Stalking the Grey Ghost: Arizona Coues Whitetail Deer | S1E05 | MeatEater

on this hunt i'm headed to the sky island mountain ranges of southeast arizona to hunt coo's white-tailed deer [Music] in this remote desert region you have to be willing to go the extra mile to land one of these elusive animals this is just so discouraging man nothing but those i'm stephen ranella to me hunting isn't only about the pursuit of an animal it's about who we are and what we're made of it's about sustenance it's survival it's about connecting to the land it's about the purity of the challenge it's about life in each and every one of us there is a primal instinct to hunt and consume i live to hunt and hunt to live i am i've never spent much time hunting in arizona before but this year i've drawn a tag for coos deer in a region of coronado national forest that lies in the southeast corner of the state the only scientifically recognized sub-species of the white-tailed deer coosdi are small with bucks averaging around 100 pounds and they've got a reputation as a fiercely difficult animal to hunt they live in what are called sky islands basically small rugged mountain ranges that stick up out of the sea of the surrounding desert and you've got to get up early to have a chance at them i'll be honest i have no experience with coos deer and little experience with the land they live on so i'm headed to track down a local expert cody nelson is a friend who works at outdoorsman's an iconic phoenix sporting goods store cody's assistance is invaluable you can't beat local knowledge i want to find out where these deer hang out how they move how they fit in the landscape without that mental image of a deer hanging around on this kind of ground my chances of success are very poor these deer they'll move they may move a couple of steps and stop so you got to think about it every time that your eyes blink or you just get that little shake i mean in that instant they can be totally still and you i mean you can go right by them and not realize basically you want to move your eyes not your binoculars i got deer see where that peak is yeah there's kind of a table top right there if you take the lowest juniper just below the shelf yeah then come down open slope to the right oh i got it got her there's another one behind it that right there is why objects on a tripod are important that's a tough spot man looking at a coos deer i see that these are some of the most difficult animals to spot that i've ever encountered they totally match their environment in fact i don't get a single original spot all morning cody does it all but i think i'm starting to get a feel for them so when the deer bed down for the day cody gives me some last minute advice about the area and then i take off on my own i got such a good feeling about this spot just a choice-looking drainage down there i'm looking at a variety of habitat types across a range of elevations and these hillsides here remind me of pictures of the serengeti the difference is that those pictures show massive herds of animals and i can't manage to find a single one i can tell you with absolute certainty that i was looking at deer tonight and not seeing them it's just like not clicking yet man and i used to pride myself on having a good game eye it's humiliating i'm just looking through i know i'm just looking through him but they do call him the grey ghost anything you read about who's deer says the grey ghost [Music] last night was a disappointment but today i'm up early and i've got a plan of action i want to get on a spot where i can look sort of up and down across this deep canyon this looks pretty good here and i got a good backdrop to help conceal my movements i can always adjust later if i want to get set up and start looking right now [Music] when you're glassing country this big you're only seeing half of it at any given time so naturally you want to see the other half we know the saying about how the grass is always greener on the other side of the mountain you also imagine that it has a lot more deer on it the largeness brush canyon with a bunch of north face and slopes cody was really suggesting that kind of stuff i've been picking it apart for a long time i want to move somewhere [Music] gonna get some weather man for sure [Music] it's already raining over there yeah here it comes [Music] i went into this picture in hot sunshine i was thinking about coming back with a savage tan and here we are getting soaked [Music] may your tag of a lifetime finally come through [Music] may the snow pile up and the elk come down may your socks always stay dry [Music] may the herd bull finally break from the herd and may your aim always stay true welcome to the next level welcome to the vortex looking for more meat-eater be sure and check out our website at themeateater.com you'll find all kinds of great stuff from choice cuts of footage that didn't make the episodes to wife-pleasing