Monday, October 02, 2006

50 States For Deer

A deer-hunting road warrior reminisces about his lifelong odyssey and lessons learned along the way.

Outside it was cold and raw, the kind of day best spent indoors. The gales and blowing snow made hunting almost impossible, but I was on a mission. I was in North Dakota, hunting alone on public land and fulfilling a lifetime quest. I had set out to hunt all 50 states for deer, and North Dakota was the last stop on my itinerary. I didn't get a deer on that trip, but I drove home smiling anyway. The long 50-state odyssey was finally over.

I conceived the idea to hunt deer in every state about 10 years ago One day, out of curiosity, I jotted down all the states in which I had hunted and was surprised when the total came to about two dozen. I resolved then to try to hunt all 50, and the adventure began. Toward the end, I'd drive my pickup truck from my home in Wyoming and hunt a cluster of states in a particular region, spending at least three days in each. During one such journey, I was on the road for 41 days. I put 14,000 miles on my pickup and managed to hunt six states. In some instances I simply drove in, bought a license across a counter, located a state wildlife management area on a map and went hunting. In others I hunted with friends or outfitters. Whether I hunted in a group or alone, I always had a great time.

BORN TO HUNT
I began hunting as a child near my birthplace in New York. I bought my first deer tag when I was 14, the minimum legal age at the time. After high school and a two-year stint at a small forestry college in northern New York, I journeyed to a Western college to work toward a bachelor's degree. One of my first priorities after arriving in Utah to study forestry was to plan a mule deer hunt with some classmates.

So it began; my first Western hunts occurred in the 1960s, when hunting for mule deer was at its best. Big bucks were pushovers, even on public land. Other than Utah, most of my early mule deer hunts were in Colorado. Permission to hunt ranches was easy to come by in those days. Now virtually every private acre in prime deer country-East or West-is leased or closed to hunting altogether.

In the late '60s, I left the West temporarily to work for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point as post forester and game warden. Eight years there taught me a lot about whitetails. At the time the hunting world barely knew what a scrape was and had no clue about the significance of a rubbed tree, except that a buck did it.

During that period I hunted New York extensively, chiefly the Catskill Mountains. If I wasn't hunting with my buddies in the deer camp there, I was probably in the Adirondacks, where my family had a cottage. There were no tree stands in those days, though hunters sometimes nailed planks on branches and perched there. Mostly we sat against trees or stood in spots where we thought we might see deer. Or we conducted drives. Somewhere along the line I realized I missed the West and began to spend my vacations hunting deer and elk in the Rockies.

HOME AGAIN
I heeded the call of open spaces in 1974. For a time I worked in Utah as a wildlife biologist for the federal government. At that point, I began to explore new horizons, hunting deer in various Western states as well as exotic locales outside the Lower 48. I wrote hunting articles part-time and tried to gain as much information as possible about distant and unique places.

Profound changes were occurring in the hunting world. Private lands were being leased in a feverish effort to wrest control of exclusive hunting rights, and mule deer populations were plummeting. Meanwhile, whitetails were multiplying rapidly all over the country and also moving into Western landscapes traditionally inhabited by mule deer.

My life took a dramatic turn in 1978 when I became Western Editor for OUTDOOR LIVE, and later Editor-at-Large. My job required me to travel and learn, and one of the first things I discovered was that the deer-hunting world was in transition. Hunters were talking excitedly about new strategies that involved scrapes, rubs, rattling and calling. Some companies were beginning to manufacture deer grunt calls and cover scents. Others were ramping up the manufacture of light-weight tree stands and climbing aids.

A new world was opening, and I was eager to spend as much time as possible in it. By 1980, I had about as many states on my "Hunted" list as on my "Still to Hunt" list, though at the time I wasn't counting. I shared hunting camps with mentors such as Murry Burnham, owner of Burnham Brothers Calls. Burnham introduced me to rattling. After learning the basics, I used the rattling technique elsewhere. I found it to be effective anywhere there is a fairly even buck-to-doe ratio.

The '80s brought profound changes in deer-hunting strategies. We learned more about deer communication and breeding habits. I was continually amazed at the knowledge that was being amassed and put to good use. Tree-stand hunting became the preferred strategy, and companies such as Trebark, Realtree and Mossy Oak couldn't manufacture camouflage garments fast enough. I added more states to my list, especially those in the Midwest and South, and continued to hunt the West extensively.

As I traveled, I was exposed to regional differences in hunting techniques, governed mainly by habitat and regulations. Everywhere, hunters had begun to learn the importance of supplemental nutrition for deer via specially formulated plantings, as well as the importance of selective harvest.

In the mid-'90s, I got to know Tony Knight, who introduced a popular version of in-line muzzleloader. Intrigued by my quest, Knight became my traveling companion to a number of states.

Considering I have 50 states under my deer-hunting belt, you might assume I'm a happy camper. Well, almost. In a number of them I never squeezed the trigger, by choice or chance; and in a couple I never saw a deer. Sometimes I arrived when the season was well under way, and competition with other hunters was intense. Stormy weather worked against me in some cases. So my "new" crusade is to revisit the 11 states where my tag went unpunched and perhaps ultimately take a deer in each. If I don't, though, I won't be disappointed. Just having the opportunity to hunt all 50 states has been tremendously satisfying.


Outdoor Life

No comments: