Well, I thought things might go downhill this morning. I loaded the truck before dawn and was pulling up onto the road so I could turn around when the boat trailer came off the truck. Huh. I thought maybe the ball hitch popped off, even though I have a security pin in place for it. Nope. The pin holding the 3 way ball hitch into the receiver was gone. Not sure how that happened. Looked all over for it and could not find it. I was about to head to the shed for a bolt when I thought – look around the truck. Maybe you gotta spare. Yep!  Right in the door pocket. I put the hitch back in the receiver,  slid the blot through, and used a zip tie for a security pin as I didn’t see an extra one of those. I got hooked back up to the boat, loaded up, and drank coffee til I could see dawn coming before I headed the short drive to the launch ramp.

Not a single boat at the launch ramp. I launched the boat, and as I idled out, I realized I forgot to take out the shock abosorber under the engine. So, back to the dock and reach down and get it off. Then, off we go.

I talked friends at a birthday party last night, and they said 4 boats had been hunting one of the islands I’d thought about going to, so I decided to go to a nearby island to a spot I’ve not hunted yet this year, but a place where I’ve taken several deer in past. Charlie got a nice deer here, too. I arrived not too long after sunrise. I anchored the skiff in the kelp. I’ve had the anchor drag in the sandy bottom closer to the beach outside the kelp and then come back at the end of the day with the boat beached, more than once. I also used a 10 lb cannon ball tied to the anchor line just after the anchor chain to provide more drag. I launched the porta bote and rowed to shore.

Once on the beach, I offloaded my ditch bag, gun case, pack and cork boots.  I pulled the skiff up above the tide line and tied it to a snag, then took my gun out of the guncase, unhooked the sling from the gun case, ran it through my life jacket and under a boat seat, rehooked it to the eye. I walked over to the bank and swapped out my regular xtra tuffs for the cork boots – which are xtra tuffs with golf spikes on the bottom. I stashed the regular boots under a log to keep them dry. Next, I got a compass bearing from my Onx app to my first hunting spot, and then pulled out the magnetic compass around my neck and lined it up with the bearing. I put my deer call round my neck, and off we go.

I was up and over the first hill, across the creek, and up the next little hill in no time. This used to take my maybe 30 minutes with my bad hip. Now it was more like 15 or less. As I crested the second hill, and about 20 yards from my first calling spot, I look to my left. And 10 yards away, all I see is a deer head and horns. I try to non-chalantly chamber a round and pull of the scope covers while watching the deer and the deer watching me. All that did was bring the deer in closer to me. He was waiting for me and now coming at me, perhaps to see if I was another buck he needed to run off, or a doe needing his services.  What happened next I don’t exactly remember. I know I fired and missed. The big buck took a couple high bounds away from me. I whistled, and incredibly, the buck stopped and turned broadside. I squeezed the trigger. Nothing. I worked the bolt to discharge the spent shell and chamber a new one. The buck was still there. I aimed again and down he went. A perfect shot, right under the chin. He was gone before he hit the ground. No time for me to think.  I blew the call again to see if any more bucks were closeby, and waited a short time to catch my breath. Then I walked over to the buck. Wow. A four point. I didn’t know that til now. I think only my second one ever.  Surprisingly, the body wasn’t as big as the big fork horn buck I got on Prince of Wales Island proper several days ago. It was 920 am.

I marked the deer on my Onx, duffed my pack, and eased down another 20 yards to my calling log – my original destination this morning. I called there for 40 minutes. The first call, a doe came in silently behind me. She stopped for a short time, then kept going downhill behind me. She didn’t seem nervous. That was the only deer that came in. I think she was the girlfriend of the buck. The buck was pretty odiferous and definitely in the rut.

