Tuesday, October 28, 2008

D16 & G13 Mule Deer Hunt Opener Near San Diego CA

This was our D16 & G13 Mule Deer Hunt Opener in San Diego 2008 October 24-26. Rick (Westy) and I camped at Lake Henshaw Campground and hunted nearby.

Saturday's sunrise was warm with a slight wind. Several trucks parked near us and 17 vehicles went up above us. Saw 2 bucks checked in at the Henshaw Store at lunch. A nice 3x3 from Mike and a forkie for another guy, his first deer. They had to track the forkie for 3 hours and when they found it the butt was eaten out by coyotes and a cougar then chased the coyotes off it appeared and the cougar started in on the belly. They said there was cougar tracks around the dead deer and the belly was freshly opened up so it looked like they scared the cat off when they approached. The 3x3 had a separate 3rd main beam and the start of a drop tine. Their bellies were full of acorns. Nobody mentioned any bucks pushing does that I heard so the rut hasn't kicked in hard yet.

Saturday evening we crawled down into our same canyon from the morning and about 4pm WHAM!!! right below me, Westy popped a yearling doe that stood up and ran from her bed. Of course the canyon was straight down and Rick busted butt to get the small doe back across to the easier slope where we boned it out and hauled it up to the waiting truck.

Sunday morning Westy and I watched the same live oak ridges where he got his doe Saturday. I had one spike buck feed by me early around 8am. Later I saw a big bodied deer ghosting through the timber and when I put the binos on the deer to see what it was, it just disappeared. I figured the deer had bedded down so I waited a bit then slipped down the finger ridge toward the deer and then hooked around the knob where I last saw the deer. Then I sat down. Sure enough, up popped a big ole doe peeking around the knob where I had come from about 50 yards out. Had it been a buck I would have had a good shot. I love sneekin' and peekin' with deer.

1 comment:

Hog Hunting Texas said...

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