Season Recap so far

[Mckinnon]

I am going to be posting a long winded picture heavy recap of my season thus far. I will say what gear worked for me and what I would change, etc. This season started out with California deer and bear archery tags and a planned 7 day trip with my little brother (Zues on here). He had an internship in New York so I did the shopping and food prep. DRhorsepower on here had hooked me up with a food dehydrator so I put that to work and dehydrated spaghetti and meat sauce, beans, corn and peas. The spaghetti was great and rehydrated nicely, the beans, corn, and peas we added to idahoans. This worked well and was filling and tasted good. For breakfast we pre-made bags of oatmeal mixed with craisins, almonds, and raisins: this was a great breakfast for me as the craisens bring alot of flavor. Also for breakfast we brought instant coffee, we used the Starbucks Via and it was great. Lunch was our most difficult meal to plan. We mad butthole sandwhichs for 4 days and had some dried salami for the last day. Butthole sandwiches were the best part of the day. For snacks we had venison jerky, snickers, cliff bars, and some emergen-c to change up the water monotony.




This is 7 days of food and came in at 10.4 pounds per person. One thing I really liked is having a bag for each days food. This made so I just grabbed the bag out of my pack and kept that out for the day, I also knew exactly what I had for the rest of the day and didn't have to worry about eating too much or little one day or another. I will definitely do this again.

We saw this bobcat on the way in.


Headed out.


As we were hiking in we bumped a very large 4x4. We were pumped but a little bumped to have alerted him. We set up in this area for the next couple of days and didn't end up seeing a single deer.



From here we decided to switch it up and go hunt along a creek where we had seen alot of sign in the past. As soon as we got there it started raining and thundering pretty well. We cut alot of sign here that looked pretty fresh, we were hopeful. Here is a shot of the creek during a break in the rain.


We got skunked here again. So decided to higher. We headed up to the area I had scouted during the summer and seen both a bear and a nice buck. We stopped for water right before we hit camp. Gear review here:

Katadyn Hiker: Works great, no nonsense, has never faltered for me and has never gotten me sick, its a bit heavy but it filters a decent amount of water per stroke, and it was within my very limited budget.
MSR Hydromedary 3L bladder: Love it. IT is just a dromlite with a hose built in. Is much more solid than my old platypus and has 2 gromets on one end that I like to used to hang it in camp or when sitting and glassing. While writing this I have had the unit for about 6 months and used it constantly for hunting and hiking, no failures or faults thus far.
MSR Dromedary 8L: Very nice to fill this big bag right before setting up camp so we didn't have to filter everyday and go up and down the ridge we were on. Again, I liked that we could hang it in camp with lanyard deal on it, very convenient.
Platypus 1L collapsible bottle: I liked this because it folds down into almost nothing space wise and was good to mix emergen-c and other powders so I could get some flavor and keep my primary bladder clean and flavor free.

-Looking back maybe I don't need all 3 of these, but I used them all extensively...

Getting water

 

[Mckinnon]

Here is camp.



We set up on the ridge looking across to another ridge and down into a nice draw.



This is where it got exciting. That first night at the new camp I spotted a deer about a mile away, not sure what it was but we both liked to think it was that big fella, it fed around in an open flat for a few minutes then disappeared into the thick timber. We settled down for the night for some potatoes and veggies, and as we were eating thunder started to rumble just to the wast of us. It kept coming closer and getting louder so we squared away our gear as we could see it was going to rain. And rain it did, big fat drops just sheeting down for a solid half hour or so. Then it cleared and was gone as fast as it came. Our gear held up well and we were dry. The next morning we had been glassing for a few hours and then we heard some massive breaking and snapping down in the draw, we both looked each other and said "bear'. It was go time! We had flipped a coin and Cam was up first, so we headed down into the draw with the wind in our face, it was slow going due to the tangle of wind fall and the dry year it had been made it loud. Cam made a great stalk with me in tow and closed to about 100 yards, we could still hear the bear swatting stumps. Cam took a big breath to steady himself and continued on, he had to find a way through some alders, wind was still steady. He found a tree down across the alders and hopped on it to cross, we were within 60 yards now. Right then the wind switched in the draw and the forest got silent. We stopped for a bit to listen to see if the bear had just moved up the draw and was feeding around still, no dice. Wind had switched and busted us. It was good stalk all in all, and we learned a lot. Gonna get some more gear reviews going here now.

