Tag: hunting

December 24, 2025 – Good Times

December 24, 2025 /

Tomorrow is Christmas. For kids and some, it is a good time. I don’t particularly like it and I sort grit my teeth to get through it. There will be no AltF4.co tomorrow, but I wanted to leave on a high note. I am recapping a little bit of some of the finds I stumbled upon while I was on my hunting trip. This was in my plans for October but got buried under all the things that I didn’t get to. When I look at these pictures, I have a good feeling and so I thought that I would share.

Starting with the upper left, I had some kind of giant bird fly into a nearby tree. I think it was a Peregrine falcon but I am not 100% certain which is why I took the picture in the first place. Strange things sometimes happen in the woods, I have had owls fly around as if they are protecting something that I never saw. Sometimes there are occurrences that I have never experienced just by proximity to new or unusual circumstances. It was odd to have a giant bird land so close to a tree that I was next too.

To the right of that picture is a clear sign of predator activity. It was getting late in the week and the weather had finally changed from Indian summer to wet and freezing in the morning. I was walking a clear area and I stumbled upon some rib bones that were still bright red. If I had to guess, this was a remnant from a hunter’s recent butcher job that got carried away by a coyote. It was the only bones in the immediate vicinity but not the only bones in the area. It reminds us that this is a wild area with real, wild activity, even if it is not seen.

The picture on the farthest left is another thing I ran across in the woods. It is hard to say how old that can actually is. But I will say this, I have never seen a can like that before. This tells me that it was probably in the 1950-60 range. My guess is that this is a remnant from the original timber cutting of the area. Not only that, but I have never eaten canned potatoes. It makes me wonder what life was like back then. Is the person that left the can still alive? What were they actually doing in the woods? I see a lot of trash in the woods, but something vintage has a nice pedigree to it.

The last picture is some kind of plot marker. I spent some time looking at the sign because it was fascinating. First, it was made with super tight growth ring timber, likely ponderosa pine. It had both embossed and painted information on it. I don’t know if the marker was embossed first and then painted or repurposed by the painting. The sign was clearly hand painted and had some kind of cartographic information on it. Finally, it was nailed to the tree. Once again, I would guess that this hails from the 1950-60s.

Last week, I showed a picture of me standing in front of a defunct fire tower. That tower was build in the mid-1990s and taken out of service in 2023 because it was deemed unsafe. It looked pretty good to me but if I had to speculate, I would guess that the galvanized hardware had started to corrode. It is too bad because fire watch today is predominantly done by satellite, airplane and cameras.

There are still a few active fire towers in Oregon. It used to be that people like teachers would camp out during the summer months to keep an eye out for smoke, likely after lightning storms during the summer months. These things would dot the forests from line of sight to line of sight and were crucial on getting the jump on fire response. Some of them are available to stay overnight as a sort of weekend getaway. I helped myself to use of the vault toilet. It was very clean and private and it sure beats digging a hole. It also helped that the best cell phone reception in the area was at the tower. I actually conducted some business up there.

End Your Programing Routine: A hunting trip is a lot more than shooting an animal to me. It’s a good thing too because I haven’t shot any animal in ten years. It was camaraderie that doesn’t exist in the in-between years. It is the treasures that are found, some of which I documented. It is the wonder and mystery of man kind and nature. This is why I look forward to a hunting trip every couple of years. Merry Christmas everyone.

June 5, 2025 – The Ethics and the Reality of Hunting

June 5, 2025 /

I enjoy the show Life Below Zero. When I first started watching it, I believe that it was 2019. I remember finishing all the episodes on Netflix in my early days of ‘retirement’. I would take the time to find tasks that I could do with the TV on such as sewing patches on the kid’s Boy Scout uniforms. Then I kind of forgot about it until we were in Montana for Thanksgiving.

Most AirBnBs today have internet and the idea is you will log into your services on the TV. My wife had logged into Hulu and I was up several hours earlier than everybody else. I decided that I would put on some background show while I worked on clean-up and breakfast for the day. I found that Hulu had some seasons of Life Below Zero that I had not seen.

