Will be leaving this morning to hunt the D6 opener. Plan on camping at highland lakes and hunting behind the lake around the disaster creek area. Will be in a tan CJ7. Post up where you are going and report back.

I have herd the deer stayed low this year hope otherwise. See you on the trails and good luck to all.

Robert

Hope you do well.
didn't draw an X zone, so we'll be heading to D-8 the 2nd week of Oct. Probably hunt the Bartolas drainage area south of Horse Mdw.
I;ll check in when I get back.

Tom

Robert, been all over that area the last couple years, lean towads St. Mary's pass and Lightening ridge. Going back to B zone this year, no time to try two different spots.

Heading out in the morning for C zone private property. Saw a big buck there last year, so hopefully I'll have a successful year.

Notellum Ridge and GoFindYourOwn canyon.

MtnHtr

I'm going to sneak into a special spot in D5 on Alder Creek, not far from Brown Rock. Going to be there long before legal shooting time.
I want everybody to know that. Because I need you guys to stir up the big ones and make'em run by my stand.
It's only taken me about 8-9 years to learn their favorite escape route. E

Came home early due to a tooth ache and being gassed. Left at three in the morning and ended up hunting the tree covered hills around half moon lake. Seen no deer nor sign around the ridges they are in the trees. Seen a total of 6 deer sat. and was only able to make one out as a doe. The other 5 acted a lot like bucks. Going to the dentist tomorrow then back out there to hunt D6 and then the D5 opener this sat.

Some one else took a 4X4 out if the highland area and there was a black bear taken by a group that went in on horses. Another guy reported shooting at a 3x3 and missing as well as seeing a nice 1x?

FWIW all the shooting took place between 8-9 am.

We drew D9 this year. Of course a lot of D9 is on fire right now so we'll how it works out. Might make a trip to DFG this week for D8 tags.

Tom...love the Horse Meadow area.

2crow,
Ahhh, you know the area!
Do you know the Bartolas Country? We'll be around the Taylor Mdw and True Mdw areas.
We'll see what we can find there. You never know!

Killed my first two deer up on Alder ridge...I haven't been in that area for years but I did spend the last two weeks up in the Hays flat/Cody meadows area...didn't even see a doe.



ETA I'll probably be hunting a little west of Forresthill up on Mosquito ridge in D-4 this coming weekend...better chance at seeing a bear than deer though...

Yep Tom. Covered a lot of miles (mostly windshield) up there 2 years ago. Rattlesnake Creek I believe and Cannel Meadow and such. We camped there in Horse Meadow a few times that year, Lots and lots of country in there. Good bear country too. My buddy saw a dandy cinnamon colored bear in there a few years back. Spittin distance. Of course, no bear tag that year!

Tooth is fixed may drive around Cherry lake tomorrow then back to highlands this Friday. Stew is on the stove for this weekend.

Nice 4X3 taken from Highland lakes area opening morning. I heard the shot. Link to thread on jesse's hunting forum.
jesseshunting.com

[img:center]http://www.jesseshunting.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=60030[/img]

2crow,
We'll be setting camp at Taylor or True Mdws, where ever we can find a creek.
Last season, we camped at Big Mdw and a neat little creek winding thru camp[Salmon Ck. I think].
Had a great time, only to get skunked! Well, you know the area.
Buuuuut, you never know!

Tom

I was going to hunt D7 this weekend, but an issue came up at the house, so I'm waiting for a week or two. A buddy went up to a private ranch in D7 near Shaver Lake and saw nothing. He stopped at one of the main check stations at the base of Hwy 168, and they said they'd had 17 deer checked in, versus 42 the year before

Has a frustrating weekend. The nearly full moon has the deer moving at night, and staying down all day. I glassed a good portion of saturday and some on Sunday as well of a highly-used path, and nothing.

I'm hunting a private walnut and prune orchard where the deer are damaging the crop. I see fresh tracks over where I had walked the day before, so I know they are out there.

Unfortunately, C4 only has a two week season, completely during the brightest moon phases. Hopefully this weekend the deer will deside to peak out during shooting hours.

Drove up the back side of The Piute's today from Kelso Valley in D9. Long way over the top. Got to within 3 miles of the bottom, and the gate was locked. Had to drive all the way back over the top, back to Kelso. Only saw 2 doe and a fawn.

Not too promising.

2crow,
Used to run all over that area on my dirt bike, Kelso Valley, Dove Springs, Jawbone Cyn, etc.
When I stopped riding in the desert, I hunted the Piutes a few times, never had any luck tho.
There are other pockets of Sequoia N. F. you can look at.
Where you think they're not, there they are![sometimes]
Good luck.

