The Wild Side of Santa Catalina

I was in a dive shop when I first heard there was deer hunting off the Southern California coast on Catalina Island. After emerging from the ocean by the old casino that attracted thousands of couples to the world’s largest circular dance floor in the 30s and 40s, I asked around. Sure enough, there were a lot of deer on the island – unwelcome inhabitants it appeared, since they are not native – and an outfitter had the concession for hunting them.

The Catalina Casino, an Art Deco dance hall built by William Wrigley in 1929

The brochure from Wildlife West arrived back at home a little while later, but life got stormy and it sat collecting dust with a pile of hunting magazines for two years. When things calmed down, and the urge to hunt deer returned, my first thought was the 3 points I had in the Iowa draw. But something closer to home seemed more in order, and that’s when I remembered Catalina.  Eight months from the season’s start, I called – and they were booked. Six months out I got a call from them;  a spot had opened up at the end of November!

My aim was venison for the freezer, so I opted for a two-day, two-deer management hunt: a fork-horn probably, and a doe, but with all the amenities – lodging, meals, guide, meat care – of the three-day trophy hunts. And there are plenty of gnarly-racked bucks on Catalina’s 75 square miles, tucked away in the island’s myriad cracks and crevices.

The ferry ride over was pleasant and effortless; the crew safely stowed my rifle with a smile and none of the angst of an airline ticket agent (Southwest Air being the exception, of course). Out the windows, dolphins glided in and out of the glassy water. Getting to Catalina already had getting to most other hunting locations beat. Several other hunters – all returning Wildlife West clients – were on the boat, gun cases making them easy to spot.

We were met at the pier by our guides, who loaded up our gear and took us, not to the rustic camp I was expecting but to a very nice vacation rental typical of Avalon. To be honest, I’ve bathed in enough cold water creeks; a warm cottage and a big screen TV was all right with me. On the coffee table sat photo albums of Catalina monsters taken in past seasons, and for a fleeting moment I wished I’d upgraded my hunt.

This nice mount and all the wall photos of past trophies had me wishing I'd upgraded my hunt.

We did a little hunting that afternoon and evening, driving roads closed off to tourists and glassing hillsides studded with rock and scrub oak. Every now and then one of us would spot a small group of deer and we’d ease out of the truck for a closer look. Being later in the season, the animals knew what a truck full of hunters meant, and they quickly put some distance between us, or just grazed their way to even more distant hills or valleys. The next morning it was more of the same, and I began to realize that this Catalina deer hunt would be more about long-range marksmanship and working out the angles so a hit deer didn’t end up down in a steep ravine, irretrievable. This was a lot different from the treestand bow hunting I enjoy so much, where you get to study your game a long while before, and if, you ever get a shot at it.

Nothing stirred on the island as the day got hotter, hitting the 80s. That evening things got switched; I went out with a guide who wanted to go in on foot, which I welcomed after too many hours cooped up in the truck. My guide, all the guides, knew the island like the back of his hand, and we went to a promising area, venturing in on faith without spotting any deer. Making our way down slowly, we skirted meadows and squeezed through tangles of branches, glassing every few yards. Sneaking up to a low rise, my guide – Jim – waved me forward; a doe was feeding just on the other side, barely 50 yards away. I knelt down and put the crosshairs on her shoulder. The deer hide filled my scope, not the image I was expecting after all the far off deer we’d seen! A slow, steady pull on the trigger, trying to forget the .300 WSM’s coming recoil, and BOOM. One doe down.

Jim had spotted a buck a few hundred yards away just before, so we left the doe and repositioned for the buck. Sure enough, it would be a long range shot, 250 yards plus. The buck was the perfect management target, a fork on one side and a tall flat spike on the other. The sun was dropping down fast behind the island and the world was becoming monochromatic, making the slow grazing buck harder and harder to see. Finding him in the scope (the Nikon Monarch seems to roll the clock back about an hour in the evenings, I’ve found), I put the X on his upper shoulder, figuring the little 130-grain bullet would drop just enough. The big jolt, and the buck was down.

And then back up! I knew I’d hit him well enough, and in the woods would’ve just waited it out, picking up the blood and finding him later. But this was a different world, and in rugged Catalina, with the sea crashing against the rocks below you, and a dozen deep fissures leading up to the mountains above you, there’s only one goal: deer down now!

