CALIFORNIA DEER HUNT 2023

[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to my video about my California deer season for 2023 I stopped doing these type of hunting videos years ago because they're just a lot of work YouTube really hates them and tends to demonetize them more than any other types of videos I post and in the end they get very few views for all the work I put into them also trying to film while you're out hunting on foot will cause you to miss some shot opportunities and uh I really don't enjoy that but uh in the end I decided hey you know what I'll do a video anyway unfort Ely I didn't draw tags for any of the premium hunt zones that I put in for this year so I was forced to buy General over-the-counter tags for zones with a lot of pressure and very poor genetics I'll Focus most of my scouting and attention to D9 but I also purchased a uh a D13 tag which allows me to also hunt d11 and D15 um but uh both of those zones that I picked have about a 7 to 8% success rate mu deer populations in California have radically different genetic quality a mature buck in zone D13 will look like a little tiny goat compared to a mature buck in X12 so when you look at the deer I'll be glassing in this video keep in mind that I'm hunting one of the most pressured hun zones in the country and the genetics are very bad here in California we're allowed to shoot any buck that has a fork on one side and as a result of this poor management practice bucks in over-the-counter tag zones rarely live more than 1 and a half years and are normally killed before they get to experience their first rut even though killing bucks that young is perfectly legal and very common in this state I don't do it personally I'll pass on all one and 1/2-year-old buckss as a personal choice which usually in these types of zones makes hunting very tough because that's usually all I see well I hope you really enjoy the scenery in this video when you get outside of our shitty cities communist politics and inconsiderate people California really is the most beautiful state in the country so sit back and relax is I show you a Chronicle of my 20123 California deer season well I hiked up to that null right there right up there so I can uh glass the saddle and this uh Basin down here which uh I'm in right now I'm hiking back down the mountain into my truck and bucks no legal bucks so I I think they're it's a little bit warm right now they're probably up a lot higher than this so uh I'm going to go further back I don't know if you could see it back there between this saddle but there's an area right over there where the mountains get up over 8,000 ft and uh I think I'm going to have to go hit those ridges up there but uh [Music] and I'm up on this Ridge way up high on this Ridge up here and you can see uh there's a lot of deer sign here the deer been digging here and pooping here and we have us which is probably where they're feeding so uh this is a good spot to set up a cam and uh this is where I have my camera hooked up at right there so time to hike back down got deer tracks everywhere and uh some fresh poop this generally means that they're uh stopping and uh feeding in this area they're not just passing through which is good well thank goodness in a forest full of Live Oak and Black Oak I finally found some white oak you can kind of tell right here if you look right here the deer been browsing on this thing I hiked up to the top of this big Ridge right here and just give everything a good look this is one of the Peaks I recognized on onx that I wanted to hike up and try out and uh I uh ran into three deer and the whole way up this Ridge I had the wind in my face so they didn't even know I was there I just sat there staring at them so that's a good sign I came in the right direction also seen a few Mountain coil up here which is promising for me but uh a week and a half to open her and uh still out here looking for those nice bucks you're legal bro but uh you are way too small little forky well I had one Buck walk through my OverWatch area this morning and uh it was a year and a half year old um basically a little tiny 2 by two sticking straight up although that's a Cali legal that's definitely not a opening day shooter especially since uh I was getting some better bucks than that on my trail cams in this area got to this spot at about 5:00 and set everything up and drank some hot cocoa and waited till legal shooting hours and started glassing around and one bucks so far it was legal but uh I'm not going to shoot it let that one grow a couple more years so this is the hunting spot I set up for the opener and uh it's a great spot as you could see uh I'm up on top of a ridge and pretty much a lot of area right here to cover um I came up here a couple times earlier with the saw and cut back a little bit of vegetation but basically uh it's everything I need right there it's protected from the elements a little bit it's got lots of uh cover and conceal mment right there comfortable little seat you know nice little Nook to sit in and even when the sun comes out if it comes out bright um I got a little bit of shade from this pine tree so it's a good area unfortunately the wind shifted on me and uh this spot is busted [Music] [Music] well it's uh day two of the opener and uh decided to to uh hunt a different spot further up the mountains about uh 8,000 feet elevation right now and um when I first started putting out trail cameras I got one pretty decent Buck here uh 3x4 but uh haven't seen him on the camera since so I decided to hunt this area and while I'm here retrieve my cameras in this area and uh I've seen about uh five or six Doe's but uh no bucks I just saw two do's and two fawns playing around in this little Meadow down here you see up there on the mountain it's already dropped into the 30s and it looks like maybe that rain's on the way yeah just check weather