Matt and I went hunting over the long weekend. The first day was very promising. We got one deer that came to the call. Matt shot first, and missed. The deer ran a few yards, stopped and looked back at us quartering away. I aimed and shot with the 30-30, dropping the young buck with a shot to the neck.
We dressed the deer, marked the location on the GPS, hung the deer and continued hunting. We called in another deer further up the hill, but neither of us got a shot. I saw the deer as it came up the hill next to me. It suddenly stopped, but never looked my way. I thought it would keep coming, so held off shooting. That was a mistake. The deer turned and trotted away. I think it saw Matt looking down at it from directly uphill of where it was headed.
We left there and worked our way back to where we left the deer hanging. I tied it on my Bull Pac frame, and we started down the hill back to the beach, calling at good looking places on the way back. I called up a deer to Matt, and he was not able to get off a shot before the deer left. Three deer called in in one day – a banner day for us.
We headed over to our cabin from there, and left the deer in the boat under cover to let it continue to cool.
On day 2 we hunted Admiralty. We saw plenty of sign and buck rubs, but never saw a deer. When we got out to the beach, the boat was gone! The bow line had come untied at the anchor chain. Miraculously, the wind blew the boat onto a beach in a cove about 1/4 mile away, and it beached itself on the tide. If it hadn’t, it might still be bobbing on it’s way to Petersburg.
Matt and I emptied the boat to reduce the weight, and collected beach logs for rollers. We muscled the boat up onto the logs, and after a lot of work, we were able to roll the boat down the logs and back into the water. We reloaded the boat, and I noticed the drain bung area was leaking.
When we got back to the beach of the island where our cabin is, we let the boat go dry on the ebbing tide. I had epoxy just for this circumstance. I mixed it in my hands, and put it all around the bung inside and out. We left it dry, and returned at high tide about 10:20 pm, and found the epoxy had set up well.
The next day was pouring rain and windy. We both were tired from all the problems the day before, and decided to have a cabin day listening to football.
On Sunday, we went back to the area we hunted day 1, but did not see a deer. We lucked out on the weather as the forecast was calling for 30kt winds, but they did not materialize, where we were, anyway. We made it home without further incidence, wet and cold and glad to get 3 good days of exercise in the Tongass rainforest.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com