So I was racking another round and hurrying to find the buck again in the fading light. Crosshairs settled again on the buck as it crept up the distant hillside. Boom. Hit. Boom. Hit. Finally the buck was down to stay. Jim went to fetch the doe and then we hiked up to the buck. The shots were good shots, that passed through without much damage. Could’ve been the all copper bullets we’re forced to use in California’s large vulture – I mean, Condor – range.  Jim hauled the two deers’ worth of quartered meat and pieces up the steep hillside like a Swiss mountaineer, and we made our way in the dark back to the welcome sight of the truck about forty-five minutes later.

Back at the beach house, the sips of Jack Daniels tasted – in the words of Colonel Kilgore – like victory. It had been the perfect hunt for me; short and sweet, challenging enough to be satisfying, with the chance to experience the exotic secret wild side of an otherwise tame and familiar place. The guides know their business and their island, and that five of our group of six hunters were repeat clients says a lot. Looking through the photo albums and listening to the stories of past hunts, it was clear that a Catalina deer hunt can be whatever you want it to be. An up close and personal stalk or a long range test of marksmanship. A trophy hunt or a cull hunt. And for the guys in their 80s pictured in the albums, road hunting keeps them in the game, which is a great thing. Or you can go off road, down deep, and into the rough. Just know that it’s a long way back up.

I’m looking forward to picking up the steaks and roasts from the butcher later this week. And I’m glad I dusted off that brochure.

Night falls on the island that was once home to Russian otter hunters, Yankee smugglers, and roving fisherman.

Of Dogs and Divorces

Photo by Nathan Hunnicutt

The dog was the last straw.  At least that’s what the soon-to-be ex-Mrs. Zenhunter said.  Of course it wasn’t really the dog.  I’d wanted a retriever for years, to fetch the ducks my 52-year-old body was tired of chasing.  The constant marriage battle had left me feeling alone, unloved, empty, so it seemed like a good time to get a pup.  But Mrs. Zenhunter didn’t want a dog, and insisted that I compromise.  Now, in her mind, “compromise” meant NOT getting a dog.  But I did that most unreasonable thing anyway, what nearly 200 million Americans have already done: I got the dog.

And she filed for divorce.

So it was then that a 25 year marriage ended, and a new life with a dog began.  Schatzie (“little sweetheart” in German) is 11 months old and now I know what it means when a hunter jokes that he lost the house, the car, the kids in a divorce, but got to keep the dog. I truly do.

Schatzie has put the beat back in my heart. Whatever is worrying me fades away not long into our walks. Her enthusiasm for every blowing leaf, every whiff of a dog gone by before her, the total commitment to speedily bringing back the pine cones I hurl inspires me. I smile at her antics and clumsiness, marvel at the fervent desire to please, and am fascinated by how she pieces together what’s expected of her and learns the job she was born and bred to do.  She never gets frustrated or impatient or angry. When a pine cone I’ve thrown lands in a bush or behind a fence, she studies the situation, working out the best way – over, under, around – to get what she’s after, to retrieve for me what she believes I’m after.  Hers is a life of love and service, satisfaction and joy in the simplest things. She is teaching me.

At 5 months, I took Schatzie out for her first waterfowl hunt. The divorce war and moving myself, my things, my business had taken its toll on her training, so I went expecting little of her.

A friend and his son joined me in the blind, good shooters both, and we downed 11 ducks that day. Schatzie knew what to do at the very first bang-splash. She’d watch our faces and guns and once we showed her where the duck had fallen (she was too small to see over the blind wall), she was off in pursuit. A couple of ducks tried to escape, diving under the murky pond water or into a gnarly bush. Schatzie got them anyway. All 11 were brought back swiftly, gently carried through some long swims, and dropped at our feet. I can’t take credit for it; her abilities are clearly innate, the result of good breeding through a long line of champion hunters.

I’m excited about next season. Schatzie will be a year and half old. Lawyers and asset struggles will no longer be casting their shadows on my thoughts. The blind will be a good place to be. There’s a new woman in my life, too, and next season that’s who we’ll be coming home to. She’s wonderful, and best of all, she loves my dog.

The Long, Hard Road to a Dream

Two years ago, slogging through the cement-like mud of my local duck pond, legs on fire, dead tired, I had an epiphany. Hunters and fishermen lift and carry, push and pull, hike and haul, endure wind and waves, and most of all compete with the toughest of creatures. We’re athletes, hardcore ones at that. But we’ve been snacking like couch potatoes and pencil pushers. No wonder the game and elements defeat us sometimes, or at least make our sports harder than they have to be.