service on my radio and there's supposed to be thunderstorms coming so I'm going to uh hike a little bit lower I don't want to be on this Ridge right now but uh the deer are out [Music] [Music] well uh we had the first uh cold front of my hunting season come through even a chance of thunderstorms today and I'm up working these ridges today and there are a lot of deer out this uh this little cold front really brought them out they're active and I uh sometimes when you're hunting in areas like these Oak Woodlands right here and especially in the fall the ground is just covered with dry leaves and you know you got to walk through it but uh you know there's tons of videos on how to step through the woods without making a lot of noise on these dry leaves but uh to tell you the truth you know uh the deer are kind of accustomed to it you know other deer are stepping on these leaves and crunching them out everything that goes through this is stepping on this but there's one unnatural sound that'll get a deer's attention every time and it's this so watch where you step you know you're going to have to step on these dry leaves it's just part of the game but don't step on sticks and uh it's really bringing the deer out I've seen about 20 Do's this morning and uh and two bucks but unfortunately those bucks were spikes they were big spikes one had about 12in Spike sticking up off its head but uh not Le and not what I'm looking for so I'll keep on uh going with the grind here and hiking around driving around but uh a lot of deer out and about today this is a promising sign um I love it when these cold fronts come through we're supposed to get scattered showers in a couple hours here and that'll be really good for the deer hunting so we'll see what happens [Music] [Music] well it's uh the end of the day on October 2nd last few minutes IL legal shooting light and uh still empty-handed um today we we hunted pretty hard especially this evening and uh it got cold again down in the 30s which was good lot of deer out and about still even during the daylight hours in the middle of the day but uh almost all Do's a couple of spikes but uh I did see a California legal Buck today it was a little it was basically a spike with a with a couple little tiny branches branched off of it it might have been three points on one side but uh um that was a really young buck uh I'm not going to shoot that and we still got a long way to go during for hunting season and uh it's uh not going to get hotter it's only going to get colder so I think the hunting is going to get better as the season progresses but uh it's beautiful out here I'm just loving it [Music] [Music] it's crazy that I could be so high in elevation and it could be so warm well it's uh October 5th today and uh I played hookie from work this morning to uh go up in the zone and hunt and uh I I think I remember saying on my last video recording the last time I was out here hunting that uh it's only going to get better from here because the weather's going to get colder well boy was I wrong a uh a late summer early fall Heat Wave came through and it's supposed to get 85 degre up here today um and down in the valley where I live it's supposed to be 99° so uh as you can imagine I've worked my ass off today and I'm not seeing anything I saw one dough while I drove in to park my truck on the side of the road and that's basically it that's all I've seen today I'm not seeing anything which is crazy because um a few days ago when I came out here at the tail end of that cold front that came through man I saw tons of deer but nothing right now so I don't know maybe uh hike back down to the truck uh drive into town here a little mountain Cafe and get something for lunch and then maybe end up going back to work well hopefully we this ends and we get back to that great cool weather that was bringing the deer out well I'm following this game Trail back here where I got a trail camera set up and look at this a human footprint you could see uh right here some broken uh broken brush right there so a uh person has been drinking my Kool-Aid ah one of the best moments of the hike when you finally get back to the truck I'm ready to drive down this mountain and get me a burger and a cold beer it's already getting warm up here it's already in the 70s [Music] and basically just uh still hunting through the woods today because it's uh hot a heat wave came in and uh just checking out these game trails and uh you tell this one gets a lot of activity a lot of fresh deer tracks and if you look at this right here these little baby oak trees right here you tell a lot of animals have been going between this look at all the uh all the leaves are gone on the branches sticking out right here so this is uh heavily travel and recently traveled so when I'm out hiking in the woods looking for deer um I never pass up plants like this a lot of similar plants I mean technically you could probably even use dandelions if you find them but inside the pods you get this really light fiber and uh I use this stuff as uh wind indicators so a lot of times like right now when I come across this stuff I'm actually going to pick the cotton fibers out of the middle of it and uh I'll fill my pocket with these and uh when I need a wind indicator I if you see that these are great wind indicators so a lot of stuff you can use out in the woods that people don't think about well we're still in that little Heat Wave I was talking about on my last video and uh apparently we're supposed to have like three more days of this it's 7 o'clock in the morning and I'm sweating my ass off already um today I decided to just go out and do some still hunting just walk around the woods in some promising areas and and also this hot weather if you could see them really brought out the mosquitoes man getting eaten alive so I'm going to hike back to my truck um call it a day pull some