About 10 am, I got to work. There was a nice tree to hang the buck nearby. I got my homemade hoist out and tossed it over the tree branch. I dragged the buck up to the tree and was about to tie the antlers to the hoist when I realized – whoops. Need to remove the innards first. I took the buck back down hill a tad to a hummock I could put the middle of the deer on so the guts could gravity-fall downhill. First, I cut off the tarsal glands at the hind leg knees. I do this so I won’t grab it otherwise and get the stink of the gland on my hands and transfer it to the meat. And this boy was stinky. I got out the butt out tool to free up the intestine at the anus. Then removed the insides. I found the heart and removed that, removed the membrane around it, and put it on some clean forest duff to cool.

I’ve been having such a hard time trying to use my hoist. The hoist works great – halibut ganion is the ticket for being able to grip the line, and the stiff ganion line holds a knot well because it’s course, but it still slides through the pulleys great. The problem was pulling up the deer from the hind legs by using a stick between the hind legs to pull it up. The stick would either break or slip out and I’d have to start over. If I had the hide part way off, I’d also  have some forest duff on the meat. As I get older, sometimes simple things I should have thought of don’t come to me so quick. And this was one of them. After the last deer fiasco, it finally struck me: hoist from the head, not the hind legs, you Dumb Ass!

Oh, did it work so much better. I lowered the lower pulley of the hoist to the ground, and tied on the antlers. Then up the deer went. I made a cut under the hide all the way around the neck, then pulled the deer up a bit higher. I removed the lower hock on each leg. Then made a cut under the hide from the neck all the way down the spine to the butt, then a cut from the neck down the belly to the sternum opening, then made cuts from the front knees to the belly cut, and from the hind knees to the tail. Now I started to work the hide from the neck downward. It took a bit to free up the hide around the neck, but once I got it going, it all was off in a few minutes. And the deer rotates so much better on the line from the head than the hind legs.

My old friend Pat in Kodiak showed me that as you work the hide away from the body, to cut holes with your knife in the hide right next to the meat, and then put your thumbs in the holes for leverage to pull the hide down further, then repeat. That was my first deer hunt. On Kodiak. Seems like last week. But it surely wasn’t. Pat and I are the last living friends from that trip.

Now for the real magic with the head up technique. I unfurled a full body deer game bag from my pack, and brought it up under the hind quarters of the deer. When I got to the front quarters, I tucked those into the bag, and pulled the bag as far up the neck as I could. Then I put my pack under the deer and got the deer started into the pack. I let the hoist down a bit and got more of the deer into the bag so now the bag would stay vertical on its own. I let the hoist down more, and now the whole deer was in the bag. I used my new “pelvic” saw to cut off the neck just below the bullet hole, and cinched the top of the pack lining over the deer. I untied the head from the hoist, and set it under some brush, near the hide, as a respectful final resting place. I’m not much on taking the antlers. A picture works for me and doesn’t add any weight to my pack.

Now it’s after 11 am. It hasn’t rained all day, and is just plain pleasant out. I’ve got the rest of the day to get to the beach. I take a compass reading on Onx, match it to the magnetic compass, and start down. This is where I’ve spent some unnecessary time getting back to the beach with a full load of deer on my back, wanderng off the route, and I didn’t want it to happen again. I checked my compass regularly and stayed on route. I did fall a couple times, got turtled, and had to get out of the pack, hoist the pack up on something about waist high or higher, and then shoulder it again. One time was because I sank down into some muck, couldn’t extract my foot in time to catch my balance, and tipped over. The second time I was moving downhill, and the big tree I was planning too much on to be my hand hold to steady me was rotted, my arm went right through the side of the tree and into the trunck, and down I went again. Otherwise, I actually made a straighter shot back to the punt than when I went in, and came out right where I needed to. It was 1230 pm.

I walked to the water’s edge and duffed my pack. Then sheathed my gun in its case, and took the gun case and ditch bag down and put them next to the pack. I changed out my boots, and dragged the punt down to the water, put in the gear, launched the boat, and it was an enjoyable row back to the boat. What a day.

