Something Squirelly...

First of all, whatever end-of-the-year holidays you may have celebrated, I hope all was good for you and yours, and the new year is treating you well.

I personally gave a stranger a nice Christmas present last week.  However, I didn't know about it at the time, and, unfortunately, the stranger was someone who trespassed onto 40 Acre Pines and stole my tree stand.  I found out about it in the usual way I guess, John and I had walked in on the afternoon of the Friday before Christmas for an evening sit only to find the tree barren of stand.  I'd like to say I was mad, or at least madder than I was, but I mostly just felt a profound disappointment in my fellow man.  Merry Christmas, jackass!

Anyhow, on to better things!  Today, the last of my holidays, I decided I wanted to go squirrel hunting.  Now mind you, I haven't been squirrel hunting since Duran Duran were a hot new band, so its kind of a novel idea idea for me.  I read a bit about it online to renew my faded memories.  Like every other form of hunting, people have strong feelings about which behavior is noble and pure and which will result in old southern ladies saying "Bless your heart" to your face while calling your ancestors trash behind your back.  Some are of the "if you can't nail one in the head with a .22 you don't need to hunt it" school.  Others talk of .410 or 20 gauge shotguns. 

Well, I doubt I can hit a target roughly the size of a quarter at 40 or so yards with an off-the-shoulder .22 round, even if my scope was sighted in (which it isn't).  Neither do I have a .410 or 20 gauge shotgun.  I do, however, have an good old Browning A5 12 gauge with a lot of character.  If you go looking at Remington 12-gauge #6 shot game loads, they have a picture of a squirrel right on the box!  Can't go wrong there, right?

Thanks Dad!

The next question was: Where should this hunt occur?  There are skads of squirrels in my own yard, but neither my neighbors or Gainesville PD would likely appreciate me firin' Ol' Betsy there in the city limits.  There aren't many grey squirrels at 40 Acre Pines either, and fox squirrels aren't legal game here in FLA.  I wouldn't shoot THAT fox squirrel anyhow unless I was starving, I like the the vicious little mf'er too much.  So, a WMA it is!

A quick search of the FWC website revealed that the WMA section in Etoniah Creek State Forest was hosting an open small game season.  There we go!  I was familiar with parts of that Forest from the Trailwalker program and its only about 40 minutes away.  During my previous visit I became acquainted with one of Florida's rarest native plants, the Etoniah Rosemary.  ECSF contains the only known population of these plants on public land.

Bardin and Palatka's to the east, Grandin, Florahome and Putnam Hall's to the west.  I'm sure you know the place!

 
Yesterday was one of those perfect, cool, sunny days we get in North Florida this time of year, right before a truly cold front comes through (its to be 22 tonight ya'll!  brrrrrr).  I arrived at the WMA about 2:30 and after a little scouting decided my hunt would be in the bottomlands next to Etoniah Creek itself.  I parked at the picnic area were West V Road crosses the creek (its on the map above).

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Etoniah Creek from the West V Road bridge, with a healthy crop of eel grass.

Like many smaller streams in Florida, at some point in the distant past Etoniah Creek was dredged, and the resulting spoil piles form a now-wooded ridge that parallels the creek.  I started out to the east, keeping along the spoil piles, walking a few steps then waiting to hear something in the hardwoods around me. Occasionally I had to go down the the creek's edge to cross a small tributary flowing through a gap in the spoil ridge.

Scenic, kinda.

I didn't even see any signs at all of squirrels for probably a quarter mile, but then again that makes sense as this is a fairly accessible area that has undoubtedly seen other hunters this year.  I finally began to see a few small dreys scattered about, but it was hard to tell if they were current or not.  Finally I heard a squirrel chattering off in the oaks to the south.  I froze and listened, then slowly tried to ease closer for a look, but I heard no more.

That was the only sign of a live squirrel I heard for the entire two mile stalk.  Which is, I believe, by far the farthest I've ever walked though the woods of Florida and not seen a squirrel.  I guess I can blame hunting pressure, or the breezy conditions of the afternoon, or even my own loudish footsteps across the crispy dried leave.  I only half buy the last one, I've seen enough squirrels to feed an orca while tripping along trails, sounding like an elephant on meth.  Judging from the silence in the woods and the self-check station on the way out, nobody else was getting any meat that afternoon either.

