endsley
The alpine meadows are difficult
to reach, but worth the day’s
effort.
were flat areas for bedding. It
was too perfect to be deerless.
We stood on an old landing
and started to call. Dan saw
something move into one of
the undulations on the far side
of the clearing. It was impossi-
ble to tell which direction the
deer was going, just that it was
no longer visible.
Blacktail deer in Alaska’s
Prince of Wales Islands have
a way of appearing suddenly.
And disappearing. Therein lies
some of the attraction to hunt-
ing them. Killing a mature Sit-
ka blacktail is one of the most
difficult things to do, and if it
was easy, everyone would do it.
We continued down the
road which put us directly on
top of the clearcut.
“Buck, buck. Get down there
and get a rest.” Dan’s voice was
68
WESTERN HUNTING JOURNAL
hushed and animated.
He directed me to a hole in
the tangle of debris that would
give me a perfect rest on a tree
downed trunk. The buck was
quartering away, slightly con-
fused.
“He’s a huge buck. 250 yards.”
“This will be my farthest
shot,” I replied almost laughing
as I got settled.
Dan continued to work the
fawn bleat, which kept the buck
occupied while I focused on the
buck through my rifle scope.
“Just relax. Control your
breathing…but this is a huge
buck.”
I was calm, but it was funny
how Dan was telling me to stay
calm for my longest shot, while
reporting to me that the buck
was worthy of the type of nerves
reserved for special deer. I saw
it was big, but I didn’t gauge it
to be my biggest.
With the buck 250 yards
away it definitely would be
a long shot for me. Hunting
blacktail deer in Alaska’s alpine
forest in August means most of
the shots I take are relatively
close. I’ve glassed far ridges and
seen crusher bucks, but have
never needed to take a shot far-
ther than 200 yards. Most have
been within 100 yards.
I put the crosshairs on the
buck that still couldn’t seem to
figure out why the calling had
stopped. He wanted to track it
down, but wasn’t sure which
way to go. I didn’t think too
much about what was going
on in the buck’s head; it was
just one of those thoughts that
surface until you totally clear
the mechanism then touch the
trigger.
I breathed then pulled the
trigger. The buck disappeared
behind a depression, appeared
briefly, walking at a casual
pace, too covered by brush for
another shot. I felt good, but
we didn’t see it go down. Was
the buck’s slow pace because
he was about to, or because I
had missed?
“No, have confidence. You
got him,” I told myself.
Dan said he saw what
looked like a shock, which
would indicate a hit, but still
asked me how I felt.
“Good,” I said.
What else do you say, right?
We waited for a few minutes,
then started down off the land-
ing and into the tangled mess.
There was enough of a path
that we didn’t have to combat
too many of those ground-hid-
ing branchy areas that seem to
have no bottom. The type that
if you fall, it will be with one leg,
and you hope you have enough
flexibility to prevent the dislo-
cation of a joint, say, your hip.
As soon as we reached
where the buck was stand-
ing, we found blood, then, the
deer. He had made it maybe 30
yards. It was 30 yards farther
than I would have liked him to
go, but I made the shot and the
work was about to begin.
I waited for a few minutes
at the deer as most hunters do,
admiring the horns, touching
them, counting the points and
posing for a picture or two of
course. It wasn’t the biggest
deer of my life, but the antlers
were wide and had some stellar
eye-guards. Its body was thick
and meaty, and neck swollen
with the season. It doesn’t real-
ly matter what it was, just that