Tom. Decision has been made to run to Fresno tomorrow to the DFG office for D8 tags. We'll hit D9 to call ROberto Gato and coyotes and if a buck comes along...We'll be up Sherman Pass Rd Sat morning.

2crow,
We'll be in Taylor or True Mdw. 7th, 8th,& 9th Oct.
You know, we're hunting machines, we'll find something!
Unless we hit Mc Nally's for Oct Fest! OHHHHH!!

Or make your way up to Ponderosa for some chili and a cold barley pop!

I can not wait to head out. I think we will try in a couple weeks.
Let me know if that sounds good.

Ok were heading out on Monday for b5/53 border in the Yolla Bolly, just in time for the mini heat wave.

Was going to hunt D10 this weekend but with the heat coming in, might just put it off a week.

Going back to Highland lakes to hunt the half moon lake area along the disaster creek area Friday. Then over to hunt highland creek for the D5 opener,going to try and make it back to the peep site ridge area if I am not to tired.

We're rolling for the High Lonesome at 0400 tomorrow. Will report back tomorrow night or Sunday if'in I'm just too tuckered from skinnin' deer and bear!

Score one in D8 for my kid!

Came home a day early Highlands was desolate.Looks like a bunch of deer moved through early in the week but nothing there now. Hunted the D6 side of highland creek. Did not here a single shot from the highland side of the canyon.

Next year there will be an army of Jessie's hunters up there, you can bet on it. That 4x3 was actually taken out of the Emigrant wilderness, a hunting pard ran into them coming out of Kennedy meadows. Nice buck!

MtnHtr

Yup time to scout another area. or get in position and let the newbies push to me.

B6 didn't produce for me, again. Had a bear staring out at me and my squealer call at 25 yds, looking huge at 6X, but I didn't want to smash his face in.
Made it back down to A-zone for the final evening hunt, got a wide chunky with 20 minutes left in the season.




Good luck to the rest of you.

Congrats on the nice Ca. rack with moments to spare..

That's a dandy Mac. Very Cool!

macrabbit, damn nice buck !
Hopefully, when I hunt D-8 next week, I'll find something similar!
We will see.

No great skill on my part, but he is a nice one.
109" gross, all eight circumferences average 3.75", 21" wide. With the added bonus of an acorn on his left.
Good body, leg gland going full blast, a few recent fight scars.

My son's deer had some stinky tarsis(sp) glands and looked to have been rutting around a little. Had some good fat coming on already too. Maybe they know something we don't......like maybe winter's on the way?











One can hope!

Tarsal.
Here on the central coast the rut has been on for three weeks.

Tarsal.....that's it. Thanks!

If I go out this weekend I will be going low.

Looks like we are getting some changes in da weather patterns down here!

Don't believe any of those old wives' tales about weather affecting hunting.

Much cooler weather coming in with possible rain/snow.
Lord knows we need both. Better than the temps we've had lately.
Leaving Wed afternoon. Finally!

Everything we saw in B zone was morning or last light, saw almost nothing during the day thanks to 85-90degrees temps at 7000ft. Tagged my buck at 4:00pm feeding in the shade.

Why I was feeding in the shade, I have no idea...

Congrats.

No wives tale there. It affects my attitude towards hunting which means I'm more likely to be in the field to see those critters moving.

Cooler weather rocks my hunting world!

^"Cooler weather rocks my hunting world".
OHHH, roger that!

May go out in the morning after work..

Todays X12 buck (10-10-10)

It was a large body buck but next to my 6'4" 270 body it looks smaller. Hunting alone I had just finished a 3/4 mile drag thru sage brush; I was gutting it when some came along and snapped a picture for me. Of course the sun was in the wrong position so I turned it showing the half way gut job they interrupted.

Too bad you weren't in X10

A 10-pointer, mayhap?

Nice buck. I did not see much this past weekend,just a dink spike an 5 does.

Going out tomorrow morning.

Went out and saw two bucks.

One had his butt sticking out of a brush about 50 yards away. I did not shoot because then I would have to track him and shoot him again. Plus it would not be fair to him.


The other was about 200 yards down a slope. He was facing away with his back to me. I tried cutting down at an angle to get a broadside but an ATV went above me and the buck took off. Too thick to chase him down.

But a good day.

I spent 3 days in D-7 at 8500 feet. We only saw eight does and no bucks. We saw more bear tracks than we saw deer tracks. Down lower we killed the biggest rattlesnake I have ever run across: sixty inches long, thick as my forearm, with eleven buttons on the rattle with more broken off. We decided he was our trophy and took the skin home for the wall.