But epiphanies — those lightning strike realizations and inspirations — don’t get things done. They’re the spark, the first wisps in the foggy forming of a Dream. But the dream is really at the end of a long, hard road, not there at the beginning.

So a partner and I — him a fisherman, me a hunter — set about combining the considerable performance nutrition experience gained in our careers and created the Dominant Predator® snack bar. The first snack bar designed by and for the predator athlete. We made countless test batches, sprinkling in different kinds of protein, researched special nutrients no one else knew about to help with some of the extreme outdoor athlete’s needs, like better hydration, longer-lasting energy, alertness and focus.

Finally, we arrived at the right combination. A feast-worthy fusion of survival food, sports supplement, and something delicious that mom would make. Like a rice crispy treat, packed with performance enhancers. Legal ones, of course.

Then we begged, cajoled, lobbied, and campaigned to get big companies to produce our little first order of wrappers, trays, and snack bars. We built a website (predbar.com), bought liability insurance, found a toll-free number, formed a corporation (Fierce Foods, Inc.), registered our trademark, and a million other details that you know about if you’ve ever developed a product and started a company on a shoestring. For two years, it was one step forward, two steps back. Nights and weekends lost to spreadsheets, business forming chores, and the taming of all the wild, runaway details.

But last week the product finally arrived in our little garage bay warehouse. And we took an order from a little store in Wisconsin. A day after they got the product, they told us they had sold out. And it was at that moment that we realized, the inspiration that bred the dream had just cracked open to reveal a beautiful reality.

I don’t know if the Dominant Predator bar will be a big success or make a lot of money.  I do know I’ll never experience a stronger moment than when I heard from that store in Wisconsin, selling all their bars and saying people — hunters, construction workers, and the usual passing through travelers — had liked the package I designed and loved the taste of the bar. Those first people made my dream come true after two long, hard, uncertain years. What happens after, well that’s a place I can’t see or know. But I’m stepping on to the road leading to it, and the crunch of gravel under my boot sounds good to me.

Went for Hog, Got Bull

Saturday morning I drove 2 1/2 hours North to Wilderness Unlimited’s Benz Ranch for a couple days of hog hunting. Heard some earnest grunting once but never could locate the source. Mostly it rained. And rained. And when the rain disappeared, a heavy fog rolled in that could’ve rendered a whole herd of pigs invisible beyond 30 yards. So I packed it up and limped home.

Limped?

Yes, because the day before, walking a hilltop road around 5500,’ I came upon a group of cows. Not being a farm person, I give cows a wide berth as I do any animal that big and that stupid. So I veered to the right, a little downhill. Most of the cows moved off with a flip or two or their tagged ears. Except one: a young bull, I learned later. I watched him over my shoulder. Then he stomped, one leg then the other, snorted and, head down, charged me! I hurried down the hill, looking back in time to see him at a good gallop, gaining on me. So I picked up speed, easily done on a downhill run, and the distance between us increased – 20 yards, 24, 30, a little more than 30. And suddenly I was falling, knees crashing into the sod and sticks, hands, then body next, tumbling over a couple of times. Ended up beside the big oak I’d been headed for, a lot faster than my feet could’ve got me there, and hid behind it. The bull stopped short of the oak. What do I do if this beast comes around the corner, I wondered, fire a warning shot? Get my wife the game meat she’d much prefer – beef? What’s the trophy fee for THAT? I glanced at my gun, only to see dirt and grass coming out of the muzzle. Quickly ejecting the round and yanking the bolt out, I prodded and blew the barrel clear of debris, peaking around the big rough tree as I reassembled the rifle. The bull was ambling back up the hill to his harem. Were they impressed with his show of bravado, or had all of them forgotten what the commotion was all about? Out of sight, out of bovine mind?

I took the long cut back, always mindful of where a good wide tree stood, watching equally for pigs and cows. Well, a little more for cows after that. Back at camp, I nursed my banged up knee with a little bourbon and vermouth in a plastic stem glass. An unsuccessful pig hunt? Yes, but once again, hunting had proved to be a surprise waiting to happen. No truer words than that.

2010 SHOT Show

I expected new products but was surprised to see what some might say is our nemesis at this year’s Shooting, Hunting, Outdoors Trade show.

Most of the innovations were lost on me. Like, do women really need a binocular designed just for them, in plum and chocolate colors? Nikon thinks so. And is losing four ounces enough of a reason for me to trade my SBE II in for a Vinci? Nah.