Regardless, it was a very pleasant walk.  I returned along a woods road, hoping I'd scare up a rabbit.  Of course, that didn't happen, but I wasn't really expecting it to either.

Not super easy to hold an iPhone and an A5.

Around sunset I drove around and checked out some other areas of the state forest I hadn't been to before.  They actually have a very nice drive-up campground, no electric but a compost toilets and water from a hand pump.  I snapped this last pic going under the power lines near the back of the WMA area.  I'm a sucker for symmetry, and you can't get much more symmetrical on a large scale in FLA than under a big power line.

To infinity, and beyond!

Addendum:  Photo of Etoniah Rosemary in bloom for Vyki :)  I still heart lens flares. 

Hank Shaw's "On Killing"

One of the best essays I've ever read on the meaning of what we do, please read it:

http://honest-food.net/2011/12/07/on-killing/

Fit for a Goddess: Venison Diane

After invoking the name of the Roman goddess of the hunt, Diana in my last posting I decided to give an account of applying the classic recipe Steak Diane to a nice section of venison backstrap.  I'm certainly not the first person to do this, in fact a few sources I Googled up indicated that Steak Diane has its origin as a venison recipe.  However, like most of these recipes it was new to me.  I consulted a couple of noteworthy, trusted internet sources as well as my lovingly stained copy of Joy of Cooking (of course) to decide on the exact ingredients.  

Some people get paid to put logos in pics like this LOL

I began by sauteing the salted venison steak in butter, which is always scary to me as it is easy to screw up by using high heat.  This time I kept it at a nice, moderate heat and had good success achieving a nice browned layer teaming with Maillard reactions.  I took the meat from the pan, set it aside, then added two minced shallots and a few cloves of minced garlic to the pan and stirred them over medium heat until the shallots were translucent.  Then it was time to deglaze with brandy and condense the fluids a bit.  Soon it was time to add about a cup or so of beef stock, a tablespoon of tomato paste, a bit more than a table spoon of mustard, and a bit more than two tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce.  This all got stirred together and simmered on low for a few minutes to further reduce.  Now its time to add the tasty tasty fat, in the form of a healthy dose of heavy cream, enough to turn the mixture a nice mocha color.  

Instead of larger steak slices, I decided to cut the backstrap into bit-sized chunks and mix it in with the sauce.  I served it with garlic and butter mashed red potatoes and some simple steamed broccoli (we like potatoes and broccoli, I'm sure you've seen those sides before in my posts).  The sauce was beautiful, very rich and thick, going equally well with the potatoes as with the venison.  This is definitely one of those simple recipes that turn out a delicious dish, I'd be happy to serve it in larger quantities at a dinner party.  

Saturday's hunt at 40 Acre Pines was somewhat different, an approaching front pushed a lot of rain through before daylight, it stopped just shortly before we arrived.  I hoped that maybe the deer stayed bedded all night as it was the dark of the moon and raining and would get up to eat at daylight.  Two days before I moved my stand to the other half of the property, on the other side of the bedding area (well, we hope, obviously haven't walked in there in months).  Saturday morning before I climbed up in the stand I put out some strips with buck "attractant" on a nearby oak shrub.  As you can tell from the recipe post taking the place of a much more jubilant announcement there was no success.  I heard maybe two shots that morning, not very close by.  

This is the last week of muzzleloader, Saturday is General Gun so it will be time to take Aunt Mary's rifle for a walk.  I guess I'm mostly looking forward to the week before Thanksgiving that does are legal, that's likely my best hope for actually getting meat (and coincidentally to continue the cooking aspect of EMD).  That is, if any deer at all actually decide to move around in daylight hours around here.

Smoke Pole Season in Goethe - Monday: Humanworld

What happens when an adult male human, accomplished dayhiker and backpacker, recipient of the designation of Trailmaster from the Florida State Forest Service, who has logged hundreds of hours and several hundred miles on trails in Florida, sets off in the dark to find a stand he's been to three previous times with his GPS off?  He gets lost.  Well...he gets "turned around'.  Before I finally gave up and turned the gadget on I had turned a 20 minute trip into an almost hour-long ordeal.  Sometimes pride makes us do stupid things...