It's not an old wives tale...They still migrate out of the high country when the snow pushes them...Not that many deer nowadays in many of the D-zones, BUT there was a time, not too many years ago that you could go from seeing 0- to maybe a half dozen a day before a storm to seeing 50-100 if the right kind of weather system moved in...The area I generally still hunt in D-4 has migration trails you can still follow even though the herd is not a fraction of what it once was & hasn't been for about fifteen or twenty years now...first came a kill off due to Black or Blue Tongue disease along with an explosion in the mountain lion population...now I'll feel lucky if I see a dozen deer this year...didn't even see a doe last year while hunting.

I guess I'd better toss in a belated smiley. It's just that I'm not accustomed to being taken seriously...

Me either....

Winnie, seeing is half the fun. (OK, one quarter )

Tip o' the day: Carry a small predator call handy around your neck.

I tuck mine between buttons into my shirt so that it doesn't bounce around and clack against my binocs. But it flips right out and is ready in an instant.
I don't go afield without one.

The one below is great for this use. It's small (<2.5"), so can go unnoticed all day, and the foam lip seal is very comfortable.


Its value for calling predators, perhaps during off hours while hunting other game, is obvious.
Even more important to me during big game season- a blast on a call can halt a moving buck. I've taken a half dozen deer with this trick.
I've not bothered to try to stop a buck that is running scared from me, but it works like a snake charmer's flute on unaware animals, even those that are otherwise concentrating on following their deerly beloveds.

I hate shots at walking targets. Just last year I boofed such a shot at an antelope: I was prone over my daypack, swiveling to track him. Just as the last ounce of trigger pressure came through, the friction between pack and stock changed and my rifle squirted forward, sending the shot in front of the buck's chest.

Nearly any sound can work, of course. But I can't whistle (Yeah, I heard her, too: "You just put your lips together and... blow.") And any human-made sound that can reach out to 300 yards with power requires movement and effort. I can be snuggled up to my rifle, aimed and ready, and give a loud blast on a hands-free call like the above without [much] disturbing my position. Buck stops to look, KABOOM.

To speak to your hunt: Either of those bucks might have turned to a squeal from a call, perhaps enough to allow a sure killing shot.

Good tip Macrabbit.

Next week I go I will carry one of those.

I went up into LaPorte Ca., D-3 and saw a bunch of bear tracks, no bucks/does.

Thinking about a D9 run early Saturday, Going to take my son again and see if we can get him deer number 2!

Heading out to spicer meadow reservoir this morning,going to try and fill a d5&or d6 tag.be back sat night,camping at the river coming out of spicers.

Crow call for me. We are often kind of spread out on the ridges and the crow call fits in just fine with all the other noise for getting each others attention. I no longer carry predator tags since I dont carry a bear tag and they tend to show up unhappy when no dying something is found.

Bears come to crow calls too.

MtnHtr

Crow works.
Half the battle is remembering, in the excitement of the moment, to use the call at all.

I have a bear tag in my pocket whenever I can. When bear's my main quarry, I usually try to call them in.
I don't bother with bobcat tags, since I rarely see one except on a certain property that forbids nailing one.
I get a cougar tag whenever I go to Oregon, and I'm taking one to Nevada this autumn.
The biggie, of course, is that old mange mongrel: the coyote. No tag needed, living almost everywhere, ...
So a predator call, instead of some other noisemaker, is always my choice.

Let the bear be unhappy! It builds character.
I posted this on an old thread:

And deer will come in to predator calls...I've never tried it during season, but while calling in the same area after season for bobcats, I've called in bunches of deer. Some come in really pissed, stomping their hooves & blowing like hell...

I've called in scads of muley does in Wyoming (it's a lot of fun with doe tag in pocket). I've had very little luck on our blacktails, and I've called near, and even at, them a lot.
Another reason my buck-stopping sounder is a predator call.

Most of the time I use a coyote call all I get is a mad doe. Only once did I actually get a yote to come in. Some day I will figure it out and maybee figure a way to get the bucks to come in as well.

So what's wrong with a mad doe? Alice enjoyed a mad hatter; a doe can't be any worse.

If I'm not mistaken, prey noises bring in bucks only by bringing in protective does that happen to have a following buck (in the rut).
Though last year I brought a young blacktail forky from 130 yards away to 30 (just right for a .45) by lightly and sparingly 'moaning' through my call. He thought he was gonna get lucky.

Don't fret overmuch about your lack of coyotes. If you sound like something, anything, in the throes of being torn apart, your calling is A-OK; the non-response is caused by something else.