That got me thinking about filling in the gaps. I found out that Disney Plus had all of the seasons and episodes. Low and behold, we pay for that as well so I started catching up where I left of on Netflix. This is one of those shows that has a lot of reality to it. But, I have noticed that it has a lot of not reality as well. For instance, they will play up a character that lives 200 miles from the nearest town and yet they will have a snowmobile or four wheeler that requires a significant amount of fuel in between trips to town.

It feels like characters actually run out of things to do. Not every episode but frequent enough they are building a hot tub in the middle of nowhere. One character built a solar powered boat. I mean, these are people that are supposed to be hustling to make it? Let’s not kid ourselves, they get paid to be on the show and that salary affords them luxuries that non-TV stars don’t have, like fuel drops by airplane.

Hunting has a huge share of the TV time on the show. As such, I have noticed some discrepancies between what I would expect under the American ethos and what happens on TV. For example, it is considered unethical to shoot turkeys from a roosting position. Turkeys fly into the trees at night and come down to the ground in the morning. The ‘proper’ way to hunt turkeys is on the ground. Well, Alaska does not have any turkeys so that is not an issue.

In the show, nearly every single waterfowl is shot on the water. That is supposed to be a no no for bird hunters. With the exception of turkeys and grouse, birds are supposed to be shot in the air according to hunting ethos. Make no mistake, this is not illegal but it is considered non-sporting.

Another thing that I see all the time is bad shooting. It can be caribou quartering away (this means with the butt facing the shooter) or shooting into a herd of animals. A huge part of hunter’s safety is shoot/don’t shoot. If you cannot clearly identify and isolate your target then that should be a don’t shoot. You wouldn’t want to accidently wound a second animal or damage the meat that you are hunting for.

If this were a show like Meat Eater, that kind of film would never make it to the final product. They go out of their way to do everything by the book even to the point of punching their tag if they cannot recover a wounded animal. My guess is that the producers at National Geographic have no idea what the ethics of hunting entails.

Life Below Zero is a dichotomy of should and should not. I am amazed at the number of times there is a nuisance predator that they devise all kinds of schemes to chase the undesirables away rather than just killing it. Much of the reasoning comes from Native American spirituality than from ethics even if it is within the legal purview to eliminate the problem.

There is a lot of talk about the reverence of the animal and the eco-system in general. Animals that I don’t consider food, primarily fur bearers get eaten. Most trappers here would discard a beaver or muskrat once skinned. I am not clear what happens to the rare fox or lynx. I have seen where natives burn the wolverine due to cultural belief. While many of the harvesting methods can be questionable, there is no doubt that killing is serious business to not be taken flippantly.

I think what we are seeing is hunting for survival. The rules of ethics were developed as a result of shooting a million bison from trains just for the hide and tongue. With these modern tools, we should have some limits to make it fair for the animal and to not entirely eliminate the species. When it comes to survival, many of those artificial limits are out the window. It is not self serving to eliminate the species and the number one rule is to actually survive.

End Your Programming Routine: Salary aside, hunting is very important for food procurement. I could name some other things that I have seen on TV to support my discussion today but I would also point out that there are some things that natives can do that non-natives cannot. I would point out that I am not an expert in ethics, Alaska law or a lot of other things related to the show and I don’t think that Nat Geo is intentionally exposing questionable processes. But, I think that they would do better to craft a message to the ethical hunter’s expectations.

March 20, 2025 – Old Habits Die Harder

March 20, 2025 /

I had to do it. When I first heard that the name of Die Hard 2 was Die Harder, I couldn’t believe it. That is the stupidest title I have ever heard. Now I guess that I will make fun of myself a little bit today.

When I think about who I thought I would be at say 15 and who I am now at 50, it seems light years away. The truth is, I found it difficult to really imagine what my life would be ‘when I grew up’. I know that I didn’t imagine that I would be publicly writing everyday and enjoying it. Likewise, I didn’t think that I would be the primary cook with frequent fancy embellishments.