Anyhow, I made it to the stand annoyingly late, feeling like the rank amateur that I am.  It was barely 10 minutes before sunrise, I hadn't needed my headlamp for a while.  The trek was still a great experience however.  While I was wandering around confused in the dusk I listened to a few coyotes howling off in the distance.  For another instant I was terrified by the sudden explosion of turkeys from their roost above me, probably the same flock that I'd watch amble by the day before.

I climbed up and settled down in the morning chill to wait.  I could occasionally hear some movement off in the distance to my left.  I had heard a lot of armadillos closer to the truck, and it was likely that's what was moving.  I blew a few calls out in that direction just in case.  Most of the morning was quiet however, except for a few busy squirrels.  Its amazing how much noise one little tree rat can make, but wild squirrels are always cool to watch.

Around 9:30 I heard some soft footsteps approaching in front of me.  I soon caught movement, and saw a doe approaching.  A yearling appeared, trailing behind.  The two were in no hurry, calmly picking their way across the pine-needle carpet.  The yearling snagged a leaf now and then, perhaps still testing what was edible.  The doe crossed my trail and got a little more alert, not scared but cautious.

The two paused for about a full minute about 25 yards ahead.  At one point the doe's body was broadside to me, but with its head concealed behind a pine.  A perfect shot.  What an incredible temptation!  It was as if the Goddess Diana was testing my worth as an ethical hunter.

I reflected that the whole three-day experience was a test.   First I resisted the temptation to take a too-fast shot at a legal buck, then a shot at flock of illegal turkeys, now a shot at an illegal deer that in addition still had a young one attached to her.  I think by any measure I passed those tests, and even though I have no meat to show for it I have the satisfaction that I made the right choices.

The doe and yearling calmly turned and slowly worked their way back as they had come.

I remained in the stand another hour and a half, then decided it was time to call it a hunt.  I collected my gear then pulled down the tree stand and transformed it into its backpack mode, but not before I posed for a self-portrait as a memento.

My last duty was to discharge the rifle that had been loaded since Friday (although with no firing cap when it was in transport).  Although I was loathe to disturb the morning's peace, I would not have another opportunity soon.  I picked the cat-face of an old turpentine stump about 30 yards away as a target and using a small tree to steady myself I let fire.  Note to self: don't fire a muzzleloader upwind.  When I cleared my throat of the acrid smoke I saw the round went a little low and to the left, not sure if it was me or the gun.  It was still within the zone of a boiler-room shot on a whitetail though.

Guess you could say it did end with a bang, at any rate.

I drove back home with a sense of melancholy, but very happy and grateful to have had the awesome experience.  I had a rare lunchtime beer as I cleaned my rifle in my kitchen, then headed to work for the rest of the afternoon (reports need to go out, you know).

A man I know who hunts with a primitive bow and arrow in Goethe for both archery and small game season says I was very lucky to see as many deer as I did.  I have plans to head back over myself for small game season, feral hogs of any kind as well as squirrels are legal at that time. 

I should be hunting back at 40 Acre Pines Friday and Saturday, most likely using the muzzleloader.  However, I do think that once I finally get one (if that happens) and the mental pressure to restock my freezer is off  I may go back to archery for the rest of the season. 

OK, enough for now.  Two new recipe posts coming soon, and I have an idea for another.

Smoke Pole Season in Goethe - Sunday: Turkeyworld

I returned to Goethe about 4 PM on Sunday for an evening sit.  I was happy to see that there was only one other set of footprints, besides my own, on the woods road that started my trek to the tree stand, and that they were both coming and going.  Looks like I'd have the island to myself yet again.

I'd been concerned by how easily the does picked up on my scent the prior morning.  I was willing to gamble on some kind of cover scent.  That morning I'd gone by the local big-box store and purchased a can of doe-in-estrus scent.  Yes, I purchased pee.  The aerosol variety.  I almost laughed at the idea as the clerk scanned it, but I'm sure he'd seen it all before and was unfazed.