trail cameras and uh head home and when the weather cools off in a few days I'll be back up in the mountains well we got us up cold front it is blowing hard it's like sustained 40 maybe 50 m an hour out right now in it is blowing hard so who knows this could be good for the deer hunting today get back in the truck it's freezing too well it's legal shooting light today and as you can see a big cold front moved in little bit of scattered showers which is good we are seeing a lot of doe and even a few spikes this morning but nothing worth shooting but the good news is the deer are out and about in numbers I haven't seen in a little while that wind is just fting it's coming off that ridge above me and it is just freezing my hands are numb filming this right now but uh that's good Deer weather and hopefully I score today [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] la [Music] good C Becca tried to set up the good camera tried to set up a good kill shot for you and uh it took us too long to get our [ __ ] together and we lost that opportunity but uh you know when you're trying to film hunts um that's an unfortunate drawback especially when you stock close right now and uh Becca was going to film this shot and she got her camera set up uh got everything focused got everything in um I was setting up a good shooting spot um taken one more glass on the buck before I took a shot and as luck would have it a little Spike ran right across the front of it pissed it off and that buck got up and ran and we lost it but uh Becca I believe Becca got a picture or two of that buck and I'll show that right now uh I did find one and lost my opportunity on it so I'll uh probably be back up in two days hopefully this cold weather sticks around and I get another opportunity and capitalize on it this time just uh walking these Ridge lines hoping to come across something this warm Trend continues the only good news is uh that it looks like the deer are in the pret um we saw a couple spikes this morning and uh they were [ __ ] do so it's definitely either prerr or some of them are already in the Rut and then uh a guy yesterday shot a little one by two and uh U while he's cleaning that thing up we noticed that uh that uh that little Buck was in the Rut right now so this is my last chance uh before luckily I have another tag in another Zone adjacent to this Zone and in that zone I can hunt until the middle of November so that's my backup plan if I don't score this weekend so just going to keep at it [Music] well it is the uh last day of hunting in this one zone right here before I have to permanently move to another Zone in case you haven't noticed I've been kind of uh going back and forth between uh two or three different deer zones for uh the last week or so but uh in this particular Zone this is the last day I can hunt it and uh it's still still uh too warm in my opinion for this time of year so we'll see how it goes this is my last chance in this Zone [Music] [Music] ah the Jeep there's an end in sight [ __ ] well it's the uh last day of the season in this Zone and uh I've hunted hard all damn day and uh I haven't seen one legal Buck all day tomorrow morning that cold front's supposed to roll in and uh I'll be over hunting that Zone [Applause] [Music] [Music] there's a group of Doe's over there looks like maybe three four Doe's maybe a fawn with them and they're about 150 yards out and uh just for the fun of it I'm going to see how close I can stock up on them [Applause] for well it's the last weekend on my second deer tag so this is my last chance to get a deer this season you know i' I've been passing up on all those one and a half maybe 2 and a half year old this year just as a matter of principle but it's made it tough on myself but uh I don't care I'm enjoying the hunt itself and a deer is just a bonus if I get one um I like this Zone because it's just a great mix of high altitude Pine forests uh midlevel Oak woodlands and chapparel and transitional zones you know with uh Juniper dotted grasslands in it I'm not seeing many deer in this Zone like I did in but they seem to be uh Blacktail deer California me deer hybrids in this Zone but uh that doesn't matter because uh they all taste wonderful and they're challenging deer to hunt so I'm going to get my gear ready and uh go to work here but uh so it's about 15 minutes left to legal shooting light and I just shot a buck look like a huge 2 by two oh yeah oh that's a good one that's a good one shot right there he quartering a little bit towards me and I aimed at the point of the shoulder looks like a good hit oh man look at that that's as big as a 2 by two in this Zone as you'll ever see yeah baby nice nice just a big bodied Muer and uh just a beautiful Puck look at that well it's a been a long arduous deer season for me but I finally scored just this fantastic 2 by two this is as big as a 2 x two gets I think just a great buck and I'm extremely happy with it let me show you what this hunt was all about here and uh that's what it's all about right there delicious healthy Venison and a freezer full of it that's what I was after all right it's uh time to dig into this bad boy a little bit further here and uh there's my deer right there let's get to working [Music] oh [Music] [Music]

Channel: Desert Dog Outdoors

Views: 60,431

Keywords: California deer hunt, california deer hunting, d-zone deer hunt, D13 deer hunt, D9 deer hunt, D11 deer hunt, California mule deer, California Blacktail deer, blacktail mule deer hybrid, mule deer hybrid, 25-06, 25-06 deer hunt, hammer hunter bullet deer hunt, forkie deer, forked horn deer, pacific forkie deer, deer hunting california, Kern County deer hunt, kern county hunting, 25, deer, ASAT camo, Browning Xbolt, A zone deer hunt, california deer hunt 2023

Id: LHYSLEkvCz0

Length: 32min 49sec (1969 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 19 2023