As I have written about in the past, my life changed fairly drastically between 15 and 18. At 15, I had yet to get engaged in sports. I learned that I could push myself beyond my wildest capabilities and really impacted my psyche. Nevertheless, there are still some things that predate all of that.

One of my habits is reading. I used to see how many books I could read in a week. I was constantly at the library checking out books to read. It started off with series books like The Hardy Boys. Then, I moved on to specific authors like Dean Koontz, Steven King and Tom Clancy. There were a lot of others along the way as well.

Of course I still read but I don’t spend all day Saturday doing it anymore. In fact, I try to set a goal of a chapter a day. I probably only hit that twenty-five percent of the time. It would be a rare day that I read more than a chapter however. Probably as long as I can see, I will probably be reading. A book is typically the first thing that I pack when I am getting ready for a trip.

When I was a young teenager, I wanted my life to be hunting in the fall and camping and fishing in the summer. I did a lot of camping as a youth and even more as a Boy Scout. Honestly, what got me soured on camping was the amount of stuff we have to take to get the whole family out. Trust me, I want to be comfortable but I don’t want to take days of packing and putting away.

I’ve got one summer trip like that in me a year. But my recent effort into getting me geared up for backpacking has actually gotten me excited to go camping again. I used to feel guilty about the thought of going alone but my wife takes trips without me all the time. I would love it if she would want to go and I hope that she does but I am just going to start doing it myself.

The fishing has really suffered. I try to do it at least once a year but that is so sad. Can you imagine wanting to do it every weekend as a youth to trying to make time as an adult? Part of why I even do that is because I feel like I paid for the license I owe it to myself to not waste it. Maybe this camping renewal will get me more outings this year.

As to hunting, I thought that I would try for anything that I was allowed when I had the freedom to make my own decisions. I have never done that and probably won’t at this point. Just like fishing, I try to buy a tag and go out at least once. Man it is hard to schedule stuff like hunting in when there are family dinners and sports activities and trap and all that on the schedule.

Even though we spent a lot of time hunting, we didn’t recreationally shoot much. We didn’t have a good place to do it. So, we really didn’t. I guess that this is the one thing that I actually do more of as an adult than I did when I was younger. I pay for a range membership, I volunteer coach for the trap team so I have positioned myself to be around it as much as I can afford.

While I don’t get to the range enough either, I shoot air rifles almost daily. It is a small little thing that I can do that is inexpensive and accessible. In a way, I feel like it is my connection to my youth dreams.

End Your Programming Routine: My dad said that you have to make time if you want to do something. I don’t disagree with that, I am pretty guilty of thinking I want to do this or that and not sharing. Then all of a sudden, my calendar is filled with things that are not what I really want to do. Ultimately, I feel like my commitments as a father and a husband supersede my own desires. This likely stems from my youth when my dad prioritized his hunting and fishing. As I said, old habits die harder.

October 21, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

October 21, 2021 /

Maybe I should called it the shit I forget plus some more bags of stuff Today, I am showing the remaining gear that I have for my hunting excursions. The question might be, why do you need so much stuff? The ultimate answer is comfort but there may be some additional nuance there.

What is comfort? It can take on some deeper meaning. To me, comfort is knowing you have something even if you don’t necessarily need it. So is also having it packed and ready to go where you don’t search and gather every Friday night. There are also some traditional definitions of comfort. Like, have you ever spent all day in the rain without rain gear? Talk about miserable.

As I talked about on Monday, some years we hunt five hundred miles away. The same bags/gear that is loaded for a Saturday is the same gear that go on the week long trips. I suppose that a very good argument could be made that excluding survival gear or strict protection like rain gear, all the rest is unnecessary. It doesn’t take a lot of gear to drive around in the woods and look over the edge of logging landings.

The technical term for these type of bags are called blind bag. This means that they are meant to be used in duck blinds which means that they are water resistant and they float. The bag on left is really used to haul decoys, so it is just a open container like a large shopping bag. I use this one to put my rain gear in and it is a catch all for anything that I just want to throw in, like extra water, change of clothes etc.