Finally got out on the deer hunting I’ve sort of dreamed of since we bought our tug. I haven’t harvested deer in 4 years, I think. This was due to a lot of travel during deer season, and my ailing hip that made it so I didn’t want to hunt very far from the beach. The last chance I even had at a buck was at least two years ago. I’d been wanting to get out in the tug, anchor somewhere, then hunt near there for a few days.  Not having to run back to town the same day as you do in a cruiser makes it so you can go a good distance from town and spend some time hunting in less hunted areas. It also allows you to leave a deer (or part of the deer if you butcher it where you down it) and come back for it at first light the next day.
After a dreadful spate of day after day of rain and wind, the forecast was finally for light winds and fair skies. I made my plan, got the boat loaded up with grub and spare clothes for a few days, and I headed out the day before the good weather was to set in.

I got to the anchorage at mid-day, and got things ready. I got the punt off the stern and put the electric outboard on it. I got a ditch bag ready to take in the punt in case I had to spend the night on the beach for some reason, or, as happened a few years ago, I flip the punt and get soaked head to toe.

I check that I have everything I’ll need for my pack for hunting. I bought a set of little pulleys last year to rig up a hoist so if I get a deer, I can sling the hoist over a tree limb and pull the deer up so I can butcher it.

The next morning was dry and light winds as forecast. I motored down the beach a stretch so I could enter the muskegs into the wind. It was just before sunrise. I may have hunted this spot a long time ago with the Bue’s. The woods weren’t familiar if I had. I came to a 30 or so hard steep climb to the muskegs above. I took my time and up I went on the new hip and 60 lbs lighter than last time I hunted. Everything working good.

I knew I was only going to hunt the two muskegs up here and not go further. I had all day and a good length hike for me at 1 to 3 miles round trip. The sun was not yet over the mountain behind the muskegs when I blew the deer call. I’m trying a large bright orange plastic call I bought from a guy in Klawock that makes them with a 3d printer. I like the sound and less to worry about with moisture changes compared to a wood call. After 15 minutes, a doe came by. That was it after an hour, so I climbed up to the next muskeg.

This muskeg is much bigger, with lots of deer holding timber around it. Out in front of me was a muskeg with little bull pine in the right half of my view, and to the left, a rectangle of muskeg about 75 yards by 75 yards, with big timber behind it. On the first blow of the call,  A doe came straight away in the big muskeg area in the right side of my view. She came in alongside me at about 30 yards, didn’t seem tense or worried, and kept going into the woods behind me. The sun was just over the trees and into the muskeg now. A glorious morning.
I looked to my left, and there along the big timber at the edge of the muskeg was a bruiser buck. I could see the big curve on his anlters and guessed it was a 4 point. It looked magnificent with the sun bouncing off his rack and his huge body. He didn’t come over to me, but just worked his way parallel to me along the timber, stopped to scrape his antlers in some bushes, and didn’t seem to care I was there. I could not get lined up for a neck shot, and didn’t want to take a body shot, since he might bound off into the timber and I not be able to find him. I tried calling softly again, but the buck didn’t care. He just kept slowly walking and sniffing his way along the timber till he was gone. Wow.

I called again awhile later, and see a doe walking the same trail as the buck. She also didn’t seem to care I was there or come over to me, but just kept working her way the same as the buck. Then a fork horn buck popped his head up 20 yards from me in the brush. He gave me time to drop the ear muffs propped on my head, get a rest, and make a neck shot. Dang, it’s been a long time since I got a deer. It was 9 am.

With so many deer in the area, I knew I might call in another buck if I blew the call again, and told myself I needed to get this deer hung up and start to process it or I’d have deer laying on the ground and more than I might handle before dark, which comes early now about 4 pm.