recipes for that ruddy old buck you got last fall and that's not all you'll also find honest gear reviews blogs from the crew shirts and stickers with our cool logo on them and links to learn more about the gear i use in the field so get over there and check it out the themeateater.com [Music] i've gotten into like some what i'm hoping to be a pretty undisturbed area so really what i want is i wanted to be able to look at a ton of stuff if i could see down these long creek beds and also see some of these high brushy draws i'll be pretty [Music] happy [Music] they look like a couple baldies [Music] a couple does just skip out of their bed it's a good sign even if those does had been boxed they might as well have been on the moon there's an impassable canyon that sits between me and them i have just torn this hillside apart with these binoculars nothing but those [Music] yeah today is a total boss i mean no not total boss i mean seeing those it's not finding box man [Music] no matter how discouraged you get you cannot help but feel incredibly optimistic in the morning when the sun's coming up and you're sitting in a good spot man [Music] i got four deer up in this saddle and i'm gonna watch see where they're going to bed with that said when that sun comes up a lot of what i'm looking at i'm gonna be looking right into the sun that kind of deer i've been watching i mean that sun couldn't be more on top of those deer just totally blew that image out there's nothing i can do about those deer now unless i see something better i'm going up there tonight but i'm looking at stuff that's a mile and a half away across that canyon i picked up those deer that i lost in light man these deer just like boxing drilling each other man what is her problem a mean old girl i know i'm only seeing up you know a percentage of what's actually going on but seemed like 13 14 deer up there a lot of them are unidentified like i don't know if they're buck or doe those deer up on that mountain because they're not disturbed by other hunters the canyon keeps them out but i'm going to find a way to cross it i just gotta work over there careful so i don't blow the place out i got two canyons to cross the first one is gonna be a big deal the second one's like a real deep hell hole so i'll have to maybe go down one spot then go up or down the canyon to find a way out of there but i got a couple hours to do this before i need to be set up for tonight wanna hear that oh mo mo mo mo get a rock get a rock [Music] oh mo mo on a snake holy smokes unbelievable stain on it stepped on a rattlesnake he's not big but he's gonna get i need to get across this canyon the deer are up on the other side and a snake is not enough meat for this trip but just finding a way down into it is proving to be very difficult there's got to be some way down this thing looks like it just goes over straight edge man i've got to be careful to pick a place to descend that doesn't require 100 of my energy that's because with any luck i'll be packing out a lot more weight than i'm packing in man unbelievable [Applause] oh sweet man there's a spot down i'm not gonna do a slight spot out it's unreal down here it looks like somebody scooped up a slice of land from another continent and then air dropped it into the middle of the desert it's gorgeous but it's still an obstacle i'm gonna try this pretty gradual slope this is like a little staircase i can look it up in my excitement of getting out of the canyon i slip up and immediately spook a couple deer two spikes spooked them up but at least it proves i'm in the right place it's a good sign two bucks in range i'm reluctant to move into prime glassing position the wind is such that it's gonna blow my stink right into the saddle where i saw those deer hanging out this morning the best plan for now is to back off and hope for more favorable wins in the morning but at least i've got a snack for tonight man put them in my bag without really thinking about it now he's got snake guts all over everything [Music] it's definitely edible that's good you know what the moral of that story is don't rattle it steve morning in coronado national forest i'm in good glassing position the wind is in my favor and this is the heart of all that deer activity i saw yesterday i'm running out of time today has got to be the day oh man nothing i can do now i gotta wait and see what he does he's a couple thousand yards away i don't know if he came down my side or if he went to other side maybe i could crawl in under those junipers and trying to find them down below there that was a nice big buck i think that's what i want to do that's a bug it's a wound this is a weird situation there's a wounded buck up here like i'm casting some other hunter must have wounded him maybe it's a little forky but i almost think if he's already wounded i might just shoot him anyways instead of going after the big buck better down i'm gonna move up a