The bag on the right, is a little bit more tailored for hunting with places to put chokes and calls etc. If I ever went duck hunting, I may to look for a replacement of what this bag is carrying. Moving from top left to bottom right

  • Rope
  • Rangefinder 0-1000 yards
  • firearm cleaning kit
  • game bag
  • thermos (for coffee)
  • 3000 calorie ration bars

The rangefinder is going to go into my backpack and I mostly use that when I am sitting for a while. I like to pick out places in my field of view and then check the distance. That way, if some animal comes into my sight, I will have an idea of how to hold for bullet drop. I also use it to determine where to sit. Distance can be surprisingly deceptive sometimes and if the field of view is over a thousand yards, you are not going to be able to shoot without moving anyway. This is a luxury item for sure, but I find it really useful.

The game bag keeps the carcass somewhat clean if you were to drag it or you put it on if you are going to hang the animal for some time to reduce the chances something else will start eating it too. All of the rest of it is self explanatory.

End Your Programming Routine: You don’t need all of this gear to hunt. If I am honest, most of it never get’s used. But if you have ever bonsaied your rifle into mud (or snow) then your day is done unless you can get that barrel cleared. I hope to never eat those 3000 calorie bars. Some day I might taste one just to see. If I cant figure it out with all of this stuff, I am not sure what else can be done.

October 18, 2021 – What is Western Oregon Deer Hunting Really Like

October 18, 2021 /

My outdoor experiences are quite contrasting in the last two weeks. My trip to central Oregon was blue bird skies and relaxation in the boat. Yesterday, my son and I were slashing brush in the rain forest.

If you are not familiar with west coast geography, specifically Oregon then let me try to briefly describe. Moving from west to east, there are two sets of mountain ranges. The first one is called the coastal range, the highest peak is about 4000′ in elevation. Then, there is a valley nearly sea level in elevation followed by the Cascade range where the highest peak is 12,000′

The prevailing wind blows it is generally in the same direction, west to east. It causes a high amount of rain/snow on the western side of each range as the clouds drop moisture moving over the ranges. Consequently, the eastern side is much drier than the western side. Annual rainfall looks like this 80/40/10″ corresponding to the coast, valley and then east of the Cascades.

The way that Oregon breaks out deer/elk/etc. tags are roughly everything on the west side of the Cascades are over the counter. That means that anyone that is licensed can purchase a tag up until the first day of the season. Everything that is east of that is awarded by lottery draw. With my dad, brother and uncle we apply for the lottery each year and this year we did not win so I bought over the counter tags.

In the picture above, my son and I are walking down an abandoned road in a national forest. This road was once used for logging purposes, probably seventy years ago. Part of the changes in access over the last twenty years have had major consequences for hunters like myself.

When I started hunting in the 1980s the geographical landscape was pretty much the same. There are large swags of national forest or BLM land and large tracks of private timber company property. In the late 1980s, Oregon had the highest revenue from public timber of all of the states which had been the case since the early 1970s. Because all of that success, basically all of old growth timber was cut and the replant was not ready to harvest.

This caused political change. The forest service shifted from revenue to conservation which harkens back to the ‘spotted owl debate‘. The large timber companies went on business as usual because they already owned huge tracts of land and were diversified in other areas of the country and even Canada. It was the mom and pop mills that folded as a result of no supply.

Now that public land was largely left to grow wild, private timber land saw the brunt of the hunters. Why? because you cannot see anything in this jungle. If you choose to go in, the brush is over your head and good luck dragging a rifle and a backpack. Also, with less people working in the forest there was less ownership of the overall resource and then came trouble. As a result, private land owners put up gates.

Industry consolidation and streamlining means that there are far fewer vertically integrated companies owning land. For instance, Weyerhaeuser bought all of Willamette industries who acquired all the land that they owned as well. Weyerhaeuser’s policy as of about 10 years ago is to sell leases for access. Boil that down to essentially one person has exclusive access for recreational purposes. The leases are also highly restrictive to even bringing guests.

