Hunting on the HiLine: 2012 Edition, Vol. 2

Once again it has been a while since I have posted a blog update.  Same old excuse- we have been busy! This post is going to be about hunting season. Read on...

Sun setting behind the Sweetgrass Hills

Hunting season in Hill County ended Thanksgiving weekend.  The last two weeks of the season where chaotic in our area, due to the last minute scramble to shoot a deer.  Further complicating the situation, neighboring Liberty County's season ended two weeks earlier than ours in Hill County, so many people from Liberty County drove over to western Hill County to take another shot, so to speak.  

The influx of vehicles driving around scouting deer was pretty incredible.  Our normally quiet north country roads were seeing quite a bit of traffic.  Jeff advised me to wear hunter's orange if I went out for a walk.  I found this a bit disconcerting and opted instead to walk indoors on the treadmill.  Nevertheless, when I was out in our farm yard, on more than one occasion I could hear shots fired nearby. 

Fox Crossing, in one of the biggest coulees around.
I think this is where Jeff originally shot the deer.

Jeff spent most of deer season guiding friends and family members.  I accompanied on a few occasions when I knew there would be hiking involved.  One deer in particular we spent quite a bit of time tracking.  The deer had been shot- Jeff watched him fall. But, when he began walking toward the deer, it got up and began walking again, and Jeff lost him.  Jeff, our two friends, and I went back after lunch that day and regained the trail of the deer.  We tracked his hoof-prints and blood spatters through the scattered snow from the bottom of one coulee, up out onto a flat, and down, then up the next coulee.  The deer had labored over two miles, climbing steep coulee banks on his escape, after having been shot. 

On our tracking expedition, we spotted a porcupine in a tree.
I didn't know they would hang out in trees and bushes.

After a while, we lost the trail.  While tracking the deer, we noticed another hunting party nearby.  We theorize they shot, and ultimately harvested for themselves, the deer Jeff had originally shot.  

Despite not harvesting that deer ourselves, I think we all enjoyed the tracking process. In hunting, we are no longer simply observers of nature, but participants.  Humans become predators- we must use all our senses to find the prey we week.  For me, the greatest enjoyment in hunting is found in participating in the ecosystem.  The most enjoyable and most effective way to hunt, especially around here, is to get out of the pickup and hike.  Deer reside in places where pickups simply cannot gain access. It is exciting to be on the trail of a deer, whether following a live buck, or tracking one who has been shot and has wandered.