(SitNews) Klawock, Alaska - During my two months home this summer, I had no obligations other than to chop firewood so I was able to fish almost every day. I had teaching colleagues from California visiting in June and July, so when we weren’t capsizing canoes in the river or climbing mountains, I’d pull a Tom Sawyer and trick them into thinking chopping wood is fun, and that they should do it.

That was my summer. Fish, and misrepresent life just enough to get my buddies to do my work. My context has completely changed. There are no Lower 48ers around to manipulate into doing my chores, and every conversation around town involves deer, not fish. 

I have been picking up tips while hunting the rut after I got my rifle dialed in earlier this month. I’m starting to get a grasp on this hunting thing though the trips haven’t all been successful if the measure for success is bringing back a buck. However it is completely possible to have a great trip that doesn’t end in blood.

I’ve noticed similarities between fishing and the pursuit of land quarry in terms of analyzing habitat, the use of stealth and other broad basic fundamentals, but there have been plenty of differences. The biggest is that deer don’t school up and hold with three dozen of their friends and stay in one spot as you hurl an instrument of destruction in their direction. I mean, there really is a good chance that you could go out into the woods and not get a thing. However, dumb luck still exists. 

Since it’s the time of the year when the bucks are a little distracted by the need to procreate, I figured it would be a good time for my buddy Lawrence and me to have some luck on a hunt. The high school versions of ourselves chased girls as high school dudes do and once put 80 miles on his truck during a weekend cruising around town. That’s only about a quarter of the way to my favorite fishing spot in California, but to Southeast Alaska dwellers, that’s almost an impressive waste of fuel for two perpetually single teenagers.

Anyway, I picked him up just before sunup for a hunting trip on a cold but mostly clear Sunday morning. Though Lawrence had more experience hunting than me, he was out of practice. Life looped him around the world as a part of the Navy while I spent my time in Arizona and California. In that time our relationships with the wilds of Prince of Wales was strained a bit, but everything was like it used to be that morning. We were back in a truck, cruising around. The only things that changed were we both had a lot more facial hair and rather than hunting chicks with cheesy lines, we were stalking deer with rifles. 

I had no idea if there would be any deer where I was taking us, but I figured it was as good a place as any. I might not have a firm grasp on all things afield, but I’m not completely clueless.

Anyway, there was a benign glaze of snow on everything - a tap on the shoulder from winter rather than a punch in the face. We appreciated it as the light accumulation  provided a map complete with tracks. All we needed was a buck to be standing in them.

After stepping in silence for an hour, a 3-point took a break from chasing a doe to stand broadside and stare at Lawrence. He fired. The deer hopped twice up an embankment, then fell backward. Lawrence knelt down for a picture amid the carnage of a logged section of timber. Awesome. We’d left Alaska and come back on our own terms, for the most part, to suck all that we could from the island on which we were raised and on that morning, we succeeded.

Lawrence gutted the deer while I ran after a buck which passed just up the hill from us but didn’t stop long enough for me to get off a shot.

Like I said last time, I can always get a burger, and it was probably a good thing I didn't have to process a deer that night because I had a lot of firewood to haul. 

Jeff Lund ©2013

Jeff Lund is a Teacher and Freelance Writer living in Klawock, Alaska
Contact Jeff at Email – aklund21@gmail.com

http://www.jlundoutdoors.com

SitNews ©2013
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