2020-09-19 Mentored Hunt After Action Report

Despite not bagging a deer, yesterday’s mentored hunt at Occoquan National Wildlife Refuge was a great learning experience for me. This post is a basic recap.

On Friday afternoon, Eddie from DWR called me to let me know that my mentor had missed a flight and wouldn’t be able to join me. As it turns out, we had another mentor who bowed out due to a COVID scare (I hope) as well, so it was left to myself and another mentee, Eric, to go it alone.

I showed up at about 5:30 AM, we chatted for a while, and Eddie gave Eric and me a ride to the area that Eric and his mentor were supposed to hunt. They had been able to scout the area together, whereas I hadn’t been able to get into my area, so we figured that we had a better shot of getting set up well there. We got there, got set up, and were sitting in a ground blind about 10 minutes before shooting light. We sat for about an hour without saying much of anything, and seeing nothing, just watching the light come in and reminding me how easy it is to let your imagination get the better of you. We kept expecting to hear a shot from one of the other 10 or so mentor/mentee pairs, and other than some resident goose hunters out on the river, we never did. We had two sightings, some sort of large bird flew into a tree nearby around sunrise, then flew off a minute later, but it was still too dark to tell what it was. And at some point in the morning, a bald eagle flew by low, just outside the tree line that separated us from a nearby field/marsh.

My notes from the morning are mostly that it was cold. I didn’t dress warmly enough, and the drop in temperature that always happens just after sunrise got to me. It was also quite windy, and we heard what sounded like an elk bugling on helium, which we eventually realized was two trees rubbing together in the wind. I don’t think we did anything wrong, but luck wasn’t on our side.

Around 9:00 we got up to stretch our legs, then back to sitting until about 11:30. Then we walked back to the pavilion at the parking lot where Wade and Joe from DWR were busily cooking a delicious wild game lunch, that consisted of Venison Reuben sandwiches toasted on the grill, dove breasts, pronghorn antelope sausages, and venison backstrap. Much fun conversation, and a few photo opportunities were had by all. I’ll add pictures when I find them. One of those conversations told me that one pair while walking back for lunch, had startled a couple of does into what would have been my spot had things gone as planned.

Around 1:30 I headed back to my spot alone, since Eric had decided to go home instead of hunt the afternoon. I decided to pack up and head over to my original spot, in the hopes that those two does were still over there, or more might show up. I now know that probably wasn’t the best idea, but at the time it seemed like it gave me my best chance. The new spot had more limited, and shorter, shooting lanes, and was buggier and had less area to set up.

Around 2:00 I got to sitting. Sunset was around 7:05, and I had promised myself I wouldn’t shoot anything after around 6:00, so that I would be less likely to have to field dress and drag in the dark. I did hear two sets of shots, one with a pretty quick follow up, and another about an hour later. I was hopeful that some of my other mentees were bagging some deer, and that the shots could mean that the deer had decided to start moving. It was around 3:30 that I got my eyes on my first deer. Unfortunately, all I saw was it’s rump as it bounded away from me in the swamp. It had walked up behind me and scented me before I knew it was there. The way it was headed, I knew it could have walked out into one of my shooting lanes, so I had a tense few minutes as I waited at the ready in case it did, but it didn’t.

I knew that Wade was supposed to give us a butchering demo if someone got one, and between that and the discouragement of having set up facing the wrong way for my best opportunity, I decided to bag it in around 4:45. I did stalk out to the road, the direction the deer had gone, just in case it had stuck around and provided a shot, but it didn’t. I packed up my gear and got back to the parking lot just in time to catch the majority of a lesson on separating all the muscle groups in a foreleg and back leg, and then a few minutes later, another deer came in and I got a lesson on telling how old a deer was from the teeth, and watch the skinning and quartering process I had missed with the first deer.

We heard two more shots over the course of the afternoon and evening, and got word that they were trying to track a deer, then later that they had concluded that it had been a miss. Somewhere around 7:00 Eddie got a call and headed down to help look for a third deer that had been shot. That one was recovered. Unfortunately, it was starting to cool back off and I decided to head home, get some dinner, and head to bed rather than go help look.

Overall, while I’m disappointed that I didn’t get a deer myself, I had a great time, got to meet some great people, and was able to learn some lessons I hope to be able to put into use when general rifle season opens up in November. Lessons learned include:

• Pack more clothes than you think you’ll need. I’ve already bought a few things in drab colors to flesh out my wardrobe, since most of my good base layers are in bright colors, or black. I’m not quite ready to commit to camo.
• Despite the best-laid plans, and what should have been a very target-rich environment, luck is always a factor. This isn’t really a lesson, so much as a way to reinforce that the hunting I’ve done the last few years, while not perfect, has not been a waste, and it will encourage me to get out on my own and do it more.
• I can now quarter a deer without much difficulty, so were I to get something on my own, I wouldn’t have to drag the whole thing out of the woods, but only carry out the meat.
• In the same vein, I don’t think I’d ever use a processor again, except possibly on travel trips where I’d need to get it shipped anyway.

The hunt was sponsored by QDMA and the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources as part of QDMA’s Field to Fork program, which is an R3 (Recruit, Retain, Reactivate) effort to bring in more hunters. I can’t speak for my other mentees, but for me it certainly accomplished it’s goals. I hope to get out and get active, take a deer or two this year, with the end goal of being able to act as a mentor at one of these things in a year or two.

Addendum My daughter (10) mentioned to me a few days ago that she wanted to go hunting. I’m going to follow up with her, and hopefully take her out in the field this season. Probably not hunting, but at least scouting. I’m already taking an introduction to archery class with her in October, and I suppose I need to find a way to take her shooting as well. Doing my part for R3.

• Hunting