Twenty minutes after the first call and maybe two after the last sip of coffee, a gray body walked casually behind a smattering of brush in the middle of the muskeg.<\/p>\n
I had heard what sounded like legs moving through salal a few minutes before, but figured my excitement to be out under blue skies made a trophy squirrel sound like a deer.<\/p>\n
The morning was still and cool, bordering on cold — perfect for enjoyment, but not ideal for creeping.<\/p>\n
The hike from shore to the muskeg had been loud, and more than a few times I was so frustrated by the tangled brush and sucker holes that led to devil’s club patches, I charged forward, valuing speed over silence.<\/p>\n
We arrived carefully on the edge and stood in a lightly-worn game trail while the reverberations of our approach dissipated.<\/p>\n
Few things hold the promise of an untouched muskeg on a calm, quiet morning as rut kicks off. It may have been walked before, but not today.<\/p>\n
“Go with a fifty,” I whispered to my wife who responded with a sequence meant to travel roughly 50 yards and inspire a buck in the immediate vicinity to stand up, move or step out. Rather than post up in a muskeg and try to bring something in from a mile away, we like delicate approaches and quieter calls which focuses our attention on hunting the muskeg well, not treating the call as a magical apparatus. If nothing responds, then we try to bring something in from further away.<\/p>\n
I scoured the edges with my binoculars, looking for a set of floating eyes or antlers fixed on the noisemaker, or any movement. There was none. We crept to the edge of the muskeg and sat at the base of a tree and behind enough brush to conceal us yet still allow for any shooting lane I might need.<\/p>\n
When nothing responded, Abby went to work on the coffee while I ate a breakfast of trail mix. This was the first leg of a circuit that would take us through almost two miles of prime terrain. But we needed to eat too so what do you do? Risk spooking a deer with the sound of firing up the Jetboil?<\/p>\n
Yes.<\/p>\n
I have sworn off pre-dawn meals and hiking in the dark during rut after a morning in which I was 20 yards from an alder that ended up being a fat-necked buck in the early pre-dawn light. Not a minute after that one spooked, another appeared off the logging road spur my buddy and I were walking. Our plan had been to hunt the muskeg at first light rather than hunt our way to the muskeg at first light. So thanks to that morning, I emerge from the tent ready, assuming there is a buck lurking and saving breakfast for a more convenient time. It also serves as an excuse to be patient rather than moving boldly through too much territory too fast.<\/p>\n
Trail mix chewed, coffee sipped, I caught the movement. Perfect. The program was validated. Just be cool and make the shot.<\/p>\n
The deer had vanished behind a thick clump and would emerge on the other side maybe 30 yards away. I’d have a lane and a broadside shot. Perfect.<\/p>\n
I waited as patiently as I could, now under the influence of the first dose of caffeine mixed with anticipatory adrenaline.<\/p>\n
An ear flicked and the deer broke the stillness. Doe.<\/p>\n
We called and waited for the buck, but it never came. Next time.<\/p>\n
• Jeff Lund is a freelance writer based in Ketchikan. His book, “A Miserable Paradise: Life in Southeast Alaska,” is available in local bookstores and at Alpha XR. “I Went to the Woods” appears twice per month in the Sports & Outdoors section of the Juneau Empire.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Twenty minutes after the first call and maybe two after the last sip of coffee, a gray body walked casually behind a smattering of brush in the middle of the muskeg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":103857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":11,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6],"tags":[568,159,692],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-103856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home2","category-sports","tag-column","tag-hunting","tag-hunting-and-fishing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103856"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=103856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}