I made up a hoist from some small pulleys and a fine high strength line and was eager to test it. First, I had to dress the deer, then find a tree to hang the deer in, and a good stick to go between the hind legs to attach the hoist to for pulling it up. I hadn’t done this in 3 or 4 years so it took awhile an hour to get the deer cleaned and hung up. I could not get the hoist as high up as I liked because the string was too fine to get a good grip on, so will have to get thicker line. I got it high enough to work, though, and when I started skinning at 10 am, I blew the call and continued getting the hide off.

A minute later a big buck came busting out of the timber in front of me, coming straight to the call. Like he was shot out of a cannon. He was not fooling around. He was looking for a fight. Or love.  Like the buck on the timber line, this guy looked spectacular in the sun much closer to me, the sun reflecting off it’s rack and gray coat. He headed into the brush of the timber edge behind me and I tweeted the call to stop him, got a rest, and now I have 2 deer in the sunshine. It was 1030.

I got to work on deer number 1 and was done around noon and finished deer number 2 about 230 pm. I hung the meat sacks of the second deer in a tree under the canopy. My biggest worry was that eagles would find it, and they can go to town on a deer in short time. I headed down the hill with the first deer and got to the beach about 320, so 50 minutes. Maybe in my younger years I could have run back up for the first deer and got back before dark. But not now. I’ve left deer in the woods before and haven’t lost one yet, so hoped my luck would continue. I boarded the punt and headed for the tug.I had a small tarp on the boat just for this purpose. I strung a line on the back deck, hung the meat sacks, then draped the tarp over it so it would shed the rain but still allow air to circulate underneath and continue cooling the meat.
Then the pure pleasure began. I cranked up the engine and also started the auxiliary heater. I shed my hunting clothes, got out of my boots, put on my crocs, and started in on some serious coffee drinking out of the thermos where I stored the remainder of the morning coffee. I cranked up the starlink and sent out some texts to people in Craig and Kurt and Sara that I was back at the boat safely. I ran the boat a couple hours to be sure the batteries were charged for the overnight operation of the auxiliary heater. I’ve had a nagging issue with the boat where the charging is very irratic, going from 11.0 to 13.2 down to 12 in a short period. Time to really fix that.The next morning I took a route to the meat sacks from the beach nearest the tug. It was a more gradual climb that the steep hill where I went yesterday, and took me through some new country. I took my gun just in case a wandering bear was on the meat, per Kurt’s advice. I was up and back by 10 am, just as it started to rain and blow. I was back in town about 1 pm. I got home and the meat sacks hung in the shed.

I butchered the deer one day, getting all the meat off the bone, and put the meat in totes in the shed. The next day I portioned and vacuum packed all the deer. Oh, it’s nice to have some deer in the freezer again.   I watched the weather, and saw there was a forecast for several days later of one day of light wind and sunshine. I would have gone out to anchor the night before as I did for the first boat trip, but I didn’t want to miss my neighborss invite for early Thanksgiving dinner, and glad I didn’t. They had a smoked ham that a farmer whose land they hunt on in South Dakota gave him, and he took it to Dakota Butcher for processing. Best ham I’ve had, ever. I’ve never been a big fan of ham until I had this one. The ham was smoky and on the drier side and just perfect.

I left town the next morning before sunrise and it took an hour and half to motor to an anchorage we use a lot in the summer fishing. I’ve never hunted the hill behind the anchorage before, but we saw a huge buck swim there in Septermber. I called at a few places, but as I suspected from looking at my Onx app, there aren’t muskegs where I was hunting. I’d be hunting in the timber. Finding a good spot with the ability to see very far was tough. I eventually worked my way to the top of the hill and found there was a small open bowl that I could see maybe 50 yards at the furthest. The spot looked like it had two or three potential trails leading to it. I wasn’t going over the top of the hill and down the other side – this was it for the day. I heard lots of shooting down the channel. I called my normal pattern of call, count to 600. Call, count to 500. Call, count to 400. All the way down to call, count to 100. I was about consigned I wasn’t going to see a deer today, but it was a great day and I got a good hike in and saw brand new country. I was surprised I hadn’t seen a single deer, and although there were nice size tracks, I saw no fresh deer scat. I had plenty of time as it wasn’t yet 11 am, so after the normal calling sequence, I decided to try something different. I made more frequent calls and tried to sound like a whiny 2 year old who wanted his mom to pick him up and hold him.  I heard something that was out of the ordinary, and saw movement just below me. Then I saw it was a deer body. Then the head. Ooo. A nice fork horn, 10 yards away. I dropped the ear muffs, safety off, and now to start processing.

