Here Jim Baichtal and Sophie Gilbert share our joint experiences on a very special hunt that we did together on Prince of Wales Island, in the Tongass National Forest this November (2019). First comes Jim’s recollections, followed by Sophie’s.
Jim’s Perspective:
In 2016 I revisited one of the many collections of annually rubbed trees I discovered 20 years ago but had not visited since. I have learned that such places are the sign posts for all the bucks in an area, a communal rubbing spot. The trees were now much larger but an obviously great buck had been rubbing on them. I revisited that site in 2017 and found one of his shed antlers some 70 yards away and more rubs. I hunted hard for this buck but never had the pleasure of an encounter.
In 2018, armed with trail cameras, I set out to get an image of the buck. I might not see him in the flesh but I hoped to get an image of him at least. Though several nice bucks visited the site, no huge, wide monarch appeared. November 9th I changed my exit route from the cameras and rubs by 30 yards and noticed another shed antler, no two sheds, no– OMG here laid the buck where he had died December of 2017. The reason I never got images of him in 2018 was because he laid on the forest floor 150 yards away. He was a wonderful, wide, heavy old warrior, gross scores 101 6/8". So ends this story and a new adventure starts with his prodigy.
In 2018, I began to get trail camera images of a spectacular 4 x 4; heavy, wide, and symmetrical. My 2018 hunting season ended with no sightings and a handful of enticing images, mostly at night. I needed to change my approach. In January of 2019 I hiked to the spot with fresh snow on the ground to map out the trails. Every landscape has hundreds of game trails. Only a handful of those trails are frequented by deer. The fresh snow told the tail– there were only 2 main trails in the area. I followed them for over a 1000 yards GPSing where they intersected, which would become places in the fall I would hang cameras. I wanted to better understand the timing of the deer’s movement through the area…how they moved across the landscape, especially that big buck.
Late in September I carefully placed cameras across the area at the predetermined places. On October 19th the big 4 x4 made his first appearance. He had survived the winter, and was bigger than ever. Over the next few weeks he appeared on many of the trail cameras I had placed out. This gave me an idea of his travel routes and times. But all of these images were in the dark, with no daylight sightings.
Meanwhile, Sophie Gilbert and I firmed up her arrival time for a rut hunt. Hoping to arrange a meeting between her and this big 4 x 4, I never hunted the area. I would slip in and pull camera cards and monitor his movements.
The evening of November 11th Sophie arrived. On November 12th, long before daylight, we hiked in several miles and sat in the dark waiting for light enough to hunt. The anticipation was high. Before entering the woods, encounters with three bucks on the walk in had us on pins and needles. We careful slipped into what I had determined was his core area. We began a calling sequence that lasted for 20 minutes. We then did a short circuit of the local cameras, checking images, at around 8:20am.
On the first camera, we received a good omen- some wonderful photos of a great blue heron, walking through the flooded meadow after the recent heavy rain we’d been receiving. Herons are lucky in our house, and are my wife Karen’s favorite bird. Then, on the second camera was an image of the big 4 x 4 in broad daylight at 9:29 am the previous morning. The third camera we checked also showed daylight buck activity by our big secretive buck the previous morning, and all three cameras were within 100 yards of each other.
We stepped away from the trail cameras, thrilled with the possibilities, and I turned to Sophie and said we should just sit quietly for a bit, right here. I motioned towards a good place to sit quietly, but when we got there the wind was totally wrong, so we quickly readjusted about 80 yards and rechecked the wind. This would work. As I planned the sit, Sophie excitedly whispered, “Jim, Buck!”. I moved and brought up the binoculars. I spun to Sophie and said “Someone needs to kill that buck, NOW!” It was him, and an equally impressive buck at his side, 120 yards distant, exactly where I had expected him to enter the immediate area. Sophie moved to a nearby large shore pine for a standing rest. He was standing facing directly at us, his lower white throat patch was the target. That quickly it was over. I had moved to the side to back her up, but it was not necessary. I nearly got a chance at his huge companion, another incredible 4 x 4 buck with great mass. I believe these bucks were still coming to our calling that had ended 25 minutes before. How many times do we need to be taught the lesson of patience?
We moved to where the buck fell. Sophie had never really gotten a good look at his antlers, as she was busy lining up her throat shot., and he’d fell with his back tines buried in the sphagnum. She commented that it was a huge 2 x 2. I asked her permission to touch the buck, which she granted. I pulled the rack from the moss, laying my hands for the first time on an animal I had dreamed of for the past two years. It was the great 4 x 4, with antlers a beautiful bright orange from rubbing on red alder and complete with tines so long that they had a wave to them.
Huge emotions came over me. A mixture of excitement, sadness, and pride. The excitement of what had just happened, an incredible combination of luck, hard work, and taking advantage of an opportunity presented, taps the core of every hunter. Sadness in the taking such a magnificent animal and knowing that he will no longer be showing up on the cameras. Pride in watching Sophie develop and evolve as a huntress culminating in an incredible moment. All the hours of hiking, scouting, mapping, placing and moving cameras over two years had paid off. Truly a trophy of a lifetime.