 

[Mckinnon]

Shelter: Rei Passage II. I took this and just used the fly as my shelter. I pitched it with my trekking poles and it worked great. Alot more room than the tent normally has, held up great in the rain, and had room for 2 or room for 1 and gear. I liked the floor less as well. I have had this tent for 3 years now and used it alot, it has held up well multiple rain storms. I like it more using just the fly as I did on this trip and will likely switch to a true floor less shelter after I manage to destroy this one.

Bag: Marmot Pinnacle 15: Love this bag. I have had it for about 8 years now and is kept me comfortable down into the low teens as long as I have a beanie and some long underwear on. It compresses down well, and has a draft collar. I would buy this bag again. It is starting to leak down now but that doesn't surprise me with how long I have had and how much I have used it.

Pad: I picked up a new BA q core SL for this trip. This was my first time using it so I can't give a great review on it. But I will say it was very comfortable, we will see how durable it is.

Trekking poles: Black diamond flick locks. Love them. They change height easily and are comfortable to hold. Worked great for my shelter and were very helpful going up and down hills. I have had these for 2 years now and really like them. They still hold their position once locked and I have had no issues at all with them.

Bino's: This is my second year with a pair of Vortex Crossfire 8x32's. There is nothing special about these but they were what I could afford at the time. They work well for what they are and I have had no issues with them on antelope and deer hunts. If you are on a tight tight budget these will serve you well. They won't take you right to last light very well.

Spotter: I found a good deal in the classifieds here on a little Minox 15-30. This was my first time using a spotting scope, ever. So I can't really speak to this category well so I won't.

Tripod: SLik Sprint Mini II: Again, first time using a tripod/spotter. So I won't speak to them. But this served me well and changed position easily and quickly. IT was steady but that is not surprising with such a small spotter on it.

Pack: Gregory Baltoro 70: This pack is comfortable with 60 pounds, throw a deer in the mix and no as comfortable. Works great for my purposes and the price I think. I have had it for 3 years and used it extensively. No failures as of yet so its doing its job. One thing that drives me nuts is thing squeaks and creeks like crazy when it gets dusty. I would like to replace this sometime but just don't have the funds and its still working hard for me so I will beat it up some more.

SPOT: This was my first time using this and it worked well. Allowed my family to know we were fine. Not much more to say about it.

Jetboil: This was the very first Jetboil model and it still works well for me. I have it for years, can't remember how many. Does its job and boils water fairly quickly, not so great in the wind though. I like that the pot doubles as a mug with a lid on it. Doesn't work great, but works OK, with a pan or other pots if you need to do more than boil, I think it is becuase the other stuff I have doesn't have the heat flex rings like the jetboil stuff has.

 

[Mckinnon]

So after a close call with the bear we settled back into glass, it was slow to say the best. We were both beat at this point (late day 4), and we agreed that we would hunt the rest of the next day and then head home. The next day was uneventful and we packed out a bit bummed, but happy to have had a good trip. We saw 2 bucks and got close on a bear, which is about as much as I can ask for archery hunting this unit. This put an end to archery season for me as I only had 8 days between semesters. My brother also pulled a NV muzzleloader tag which we scouted for and he capitalized on to take his first ever deer. The california general deer season came around and we hunted the same area and saw a lot more deer than we had during archery. My brother shot a nice buck on the second day of season. That left me to fill my tags which I did my best to do around school. I got out as much as I could including when it snowed once, just couldn't make it happen unfortunately. I hunted hard and that is hunting, but I sure am excited to be graduation and hopefully be able to hunt more next year! I still have my bear tag and I am going to squeeze in a few days this weekend and try to find a bear and salvage my season.

 

[Mckinnon]

For the rain gear I hunted in a marmot precip jacket. I liked it and used it in 3 days of on and off rain, with one heavy sustained downpour. This jacket help up well and kept me dry. For me the best feature of this jacket is its light weight and ability to fold down small. It tucks into my pack in a variety of places very easily. With the hood up this jacket is loud, made it hard to hear for me. I like this jacket for my uses (intermittent thunderstorms, just in case purposes) and it has gone out with me everyday this year, but I can not speak to how well it would stand up to a constant downpour day after day. Also, know that it is not insulated whatsoever so you need to layer up with it. I also didn't feel like it breathed that well as I got really hot as I was hiking with it and pretty sweaty.