the clearing a few feet at a time. Finally the doe climbed to approximately eye level with me, and she pinpointed me, and started snorting (or huffing, I guess you'd call it). Then she ran up the hill, with her companion following. As it turned out, her companion was a smaller doe.
Well, this was pretty exciting, so the next day (my birthday) I checked out the same area, and sat in several similar ambush spots. Here's one:
This is an easy area to hunt, though it would help if there were more deer. You can start hunting just a few yards from camp. There is a main road with several choices of canyon/hills to bail out on. The going is fairly easy, not too steep or too thick.
Every time I went out I found fresh deer tracks over my outbound tracks when I headed back for the evening.
The third day I took a powerline road to the top of its hill, and set up a blind. This area has some flat spots, unlike the hunting down south. But, same story, no water, very few deer. Still makes for a nice trip and you appreciate that rare buck more.
Then I headed south to hook up with Marc, who was very gracious with hospitality and hunting information. We went higher than I've ever been. My general impression of the Los Padres is it's steep like the Angeles, but bigger and higher. Very tough going.
Here's Marc shortly after we jumped the sleeping doe:
That night we took it easy and scouted out a firebreak with low brush on the sides. At sundown a fawn and a yearling came out to play. Finally on the way home I got to see another doe and two yearlings drinking from the creek, so all in all I saw 8 deer, none legal.
But it was a great vacation, got to be outdoors and carry my levergun every day.
I will miss not hunting down at Pendleton this year.