The buck was everything that I had imagined. We took plenty of photos and videos, and savored the moment, the gorgeous muskeg scenery, and the incredible beauty of this mature animal. We slowly boned out the buck, preserving his cape for mounting. My measuring tape later revealed a nearly symmetrical rack grossing 104 Boone and Crockett inches. This animal will grace the walls of Sophie’s office for years to come, reminding us of this moment, a moment shared between friends in this incredible landscape, the public lands of the Tongass and the Sitka blacktail deer.
Sophie’s thoughts:
I arrived in Thorne Bay worn out from a semester of teaching and research at the University of Idaho, and looking forward to taking a step back from that and re-engaging with the Tongass landscape and deer that I love, and with Jim and Karen, two of my favorite people. After weather delays on the flight in, I got lucky and hopped on as a stand-by on my flight over to Prince of Wales Island. Little did I know that my good luck was just getting started.
Jim immediately started telling me about his developing knowledge about an incredibly area of buck activity he’d zeroed in on, in part because of the quality of its habitat and the long walk required to get there. He’d been doing his homework for the past 3 years, and was keen to share the spot with me the following day. After getting each other amped up looking at his game cam photos, we went to bed with visions of 4 x 4’s dancing in our heads.
The next morning, we woke well before dawn, and started our hike with hours of darkness yet before shooting light. But Jim led us into the site with a sure step, as he’d been hiking this trail in for the last several years- he even had the best sitting logs along the way all picked out. At the last sitting log before we reached our target hunting zone for the day, we waited for enough daylight to hunt, and shared a snack (Jim is notorious for not eating while hunting, so what I really mean is that I took out my snacks and convinced him to have some, knowing that we’d be on the move from there on out and unlikely to snack again until we killed). Just as we were about to start moving, as the deep green of the forested landscape emerged in the growing light of dawn, I looked back up the trail we’d come from – and there was the classic white nose and orange antlers of a buck, looking back at us! He quickly crossed our trail and moved into the trees, but he ensured one thing: that we were fully awake, no matter how long ago our coffee was. As we continued our walk in, 2 more bucks crossed in front of us, amping us up even more.
As we got into the zone that Jim had been so carefully monitoring for just this occasion, including not hunting it himself in the proceeding weeks, I could see his focus increase. As we reached the muskeg where he’d been getting photos of the incredible 4 x 4, we were both on edge, and felt as if at any moment that grizzled silver nose with burnt orange crown would show itself, telling us that a buck had arrived. All through our calling sequence, the excitement remained high. As we checked the cameras and saw the first daylight photos of the target buck for the year, you could cut the tension with a knife. As we began to settle down to wait, something told me to look behind us up the trail one more time… and there, coming through the mist rising out of the grass, was a buck.
I did my usual “there’s a buck” dance, which involved whispering excitedly to Jim, eyes wild, while making “antlers” with my fingers… I just can’t help it, it’s what happens naturally. He quickly brought up his binoculars, and I could hear the intensity in his voice as he said, “somebody’d better shoot that buck… now!”. I knew that he was seeing something special, and that I had only a few seconds to take advantage of this opportunity, both because the animal would turn and run and because Jim, who is quite the hunting animal himself, would be making sure the buck did not get away.
Both the buck and Jim were patient as I found a rest, steadied myself, and took aim at the deer’s white throat patch. As the buck fell into the wet grass, I felt excitement, gratitude, and relief that I hadn’t let Jim down after all his hard work. As we approached the buck and saw just what a gorgeous animal he was, my feelings turned to awe. His whiskers and fur was still glistening with the moisture of the Tongass humidity, and his deep orange antlers glistened against the green and yellow of the moss and grass below him. He’d been rubbing so hard that his chocolate-brown forehead had taken on the orange gleam of the alder’s tannins, and we could smell his musky scent from yards away. Clearly this was a magnificent animal, who’d no doubt passed his genes on to the local deer population. When we checked his teeth, it was clear he was a 7+ year old animal, with molars well-worn down towards his gumline through winters of browsing blueberries, huckleberries and other woody shrubs.
After contemplating the buck’s glory, talking over our experience, and of course cementing our memories with photographs, we moved on to carefully butchering the huge amount of meat. Walking out under the considerable weight of the buck, I thought deeply about what a team effort this buck had been. Without Jim’s patience, dedication, and years of “doing his homework” on this valley and its deer herd, there was no way I would have had the opportunity to harvest this buck of a lifetime. I know we will both treasure this memory of Jim’s and my joint experience and accomplishment forever. Year by year, my love for hunting, the Tongass, and Sitka blacktails only grows, as does my respect for and friendship with Jim.