And issues, I had. I got the hoist put together, this time with halibut ganion. The first branch I threw it over sagged as I pulled on the hoist, so had to find a new tree and move the deer to it. I got the deer hoisted up, and off comes the stick between the legs. I got the stick back through the legs, pulled the deer up, and started skinning. I had the hide about half way down, and was pulling it further when the leg stick broke. Down the deer went into the forest duff. Oh boy. I found a live sapling like I should have in the first place and cut a new stick, hoisted the deer back up, and continued. Now it was well past noon.   I got the deer butchered and into meat sacks, and the sacks into my pack, and started down the hill.I found a muskeg on the way down and marked its location on my Onx app for next time. It was alot closer to the beach with timber all around and several entrances for deer to come.  It seems like it should be a simple matter of just heading down the hill in a straight line til you reach the beach, but for me, it is not for some reason. Even with a GPS that shows my track. I realize now I need to take a compass bearing with the GPS on where I want to go, and then use a magnetic compass to use that bearing to keep on a straight line to the beach. I wandered back and forth across the hill side getting down, and burned up alot more time than necessary. And with 60+ lbs on my back. I got to the bottom of the hill and was in the flat and still not keeping a straight course.Sunset was coming. I was exhausted in part because I wasn’t drinking enough water because I didn’t want to take the pack off to get it. It was almost dark, and I didn’t want to negotiate the field of deadfalls I knew was coming in order to get to the beach. So I got out my headlamp, dropped the pack where I was, marked it on the Onx, and headed for the beach. I also marked my trail with flagging tape like we used to before electronics as a back up til I reached the beach. When I got a short ways from the pack I finally saw the water but glad I didn’t yield to temptation and go back for pack. I got to the beach and was about a third of a mile to get to the punt. In the last bit of light and a glorious sunset.

As I neared the point where the punt was, I saw movement ahead. It was a deer on the beach. It looked like a buck in size, and it would have been such luck to get a second deer right on the beach, but there wasn’t enough light left to tell if it was a buck or doe, and it walked up into the woods.I got to the punt in the light of my headlamp, and idled back to the tug. Another night of luxury. I drank the remainder of the coffee I made in the morning from the thermoses and texted people that I was back on the boat and got a deer. When the coffee was gone, I fried up a dinner of spicy deer sausage Steve gave me, with eggs, cheese, and Mama Lil’s. I made a big salad on one of the plates Sam gave me, and put half the fried mess on top, then topped it with olive oil and vinegar and dug in. I ran the tug engine an hour to charge the batteries up well while I continued texting friends. I went to bed and continued reading the history of my hometown of Bolivar, NY written by George Bradley that I started on the first tug trip.The anchor alarm went off a couple times overnight. The wind shifted to the south as forecast and had picked up.  After a few more alarms I thought it was time to move. I got up about 245 am, pulled the anchor, moved to the middle of the channel in the deepest water, reset the anchor, then babysat the navigation plotter to be satisfied the anchor was holding. I got the first real sleep of the night after that, and got up about 20 minutes after 6.

It was spitting rain now and blowing and cold now. I bundled up and motored over to the same spot as I had yesterday. I was going to motor up the beach the third of a mile to save that hike with the heavy pack, but the surf onto the beach was too big now to safely land. Oh well. Just more good hiking to do.

I walked along the beach fringe and saw the first fresh deer scat on the trails. I talked to a friend later in the day who hunted a nearby island and he said he noticed the same thing where he was.

