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By James Baichtal 

The forecast for November 10th, 2019 was sunny with about 50% cloud cover. It sounded like a perfect day for taking the Hawken out in pursuit of Sitka Blacktail.

The sun never shown, it misted and rained most the day. Believing the forecast, I took the Hawken to the field in a wool bag. The place I wanted to be was five miles inland so I hiked the first couple of miles in the dark.

Nothing much was afoot in the early morning hours. At about 0730, just as it was becoming light enough for open sights, a buck entered the trail in front of me, nose to the ground and moving away fast.

He never saw me. I could see he was a mature blacktail deer, his body and rack suggested that. I pulled the wool cover from the Hawken, knelt, mouth grunted him to a stop as I ranged him at 70 yards. He spun to meet the challenger. I aimed for the sweet spot and fired. With the moist air he all but disappeared in the smoke. He ran out of site over a small rise. I stood and reloaded. I put my pack back on and moved to where I last saw him. No hair, no blood greeted my eyes, but darn, that shot felt good. I could see his tracks for a ways. I looked for 45 minutes but had nothing to go on. Hell, I must have missed. I always start second guessing the shot wandering if I rushed the shot; did I not hold center I beat myself up as I moved further along the trail. I had set up where I had many bucks on a trail camera and I sat there for over an hour. From the photos I knew that several nice bucks used these crossings in the early morning hours. At about 10:00 I decided to move closer to where I suspected the bucks might be bedded. I used the Primos Long CAN® . I would make 3-4 calls every 4-5 minutes. About 20 minutes after I started, I saw a portion of an orange antler moving through the brush at about 80 yards. For the next few moments I caught glimpses of movement. Finally, 32 yards away through a slim opening in a mountain hemlock I saw a face, a nose and a double white throat patch.

Finally, I could see where the neck enters the shoulder. Aim small, miss small. I held tight on the spot and fired through the opening. The moist air filled with smoke obstructing my view. But the buck was gone. I reloaded and advanced to find him piled up in a small stream.  

He was one of the many fine bucks that I had on the camera some 60 yards distant. A great, mature Sitka . . . trying to be a 5 x 5. Hunting and calling a rutting Sitka Blacktail is just the best. I paid my respects and slowly boned him out, packed him up and headed the 5 miles back to the truck. That was until I got to where I had shot at the buck and missed in the early morning.

As I hiked out with the 5 x 5 in my pack, an immature bald eagle rose with a raven, 40 yards beyond where I lost all sign of the buck in the morning.

I dropped my pack and moved to where the birds had flushed from something. There in the pre-commercially thinned slash, behind a log, down in a creek was the buck from the morning, a .58 caliber hole through the boiler room.

The birds had not eaten much, but I had disturbed their recently discovered feast. A heavy 2 x 3 with eye guards lay on the river rocks. I boned out the deer and added it to my already heavy pack. I had this buck on camera too... My back was sore but I had a great day hunting Sitka Blacktail with my Hawken. Lord I love this place, the muzzleloading rifle and the deer.