When I was a couple hundred yards from the stand I uncapped the urine and sprayed a liberal coating on the soles of my boots.  Man, what a raunchy odor!  Like a sheep pen in a barnyard or something.  I wondered how long this pee had been in a can, for all I know the doe that passed it might have also passed.  As I approached the area I let out a few short bursts on the trail behind me.  I sprayed some on the pine needles near the scrape, and made another trail over to a good shooting lane.  Then I climbed into the stand and sprayed the leaves around me.

The events of the prior day had worn at me psychologically.  As I looked over to where the buck had approached, I realized how close he had been.  I was still full of "should haves" over missing a chance at that buck, and I tried to prepare myself to react quickly this time if the need arose.

Not long after I'd arrived I heard a few yelps in the distance off to my right, out somewhere on the edge of the marsh.  Now, almost two hours later, I heard something approaching from that direction.  Two light in the step to be a deer, the sound resolved itself into multiple quick footsteps.  First one, then another, then a whole flock of Meleagris gallopavo osceola, the Osceola Wild Turkey, filed by about 30 yards in front of me.  They seemed totally unaware of my presence.

Heck, even the hubby has informed me I need to shoot a turkey, but I already knew they weren't in season here.  Just in case I was wrong, I checked the PDF of regulations on my iphone (that's something hunters couldn't do a generation ago).  Yep, I was right, not legit, and besides legal turkey hunting hours don't extend past 1 P.M. in Florida WMAs anyhow.  Amazing though, all that aside this must be something like a fall turkey hunter's dream, a dozen or so birds passing right by in range at a nice slow pace. 

Soon a sudden burst of heavy wing beats a little further off signaled that one of them had flown to roost.  A few more followed, climbing to the top of the tall loblolly pines.  I made a note to find out when the applications for the spring turkey quota permits need to be in.  I have an old Browning shotgun that I bet would work pretty well. 

After the turkeys passed it was quiet again, and the evening crawled past the moment of sunset.  I decided to use the remaining twilight to walk out instead of waiting for full night.  I couldn't resist one look out over the marsh as I passed though.  Out in the distance, movement caught my eye.  A brown back, a tail, then they were clear:  a doe and a yearling, far away.  At least, I thought, I've seen deer today.

Smoke Pole Season in Goethe - Saturday: Deerworld

I've never figured this out about me, but one of my two superpowers is waking up right before my alarm, no matter when I set it (the other is mosquito resistance, but that's for another day).  For the record, please don't think I'm always on time, just awake. Whatever, in any event I was up at 4:55 (making a total of 5 hours sleep, also another story). 

I made it to my chosen access point on the boundary of Goethe State Forest about 6:30, little more than an hour before sunrise.  I probably was on the tree stand around 6:50.  The forest slowly turned from greys to colors around me.  I heard something like a deer call around sunrise, and attempted to answer using the rubber deer call thing I recently purchased. Nothing...for a while.

About 8:15 I heard a deer coming in from my left and froze stock-still.  It was a small yearling!  My heart jumped.  It fairly pranced along, with its tail up, not in panic but in interest.  It went directly over and sniffed the buck scrape.  Then the yearling looked expectantly back over it's shoulder as I heard, then saw, two other deer approaching on the same path.

It was two older does, smart enough not to rush in.  These old biddies were obviously sniffing the tracks I left the previous day, not overly nervous or excited, but curious, deciding what to make of the situation.  Then they started looking back.  My heart jumped into overdrive as all those stories I'd read in the hunting magazines raced through my head.  A buck (well legal!) was trotting right up without a care, still in the last of velvet, maybe a 7-8 point in a basket configuration.  He mingled in with the does and yearling (at this point another couple does had come in from somewhere while I was focused on the buck) and seemed to even be trying to single one out.  All this was only about 30-40 yards away.  My brain raced, man, could it be over this fast?  And please let it!  It seemed like it would only be a matter of seconds before the buck would pause in just the right place.

But no, those two old does...