little bit try to get in a better spot if i can get in position i can just wait them out so [Music] i've got a shot on his neck but that's a pretty small target for a deer this size at this range i'd rather wait him out wait till he stands up and i can get a lung shot on him the sun's gonna come up and be staring right into my scope i'm gonna have to take that neck shot i can't see a thing now unbelievable as far as i know he's up there running away oh yeah i have never eaten a coo's white tail man this is the first kuza whitetail i've ever eaten unbelievable yes oh man perfect neck that is a badass looking little buck little back straps yeah that's the good stuff back ham that's the good stuff whoa what a hard hunt i got cold i got hot i got soaked to the bone in the desert and i stepped on a rat but this makes it all worth it when i was a kid we'd kill a deer in the morning it's always like a family ritual that you take that heart home put it in seasoned flour fry in a pan with onions we eat it with ketchup today i'm gonna do like a southwest version of that childhood meal [Music] if you look at old cookbooks like a scofield's culinary guide you'll see there's recipes where he talks about wrapping meat and call fat this is call fat right here it's almost like lace and they'd use this to wrap roasts in so imagine that you're just doing this heart if you want to because it keeps moisture from coming out and also basting fat it's like a self-basting protective membrane i got some tortilla shells some chilies i'm just going to make like a like call fat roasted heart tacos the animal i would choose if i was only gonna eat one animal the rest of my life would be young bull elk i don't mind limiting to one species i would never want to limit to one preparation i would cook young bull elk a lot of different ways caldwell's lead sled caldwell engineer the lead sled to eliminate felt recoil from even the heaviest magnum rifles versatility for every shooter and accuracy for every shot the led sled family is the most advanced shooting rest ever developed only from caldwell it took me seven glassing sessions in all kinds of conditions but i finally got my first coos deer to celebrate i'm cooking up a southwest version of an old childhood recipe dear heart tacos okay i got my heart that i wrapped up in that call fat that fat kind of dried around it so you'll see the call fat has formed kind of like a layer around it so we're going to skewer this guy up now and i'm going to lay it over the coals i like to do parallel skewers you have a lot more control and can flip and flip and not have to worry about that thing rolling on you all the time it takes a lot of aggravation out of it [Music] part of the thinking on using the call fat for this is you have it where one is basting that heart in a lot of fat which is good especially when you're out hunting and burning tons of calories it's like you just want energy you know and fat becomes your friend rather than your enemy the other thing is the outside of that fat's gonna burn but it's gonna protect the inside like if i just had this straight heart right here the thing would be just black but i'm gonna be able to peel that away and cut nice slices off that heart it's just gonna be beautiful meat inside there but it's just forming a really nice cocoon around that thing keep those suckers my stick broke which means it's done oh yeah man putting that heart meat and the call fat oh that's perfect cooked still a little rare okay so load that boy up put some onion on there a little chili lime and finally chipotle peppers and adobo sauce oh yeah and i think this is gonna be good very good right on the money [Music] a lot of indigenous hunters they'd always want to eat the heart of the animals they killed in order to inherit from them their power they thought that the animal's power and all its skills and all that sensory perceptions was encapsulated in the heart i think the message there still kind of resonates with me and i would say that if it's possible to absorb some of those attributes from an animal you could do a lot worse than get them from a coos deer because these things live in a rugged place they have bad predators after them all the time horrible climate everything's scratchy itchy got thorns on it and they thrive out here and they are wily and they are fast a very worthy prey animal so if i can eat this heart and tap into a little bit of that coos deer essence i think i'll be a better man for it

Channel: MeatEater

Views: 963,522

Keywords: MeatEater, Meat Eater, Hunting, Steve Rinella, Steven Rinella, coues deer, deer hunting, whitetail deer hunting, rifle hunting, wild game, wildgame, conservation, wild game cooking, venison, cooking venison, Arizona Coues Whitetail Deer, MeatEater Season 1, MeatEater Season 1 Episode 5, Ep. 5, Episode 5, S1E05

Id: yu5AIpQ1T34

Length: 23min 0sec (1380 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 15 2020