It took about 30 minutes to get to the pack, which was untouched by any critters. Then about an hour to get to the beach and down to the punt. Unfortunately, no deer was waiting for me in the daylight to see this time. I got back to the boat, offloaded the pack to the back deck, pulled the punt up on the swim step, then I checked my fuel level, just because. It looked like it was gonna be lumpy on the way home, and I didn’t know how much fuel I might burn with the auxilliary heater running the 14 hours of darkness when I’m on the boat. I was pleasantly surprised it was barely down at all on the sight gauge in the lazerette.

I started the engine, pulled the anchor, and got out of my wet gear. I headed out of the lee of the islands I was anchored behind, and happily, the seas were less than I expected. I made good time getting back to South Cove ahead of the next blow that is on the way.This deer was going to my friends Bob and Laura in Juneau. They are in their 70s and I know them through Sara. Bob is an all around craftsman and welder and has helped me out since I’ve known him. He helped me build my garage, welded the zincs on the Dutch Master each year, sharpened my chainsaw chains, made a beautiful cover for the autopilot when I moved it above decks on the tug, to name the first favors that come to mind. He brought the tug down with me this year, too. I kept the ribs and the heart for me and sent the rest on Seaplanes to them.
As I suspected, I lost more weight on the 2 days of hard hiking.  I think I like hunting more now than I ever have as I see it as a hike first and hunting second. I love being able to overnight on the tug, as it takes all the hurry out of the boat transportation. If I have to leave the deer in the woods and go back to get it the next morning, that’s just one more hike to get in. This has been one great year. A new hip, the weight loss, all the friends fishing here this summer, fishing with my cousin and her husband in Ontario in September, a trip to Mexico with the cousin’s daughters and their friends in October, and now deer hunting in November (and probably December).  I’m feelin’ good.

Got up a couple hours before dawn today and got moving to go deer hunting. First time deer hunting this year, and haven’t found a deer in several years now. Today was with a new hip since March and 55 fewer pounds since February. I’ve been looking forward to this for awhile now.  Plus, I put a new heater in the truck. It’s so nice to have heat again.

I stopped at Black Bear Store for coffee, and made my way out the road. I was headed to a spot I’d taken one of my best deer with Brian several years ago, and I’ve been back a few times since. Part of the jaunt involved a fairly steep climb up and down a low ridge that would be the first challenge like it to the new hip. Doc said I was good to go on my last consult, so I felt good about it.

I had a hard time finding the “trail”. Either the sports group that sort of maintains the trail hasn’t done it in awhile, or I just plain missed it. I fought through the old logging cuts and blueberries, but knew I had 9 hours of daylight and plenty of time to get a good hike in, and just took my time.

I got up the hill to the bottom of the small knob, and worked my way along the muskegs along the base. I called in one or two muskegs before I got to the one I thought was my turn up and over the knob to the country on the other side. I called in a doe at the last muskeg. No buck with her, and she didn’t stick around. But a deer already, and I hadn’t even started climbing in earnest yet.

I started up the saddle and worked my way to the top. I checked Onx and I was a mile in. Wow. I have not hunted that far from the beach or truck in a long time. And I felt good.  Until I fell in a little muskeg hole, went down to my knees and elbows in the water. Gun went in, too. The usual.

I never was quite sure today if I was going to the “right” place I went to on the other hunts, but tried to keep from going down the wrong hill that might not lead where I wanted to go. The Onx app is quite the technology. It’s sort of like seeing a deer call work that first time- I never go hunting without it, and would be at a loss if I did. Onx is the same. I called at a couple spots in big timber where I could see a good ways. After calling at the second spot, I looked downhill and – oooh- that’s what I’ve been looking for. A muskeg I hadn’t noticed til now. Just as I got down to level ground to sit down and call at the edge of the muskeg I saw movement- I was busted. A doe nervously started walking away. Oh. And she’s got a boyfriend. I tweeted lightly on the call, and that just made her move faster. I stood still for a few moments to see if they might come back, then slowly crept along to the direction the pair had headed. And there was Romeo, who stuck around to see if he might find another girlfriend. I dropped my pack and got a rest and jacked a shell in the chamber. Only, I didn’t need to. There already was a shell in the chamber. Well, Romeo didn’t like that, and he walked out of sight. I crept up to see better, and they were gone. Cool!  My first chance of the year. I only got one chance all of last year. I think I always choke on the first buck of the year. Just a little rusty, and you learn for the next one.

