Little guys like these hang out where you can walk up to them and "shoot" 'em. Cute little immature "forkies", legal, but "non-shooters" on the ranch. Let the little devils grow a few years and maybe they'll be 4X4s. Of course, by that time they will play "hard to get". This was taken at near sundown on Friday evening.
This terrain isn't for the faint of heart, which leaves me out. I hate to even glass those ridges, because getting to a buck is nigh on to impossible, anyway. Early Saturday morning, as the sun begins to touch the peaks, while the deeper canyons remain dark and cool.
The ridges in this photo are very accessible, and some nice bucks have been busted up there.
[
This "road" was made a few years ago, using an old TD-6 and cut six inches at a time over two years. You gotta make a run at it to get up a couple of the steeper places, especially with the marble like sandstone surface.
Here, we are heading to some of the back country at the upper reaches of the ranch. Steep and "switchbacky", it's the one and only road the allows the property to be completely "circled". Check out the next steep run coming up in the distance.
This shot is looking over at Panoche Valley, with the San Joaquin Valley and the Sierra Nevada Mts in the far distance. Panoche is a 125 mile round trip, as there are no roads 'tween here and there.
These densely vegetated canyons are where some nice bucks choose to remain, out of sight until the rut makes them stupid. Unfortunately, the rut did not begin before the season closed. There is even a spotted fawn in one place that must've been born last month. Very unusual for a doe to deliver past June. I tried to get a picture, but we could not find it this weekend.
Up here's where I climbed last evening. Many recently occupied beds were found up in the invisible hollows and tiny flats. All the I saw were a couple of does, but there has to be bucks up in there. The wind was into my face, but I'm sure that the salty old deer that we sought sneaked out way ahead of me. I was huffing and puffing anyway, so getting a good shot would've been difficult at best.My sights were wavering like a merry-go-round. When I finally got to the top, I discovered a cliff that was impassable. I backtracked and tried another direction, only to be stymied again by too steep a terrain to safely negotiate. By that time the shadows were lengthening and I was gettin' a bit nervous about the "situation". My location was out of site of the other guys and it was time to get out while the gettin' was good. Finally, after zig-zagging down a steep slope A narrow ridge allowed my to slowly wind my way down to the creek bottom and the parked jeep. After returning to the vehicle, I waited for my partner to wind his way down another ridge on the opposite side of the canyon and we started out. It was 7 PM and after shooting time by that hour, so even if we saw "the buck" we wouldn't shoot at it. The next few minutes sealed the fate of the old jeep for this trip. Powering up the steep , loose road proved too much for the driveshaft and the u-joint sheared on the rear end. We bailed out of the old girl and let 'er go back down the road to settle in the draw. Grabbing some of the gear, we started out to the house, 3 1/2 miles distant and over another ridge. After a while, I settled down and Louie, carrying nothing, kept on truckin'. In a little over an hour, we saw lights reflected off the cliffs above and knew that someone was coming to find our late selves. We went back, grabbed all the stuff that we cared about, and arrived at the house at 9:30. A very late supper of steak, corn, and salad sure tasted good.
The jeep will sit where it is just fine until next week, when someone will take the old tractor to crawl in there and drag it out. The guns are out, but two pair of Swarovski binocs and the little movie camera remain behind, along with jackets and other gear. All this, in search of the elusive Blacktail buck. Maybe next year.
-----------Sixgun