The situation for a lot of the other timber companies is that there is no lease program, just a gate. The general policy for access is walk-in. Nothing wrong with that, I do but it concentrates other hunters to essentially the main roads. Contrasting that hunting on the east side of the state and you can at least walk off the road and through the forest.

As my son and I spent time in the woods, I couldn’t help but feeling that the environment was sterile. Yes, we saw sign that animals have been in the area but I also saw a lot of boot prints. Who knows how many hunters in the last few months have walked down this same road. We saw no rabbits, squirrels, chipmunk, birds, turkeys, fox or anything for that matter. There have been times in the woods where I sit down and see or hear other animals moving about, not yesterday.

This is why western Oregon hunting is tough. The weather is miserable, the terrain is extremely difficult, the access is competitive and the probability is slim to none. We do all of this to get 40-60 pounds of meat and maybe some antlers to put on the wall? It has to be a labor of love more than anything productive.

End Your Programming Routine: You don’t get anything when you don’t try. And, you also rarely are successful when you don’t spend much time learning the patterns and habits of the area year round. I have seen deer in the area and I have seen recent encouraging sign when I have hunted this area in the past. This is why I choose to go back. My thoughts on it for this year are better luck somewhere else, I just don’t know where at this point.

October 7, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

October 8, 2021 /

**Note: I restored from backup 10-8-21 and I didn’t realize this post wasn’t included as the latest post from an Oct 7 backup. I don’t feel like rebuilding it completely but I will try to capture the essence**

It is hunting season, although I am not going out this weekend. I am hoping to do so next weekend. Today I thought that I would do a gear dump and explain what and why for the different pieces.

First, I will start with the bag. It is a Kelty that I am guessing is 24/28L. The most important thing about the bag is it is made from fleece which reduces the distinctive nylon on branch sound. It has a bright orange rain cover as well that helps you find it when set down. I also carry 2L bottles which is always more water than I need. One other thing that I have noticed is when they are not entirely full, they make a splooshing sound as water moves around. What is on the inside from upper left to right

  • Orange gear – I usually carry a cap and stalking hat. I also have some extras in case I have some guests. These are worn or stored
  • Spare ammunition and cartridge loop – I usually carry a box (20) which is way more than I need.
  • A headlamp (with corroded batteries) – Its a good thing I checked
  • Toilet paper
  • lens cleaner pen
  • bug spray – don’t need that for hunting
  • Survival kit – I will go through that next week
  • deer tag
  • field glasses
  • fingerless gloves
  • hatchet and saw
  • hunting knife

I can fit all of that in with a lunch. I always walk a fine line between having everything I need and having way too much stuff. I don’t know what to do. I guess my thoughts were always better have it and not need it rather than not. I also have used this bag as a day pack for hikes and such. When I use it that way, I usually purge all of the hunting specific items.

End Your Programming Routine: I have several other things that I take with me, I think I will cover them in the following weeks. These are things that are left in the vehicle or camp. This will be the second weekend of deer season. I am hoping to catch weeks 3-5.

August 13, 2020 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

August 13, 2020 /

Late summer (around here) starts to turn my thoughts toward hunting season. If you have ever gone to the rifle range between now and mid-October, it is a mad house of people checking their rifles and getting ready for the shortly upcoming season. Fall bear season is already open, archery deer season as well as doves start in two weeks.

My range as well as many around the country offer a sight in service, as a fundraiser. This is where the general public can come to the range and pay $5-10 and get help sighting in their rifles. Today I am going to offer some insight to the vocabulary and service.

It all starts with a few basic terms, the first is the bullet. The bullet is the projectile that leaves the firearm with the intent to hit the target. Ideally, it would hit in the same place consistently. Bullets have a whole set of terms that go along with them but let us talk about two in particular.

