Friday, October 16, 2009
Bowhunting the backcountry
A strenuous trip deep into a wildlife management area pays off with whitetails -- and more -- for four deer hunters.
Kraig Cesar of Virginia Beach quietly reflects over the large doe he killed with his bow during a hunt at the Featherfin WMA.
Navy SEAL Cliff Bruner (left) showed little strain dragging a gear-filled canoe and raft through nearly 10 miles of the Appomattox River through the Featherfin Wildlife Management Area. The effort was significantly more strenuous for his companions, Kraig Cesar (middle), Bobby Hogan (right) and Roanoke Times outdoors writer Mark Taylor.
It's not easy traveling 10 miles on a river two inches deep and blocked by fallen trees in many places. Add 200 pounds of gear to each canoe and the trip becomes even more difficult.
Bobby Hogan (from left), Kraig Cesar, Cliff Bruner and Mark Taylor take a short break before hauling their gear up the river bank after completing the long canoe trip out from their deer camp.
Mark Taylor is outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times.
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@roanoke.com
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Mark Taylor
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FARMVILLE -- As Kraig Cesar kneeled over the fallen deer, his face reflected a combination of exhaustion, pride and relief.
He had just shot at and killed his first deer with a bow.
It hadn't been easy.
Cesar had been on a cold streak, having spent fruitless day after fruitless day on deer stands over the past few years.
And this was an improbable location for breaking out of the slump.
The kill had come on the final evening of a strenuous four-day bowhunting adventure on public land in Virginia's backcountry.
Four of us had come in here, far away from the nearest public access, seeking good hunting and solitude.
We'd found both, but they came at a price, one that ultimately made the trip that much more rewarding.
Going deep
On a warm early October day in 2004, Cesar, Bobby Hogan and I loaded camping gear into my small johnboat and motored across Lake Moomaw and onto U.S. Forest Service land.
From our base camp on the lake's northwest shore we bowhunted the rugged country for a couple of days.
Hogan managed to bag a doe the first morning, but deer were sparse. Still, we enjoyed the getaway so much we planned to make Bow Camp an annual tradition.
Because of family and work conflicts we couldn't make it happen again for five years.
The initial plan this fall was to return to Moomaw, but the poor state of deer populations on national forest land was a nagging concern.
Yes, this hunt is about more than just killing deer. But if you're going to put the effort in, it's nice to have a chance of seeing something.
So we switched things up, deciding instead to hunt at the Featherfin Wildlife Management Area near Farmville.
A relatively new addition to the WMA system, Featherfin had been carefully managed for wildlife and hunting while under private ownership, and the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has been making an effort to keep the area productive.
Though a modest amount habitat enhancement work has been done, the property already features a good deer habitat with its mix of pine stands, hardwoods and overgrown open areas that provide lots to browse and cover.
The area also has an antler restriction to help more bucks reach trophy size. Bucks must have four points on at least one side to be legal.
Most appealing is the limited access.
Although remote areas of the property are not far from adjoining private tracts, those areas are miles of tough hiking from public parking areas.
Wanting a camp more comfortable than one we could pack in our backs, we looked at another option.
The Appomattox River flows for nearly 10 miles through the heart of Featherfin.
We would canoe in.
Bob Taylor at the Appomattox River Company said the river is small but passable through the WMA.
"You might have to get out and drag some," he said.
This turned out to be quite an understatement.
Hogan, a resident of Roanoke and the postmaster of Moneta, and I were first to start out on the cool Sunday morning in our own gear-laden canoes.
Cesar, a logistics company owner who would be driving up from Virginia Beach, would get on the river later. He would be joined by his friend Cliff Bruner, a commander with the Navy SEALs.
As Hogan and I worked our way down the river we spent more time out of the canoes than in them, dragging through one shallow riffle after another.
And that was the easy part.
The river was blocked at many areas by fallen trees. Some were small enough that we were able to cut openings with a bow saw. Some logs we simply had to drag our canoes over.
After more than four hours of effort we finally reached a decent camping spot.
Not surprisingly, there was no sign that others had tried this before us.
And there was no resting.
After setting up camp we hoisted our treestands on to our backs and set out to find hunting spots before dark.
Zeroing in on deer
While I set out to explore one side of the river, Hogan headed the opposite way.
Featherfin has some old fields that have largely been allowed to grow wild, though the DGIF has bush hogged some paths through them.
The fields provide good cover but are not really huntable, at least not with a bow.
Ridges covered with oaks are a better option.
Marc Puckett, a DGIF biologist in Farmville, had warned that the oak mast crop was spotty. He was right. Oaks are abundant but acorns were not.
Finally, after hiking for about a mile, I found some oaks with a few acorns. Deer sign was light, but it was best I had so I hung my stand and made it back to camp just before dark.
Hogan had also found a few oaks and had set up.
Having rolled into camp just before dark, Cesar and Bruner would have to hunt blind in the morning.
The first morning turned out about as it might be expected. None of us saw any deer.
I pulled my stand and went looking for another spot.
I ended up setting up not far from Hogan and Cesar, and things were better that evening. Three of us saw deer, though none close enough for a bow shot.
After another slow morning we were all looking forward to the evening hunt, before which all of us tweaked our stand locations.
It paid off.
At 5:15 p.m. I had a doe broadside at 6 yards. But she was behind some brush and I couldn't get a shot. Eventually she spotted me and spooked, taking two other deer with her.
My misfortune was Cesar's fortune. The three deer ran directly to where he was set up and he got a 25-yard shot at a big doe.
Meanwhile Hogan also had a couple of deer around him, so he told us by radio that he planned to stay put while we tracked Cesar's doe.
He would finally get a shot, recovering his deer about the same time we found Cesar's.
Naturally, both deer had run to the bottom of hollows. In backcountry hunting there is no driving to the kill with an ATV.
It was past 9 p.m. by the time we had gotten both deer and our gear back to camp.
As we sat around the fire that final night in camp we were proud that our efforts had brought tangible rewards. Thanks to the spotty mast crop that had concentrated the deer, in two days of hunting the four of us had seen about a dozen whitetails -- all does -- and actually tagged two.
The next day would bring more work, the most daunting task being another long session of paddling and dragging canoes down the river.
Instead of being lighter, the canoes would carry the extra weight of the meat from two deer.
But, after the challenges we had already tackled, this one was welcome.