I checked the Onx and realized I didn’t have to backtrack the way I came in. I could just keep going around this side of the knob and get back to the road in a circle. I just hoped there wasn’t a reason I shouldn’t do that – like a cliff or something. I still had 6 hours of daylight left, so plenty of time to figure it out. I hunted my way back to the truck the rest of the morning into the early afternoon. Wow, some nice deer country I’ve never seen before. And lots of sign. I saw three more does – one with a yearling – for a total of seven deer for the day. That’s a great day for any day I go deer hunting. I’ll take it. I usually expect to see fewer deer on the road system than I do from the boat, but then again, I’m not used to hunting this far in from the road.

I worked my way down the knob out of the last muskeg, where I ate a lunch of smoked coho salmon out of the jar and called in a doe. When I reached the road, it was kind of narly getting down to the ditch and up to the road. I was doing well until I side-hopped across the ditch, stumbled, and fell spread eagle onto the road like only I can do. So much practice. The gun slammed to the road, too. I lay there a second, and realized I wasn’t injured. But no more hunting till I check the gunsights, for sure. I walked about 100 yards back uphill to the truck. I got out of my spiked boots and rain gear and wet coat.  Love the new frog toggs overall rain pants. What I had a hard time grasping was that my knees weren’t aching like crazy. At all. Last time I remember that happening was. Well. Never. They seem to like carrying around alot less lard, it appears. I feel like I’m 40 again.

I made my way down to the bottom of the hill in the truck with the new heater on full blast, sipping coffee from the little Thermos Ken left me this summer. I found a flat open spot at the bottom where I could check my gun sight, and parked off the one lane road. When I got out I looked back up the road, and here comes an SUV down the road behind me!  I’d parked at nearly the end of the road, so these people must have been out that little bit more of road and I missed them. I’m guessing they were road hunting. I pulled back onto the road and didn’t shoot there.

When I got to another spot I could shoot – at a pull off to a long logging road that goes well up a drainage, I looked around for something to make a target out of in the lot. There was an abandoned tire on the lot down range I could stand upright, and a big wood round uprange that would work for a rest. I found a bucket in the back of the truck, taped my neon yellow renewal notice for our PO Box to it, then made an X on the paper with black tape. I set the bucket on top of the upturned tire, and put a rock in the bucket to keep it there.

During the time I was doing all this, three trucks came out of the road, a few minutes apart. I’m guessing these were more road hunters.  I took aim and shot once to check the gun sight. As my friend Ron told me, it’s the first shot that counts. I walked down to check the shot. Spot on!  What a relief not to have to adjust the scope.

I enjoyed the truck heat on the way home. Wow, was it nice. Blue sky and light winds. Not the weather they called for yesterday.

Back at the ranch, I got all my soggy gear hung up, and my cork boots on the boot drier. I took a hot shower and marveled that knees still didn’t ache. Then I checked the weather for tomorrow. Not a gale!  For one day only!  Then even bigger gales then we’ve been seeing forecast for the weekend. So, I got busy getting things ready for the skiff- a ditch bag, the spare heater, and the new portabote. Looking forward to hunting from a beach tomorrow.

I got invited to go crabbing with Brian and Randy. The weather roared all night with pouring rain. By daylight, it was just pouring rain, and when they picked me up mid-morning, the rain had let up. I’d already gone to a garage sale at Kevin and Brynn’s. I had pre-ordered a couple of his boat reels I didn’t need when he told me about his sale on the ferry ride over from Ketchikan, so I went to pick those up and see if I needed anything else. I found a few Alaskana books in the free pile.