  • Caliber – the diameter of the bullet, typically measured in inches or mm
  • Weight – the mass of the bullet. Mass is measured in a unit called grains. It takes 7000 grains to equal 1 pound.

For caliber, the heavier the bullet the longer it is. It is the only way to get the same diameter of projectile with more mass.

Barrels on rifles have a series of lands and grooves inside. The lands are the bearing surface of the barrel touching the bullet as it travels to exit. The pattern is spiral inside the barrel to cause the bullet to rotate and therefore stabilize the projectile.

The number of twists in a the rifling impacts the stability of different weight bullets. So each firearm has some optimum bullet weight for the best potential accuracy because the number of twists do not change.

  • Rate of Twist – The number of inches it takes to make one full revolution in a barrel and expressed in a proportion.

For an AR type rifle a 1:7 to a hunting style rifle 1:16. Let us decode a little bit further. 1:7 means one full revolution in seven inches. The faster the twist rate, the better heavier bullets will stabilize, but not necessarily the light ones. Hence, the rifle is optimize to shoot a close range bullet weights based on the twist rate.

Sticking with one caliber, 0.22in nominally AR type rifles typically have a 1:7, 1:8 or 1:9 twist rate. This is going to shoot a 55-65 grain bullet accurately. Using the 22LR, another 0.22in bullet, the twist rate is 1:16 for a Ruger 10-22. Those bullets are ranging from 30-40 grains typically.

We have already gone deep for the uninitiated and we have just touched the surface. What I am trying to get across is that once your rifle is setup and sighted in for a particular load, it is best to use that load for the season. People really in the weeds with ballistics would recommend sticking with the same manufacturing lot because you are likely going to have consistency of the components leading to the most accuracy.

I don’t worry so much about keeping the same lot, but I do understand the principles. Knowing your skillset, how your equipment performs and the territory that you plan on hunting should give you the controllable variables of the hunt. The rest is up to you.

May 12, 2020 – Review: Hunt, Gather, Cook

May 12, 2020 /

Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast by Hank Shaw was the April book selection in the Left Coast Cellars Culinary Book Club. Unfortunately, the club has been on hiatus since mid-March but that doesn’t mean that the reading doesn’t go on.

Hank Shaw is an author, blogger, podcaster and general media person. His focus is about cooking with wild sourced ingredients. He tends to collaborate with others in this space like Steven Rinella. If you are into this sort of genre, then you probably already know about him and his contemporaries.

The book is organized into three sections. Section one is about foraging, section two is about fishing and section three is about hunting. Each chapter in the section is grouped by a theme such as wild berries. At the end of each chapter there are five or so recipes focusing on the type of ingredients the chapter is about.

This is one of those books that I would consider a gateway into the subject. There is no possible way that a person can safely learn everything about foraging by reading this. Every microclimate and region in the country could support it’s own botanist/mycologist/herbologist from the vast diversity that is present. There is no mention of mushrooms, which is probably a good thing. Instead the focus is on high value, low risk choices like seaweed and day lilies.

Another potential roadblock to successfully implementing ideas in this book are access, equipment and knowledge. For example, in my state there is no ‘season’ for rabbit hunting. It does require a license to do so. There is public land about ten miles away, but I have rarely seen a rabbit. I think that to really do this successfully, having a flushing dog would be the only viable option. Dogs are not allowed in the public land without a leash.

Instead of focusing all of my energy into why any of these ideas can’t be done I think the best use of this book is to read through it and look for things that can be done. Almost everything has a season to when it is available and or legal (including a lot of plants). Plan times to obtain these items as family activities. A family charter for bottom fish and crab is something I can do in my area. Then be prepared to feast when the trip is complete.

I enjoyed reading this book because it is about 25% technique, 25% cookbook and 50% inspiration. So, it is not a page turner but it does get the mind stimulated about the possibilities. Over the years, I have learned that it is much more enjoyable to pursue the activities rather than read about them. But I find that I can more easily find the time to learn and think than I can do. For that reason, it is exciting to think about that next fishing trip or making blackberry wine.