Less techy and more practical was a new and growing company that’s making mannequins for the outdoor industry. Yeah, seems trying to get the GQ models to hold a bow was resulting in a lot of broken arms. Now there are ones configured for tree stands, shooting rifles, and reeling in fish. Genius.

Being a waterfowler, mainly, my eyes went where my experiences have taken me. To a cart slash layout blind slash stand up blind with wide flat wheels that might, just might be able to handle Wister mud. And to a round safe that let me spin my way to my chosen gun, instead of pulling them all out to get that one way in the back. The cart was designed by Dan Klein at Ducks & Bucks. The safe is from Pendleton.

The highlight of the show for me? Seeing R. Lee Ermey was cool. So was seeing a lot of hunting legends, like Jeff Foiles and Jeff Miller. But shaking hands with Scott Leysath was the real thrill, since his recipes have often graced my grill.

My overall impression of the SHOT Show was the same I get when I go into a casino in Vegas: man, there’s a TON of money flowing around this industry. MINE!!

THE VIDEO

Great Scott!

I knew my wanderings through the 2010 Shooting, Hunting & Outdoor Trade show would yield some interesting moments, but I had no idea I would meet one of my industry idols: Scott Leysath, “The Sporting Chef.” Now, I wouldn’t pass up a chance to shake the hand of some of SHOT Show’s hunting and shooting stars — saw R. Lee Ermey and Jeff Foiles there — but as an avid amateur game meat chef, I’m more in awe of a man who can turn wild ducks into delicacies. That takes some talent, for some species especially.

Most of you know Scott Leysath from his appearances on Ducks Unlimited TV Shows and in their publications. His recipes are simple enough, calling for ingredients often already in the cupboard, and they produce savory results, though I suspect his versions would always come out better than mine. I’m a measurer, I told Scott at our recent meeting, to which he replied that he “never measures.” But that’s the difference between an artist, such as Scott, and one who merely cooks.

A Windy Wednesday Past

Mike probably got tired of hearing it all throughout our hunt this Wednesday, but so much about it reminded me of my very FIRST waterfowl hunt, on another Wednesday past…

I had just decided I wanted to try waterfowling. I’d hunted pigs, some upland, and when I attended a Quail Unlimited meeting and all they talked about was duck hunting, I KNEW I had to try it.

Found the waterfowl forum at Jesseshunting.com, learned a lot, virtually, theoretically, but it all helped a lot. Got my season-long refuge application in too late for the opener, but miraculously got drawn for the first Wednesday: a #22 card for Wister. Showed up alone with some borrowed decoys. Driving out to Wister the Tuesday night before the hunt, the wind was bending and whipping the palms and flags at the car and RV dealerships something fierce all along the way…

Again this past Tuesday, before the first Wednesday of the waterfowl hunting season, the wind was hitting the flags and palms hard. Driving past the check station and parking lot on Davis Road, I could almost see me parked there, back then, the white Volvo with the trunk full of borrowed decoys and brand new never used waders from Cabelas. Excited, scared (especially after two old Asian guys in the parking just shook their heads and walked away, muttering to themselves, when they heard I was alone and had never hunted ducks — or Wister — before). In the morning I asked for a pond where there were “mostly teal” so I wouldn’t shoot the wrong kind of duck. I figured I could identify the small, fast teal. No way could I tell a Canvasback or a Pintail or any duck with a restriction on it back then. Before going out, through an amazing act of providence and Old Max at the sportsmens shack, I connected with Matt Berg and ended up hunting with him. Who knows what mishaps that saved me from.

That was six years ago. And on this windy Tuesday as I was rolling along the 10, the 111, down Davis Road, past Wister, with the 4WD, the high-tech shotgun, the latest feeder decoys, heading for a Wilderness Unlimited property I had satellite snap shots of, feeling all that, cocky, it was good to be reminded of a more uncertain time, of stepping into a great unknown, and the never-to-be matched thrill of that first Wednesday hunt.

Twas the Night before Opening Weekend at Wister

By Neil Beltran

Twas Opening Weekend, when all through the camp
Duck n’ goose calls were blowing, most of them bad,
Some guys were yelling at their dogs to behave,
But that didn’t stop them from lifting their legs.

The old guys like me tried to sleep in their sacks,
While young guys by fires sat knocking back Jack,
Still I set my alarm with my new iPhone app,
And settled my brain for a short Wister nap.

When out of my dazed sleep I heard such a roar,
From engines of two-wheeled drives and 4 x 4.
Boots stomping on gravel were notice enough:
It’s now two-thirty a.m., time to get up!