The two old biddies already knew something was up, and, ironically, it was they who were now hunting me.  With the legendary ears and nose of whitetails, they were triangulating my location, easing closer, stamping to get my attention.  I froze as stock still as my racing heart would allow.  They were circling downwind, one of them was probably not 15 feet away!  I knew as soon as I moved a muscle they would be gone, and the buck with them.

Meanwhile that lust-stricken buck was still going la-la-la, smelling young doe tail and moving in and out of clear line-of-sight.  Finally for a few seconds I had a good shot, well, would have had a good shot if I could raise the rifle without spooking these does!  Then biddies had finally had enough, and with disgusted huffs they took off.  The buck was all like "Cool! We're running now!" and followed after.

The woods were thus cleared, and I was left alone with my thoughts.  In the post-game analysis that looped through my head the next couple hours I decided that I should have chanced it, quickly thrown up the rifle and drew down with one quick sweep.  Oh well, didn't happen.

I forced myself to stay on the stand in the quiet woods until about 10 am, then as a consolation prize I treated myself to a nice mile of stalking on a loop around the island.  I doubted I'd see a deer this way but I might scare up a hog since there was some sign of them near the marshes.  In reality I saw no more mammals that day besides grey squirrels, technically legal game at the time but 1) I doubted I could hit one with open sights and 2) If I did I doubted a .45 caliber bullet would leave much usable meat.  It was a beautiful circuit anyway (most of the pics in the previous post came from it).

Cat-faced pine stumps are the historians of the island.

I got back to my house around 2 PM.  As great as the experience was, I had other things to do that afternoon and the next morning.  My return to Goethe was Sunday evening, but that's for the next post.

Smoke Pole Season in Goethe: Prologue

In order to to give people a higher quality hunting experience and control the taking of game animals, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission uses a weighted lottery system to issue quota permits for various Wildlife Management Areas during various hunts (archery, muzzleloading, general gun, fall and spring turkey etc.).   This was my first year entering the lottery system, and I feel I got pretty lucky.  I drew a muzzleloading permit for a three-day season on the WMA that covers most of a large state forest about 45 minutes west of my home.

Goethe State Forest is a true gem of the Real Florida, 48,000 acres containing examples of 15 different natural communities such as flatwoods, dome swamp, sandhill, and basin swamp.  The extensive mature longleaf pine forest has one of the largest red-cockaded woodpecker populations in Florida.  Other rare animal species found on the forest include the Florida black bear, gopher tortoise, Sherman's fox squirrel and bald eagle.  It would in no way surprise me to learn that far-ranging young male Florida Panthers are dispersing into the area.

Goethe only became a state forest in 1992, the majority of it purchased from Mr. J.T. Goethe, a private landholder, using government-raised conservation funds.  It may be a rural legend, but I've read that upon hearing of the impending State Forest designation, a local county counsel member said something to the effect:  "That's not an endangered forest, that's good usable land!".  Such is the Other Florida that Goethe was saved from (so far).

Only 250 permits were issued for the Goethe muzzleloading season this year, so even if everyone and their one guest showed up at once, that still left 96 acres per hunter (As I found, the case was far from this).  I wanted to stack the odds even more in my favor.  Something stuck in my head from my stack of old '80's-vintage Deer and Deer Hunting magazine:  99% of hunters never venture a mile from their vehicles (likewise, the experienced dayhiker in me has nothing but confirmation for that).   When I discovered my win I started scanning Google Earth to find likely places far away from motorized entry points.

I found what looked like a good place about a mile cross-country and soon put boots on the ground to scout it out.  I fell in love at first sight with what I found.  An island of sorts, in a wet year you would have to wade thigh-deep to reach it, but its dry right now.  Mature pines and bald cypress surrounded by prairie marshes, cut through with well-used game trails.  Little sign of humans, and some of that was at lest seventy years old.

I bought a tree stand that can transform into a reasonable backpack-like configuration (I've been using it at 40 Acre Woods, too.  Huh, maybe I'll do a review and endorsement soon), and placed it out Friday morning. 

In good shooting range from the stand is a well-used game trail forced into a small funnel by some downed trees and brush, but also, more importantly, a fresh buck scrape the size of my work desk. Hunting was from Saturday-Monday, updates and results coming soon, when I get more time at the computer.