We have to crab on the other side of the island now, as the sea otters have wiped out the crab on this side. About 10 years ago, you could set a pot on this side, right by the boat launch, in 40 feet of water and catch lots of crab. Now, you need to set below 200 feet, and even then, you might not get any. So, people on this side of the island drive across the island now to get crab. Sadly, it won’t be long til those crab are gone, too.

The problem is with the Marine Mammals Act, a federal law. Unfortunately, sea otters are considered a marine mammal, so are managed by the federal government, and not the state of Alaska, which regulates the rest of the furbearers like river otter, marten, mink, beaver and wolf. The main sticking point in the federal law is that sea otter fur, whose harvest is restricted to Native Alaskans, has to be worked in some way – like made into a blanket or a hat – before it can be sold. This is a bottleneck that severely restricts how many otters are taken each year, since the harvester can’t just sell green fur (fur that’s stretched and dried and sold to a fur buyer, who moves it to the people who tan it and make it into garments), but only a finished product. It would be like saying a commercial fishermen couldn’t sell his fish to a fish processor, but had to do all the fish processing and packaging themselves before they could sell the fish. Or that a farmer couldn’t sell his corn to local buyer, but had to get it into a can before they could sell it. So the fishers of dungeness crab, geoduck, sea urchins –  all of which support a commercial fishery in the region, as well as for the rest of us for our own consumption -watch these resources consumed to such a low level by the the sea otters that, while they may not wipe out the entire populations, have them reduced to such a state that it’s not worth trying to harvest them anymore. Were the state managing them, I think we’d come up with a way to manage the sea otters to support a fur trade, a handicraft trade, and conserve the prey of the sea otter, but as we’ve seen in the past with our fisheries, the federal government functions more on process and perhaps a small powerful lobby, and less on what’s good for everybody. So, we adapt.

The day turned gorgeous, with the temperature in the 50’s and sunny when we launched the boat and headed for our pots. After we got the first pot in, I took on the jobs of baiting the bags for the next pots and tending the line hauler while the other two pulled the pots over the side and sorted the crab. The bait was fire red spawner coho salmon from the local hatchery. What a treasure this hatchery is to this side of the island. After decades of low returns and shoestring funding, the local aquaculture association took over the facility. Now the the returns can sometimes top 100,000 fish, which are shared by commercial trollers, charter fishers, and personal use harvest by residents.

When the crab pot comes aboard, females are universally returned, and males under a minimum size returned as well. Each of us can keep up to 20 crab. Randy and Brian handle the crab, with Randy using a handy measuring gauge to measure any crab that are not obviously legal. Nobody else is on the water with us, as the summer season has shut down. We have the waters all to ourselves.

Brian dropped me off at our place, and 7 crab from the tote filled my 5 gallon bucket. Dungeness crab are about the easiest seafood to catch, clean and cook, but one of the most tedious to extract what you’re after. You start out with a bucket full of critters, and when the shells are all shucked, and you eat your fill, you  have a few  bags of meat leftover to vacuum pack and freeze. Of course, it is dungeness crab, so it’s worth it.

I picked the crab and can report you get about a cup and a quarter of crab meat for each crab you pick. I ate some right out of the shell on a big bed of baby spinach greens with Mama Lil’s peppers, pickled red onions, a couple pickled crab apples from Roy’s, some Rik’s Devil Seed Chili oil (a new favorite), with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing. That did the trick.

I had a bunch of pickling solution left from canning the crab apples, so I used some to pickle a couple red onions in a big Mama Lil’s jar. I filled another Mama Lil’s jar with crab and poured more pickling solution.  This morning, I had a Wasa cracker with the crab, Mama Lil’s, the pickled onions, and Rik’s chili oil. That did the trick again.