So I stumbled with all of the rest to the shack,
And by strange yellow light, I studied the map,
When suddenly my focus was drawn from the dikes
To a large man with brass tags holding a mike.

“Good morning” he said and we murmured replies,
As he placed the brass tags ‘fore our watchful eyes.
Now it couldn’t be said I was fully awake,
But I knew in a moment he must be St. Ray!

“One through five, five through ten, now ten through twenty!
Better be listening when I call your rezzie!
Thirty through forty, now forty to fifty!”
My pond’s sure to go before he calls sixty.

An eternity passes ‘til it’s my turn,
But thankful not to be sweat-lining at Kern.
I push my way up through the camouflaged crowd,
And whisper my choice to St. Ray, who then frowns.

“It’s yours if you want it,” he says with a shrug,
“But it’s dry as a bone, the tules all dug.”
Ah, there’re secrets not known even to St. Ray!
My cousin’s friend’s brother says that spot will pay!

So I load up my cart with twenty-odd deeks,
Squeeze into my waders and hope for no leaks.
Lather on the repellant to ward off the gnats,
Make one last adjustment to the old camo hat.

Ready at last, I trudge on out to my spot
Dawn’s not even close but it’s already hot.
I toss out the deeks but being ever alert,
I note what they hit sounds a lot more like dirt!

Well, many hours later the sun has come up,
I’m hunting a pond that wouldn’t pass for mud.
But just when the water in my brain start to boil,
In fly two mallards, surprised by the soil.

Seems their cousin’s friend’s brother is just as full,
Of whatever ducks call it, we call it bull.
And as I raised up my gun, got them into my sights,
I said “Happy Opener Boys, now it’s good night!”

First Hunt of the New Season

I finally joined Wilderness Unlimited. It was years in the doing, but not because of the cost (it’s really a rather good deal). It was the bad experiences reported by a hunter here or there, and just not wanting to be a “clubber,” feeling like a traitor to my brothers-in-arms left behind at the public ponds and woods.

But that solidarity got tougher and tougher over the past few years. Sky-busting at the refuges. People blowing goose calls in the middle of the night. Waking up at 2am to go stand in line. That awful ugly gambling and grumbling called The Waterfowl Draw, and its even worse alternative, The Sweatline.

Of course at least the public refuges had ducks and geese (when they bothered to put in enough water and some feed greens). I’d never even seen a deer in the taxpayers’ forests I’ve hunted.

So I finally did it. I joined the club.

And now I think the naysayers might be members who want to keep a good thing secret, or just people who thought their membership entitled them to a big buck without any effort. I enjoyed my first Wilderness Unlimited experience. Even before my boot hit their dirt.

I don’t deer hunt much, but waterfowl season is still a ways off, and so when I noticed it was archery season in the A-zone, I thought, why not try out this week-old WU membership?

So I flipped through the big binder of properties, chose a place in Santa Barbara (about three hours away), and called. No DFG forms to fill out and mail in. No one-in-a-thousand odds of being drawn. No waiting to hear, no wondering if I’d be going hunting or not. I just called. And got a reservation. Snap.

The property was beautiful. The campsite was dotted with big shady oaks. I hunted for two days and never saw a buck. But I know they’re in there; I saw several does with fawns. The best part was, I was hunting when and where I wanted to. No one had to pick my name out of a bucket. I didn’t need any points.

I’m looking forward to waterfowl season now more than ever. I’m flipping through the binder, making plans, easing into the daydreams.

Dusty’s Gone

My brother’s dog Dusty has died. I only hunted once with the “Dudderbutt,” as Jon and his family affectionately called her. That was a few years ago, and she was an old lady even then, white-muzzled and achy. Still, she hobbled out to that stormy blind at Delevan, where the rain came sideways and the howling wind pulled my Air Lucky spinner off the stake and sent it flying like Elvira Gulch in The Wizard of Oz.

Dusty did well, pushing slowly through the mud-colored chop to retrieve everything from a snow goose to a Eurasian Wigeon. Around 11am we took a break to eat Ericka’s homemade chicken salad sandwiches. Dusty crawled into the back seat of the truck with a lot of help, her tired eyes telling us she’d be spending the rest of the hunt there.  I like to think that morning in the marsh gave her good memories, and dreams she could drift into as the drug took effect and ended her pain.

So long, Dusty.  Next season we’ll send some ducks up your way.