End of Hiking Season, Scouting for Deer, Grouse and Mushrooms

September started quite well for me but ended on a kind of discordant note. I was able to get two trips in on the first two weekends. Then the weather turned on the third weekend. The crew I work on was short handed and needed help that weekend so I ended up working. There was a small window where I might have been able to do a trip toward the end of that week but by that time I had some kind of bug that left me feeling chilled and filled my sinuses to the point that it hurt to move my eyes. So I abandoned that idea. The last weekend was a washout with flood warnings posted throughout the state for the weekend.

This year I got into about 40 lakes, ponds and wetlands, some 21 of these I had never been to before and were mapped so they counted toward my high lake project goals.

At this point, I was in shape to do long expeditions and I would have dearly loved to get in one more trip for the season. The first weekend of October looked good but I needed to do some stream crossings and wasn’t sure if the storm water from the previous weekend and week would have run off enough to let me cross. Also, in my experience, October is getting a little late in the year for good amphibian observations at higher elevations. You still see them but if it is cold, they are not as active and the egg masses of some species like Northwestern salamanders are almost gone and hard to identify.

It had been cold and snowing during the previous week and the place I wanted to go was pretty hard to get to so I wanted to make sure conditions were optimal for good observations if I was going to put the effort into going. I reluctantly decided to abandon my hiking season and start getting ready for hunting season.

Before my high lake project started consuming so much of my summers, I usually ended my hiking season around the first of September when grouse season opened and hunted grouse and scouted for deer. Some deer seem to stay in the same area year round while others migrate seasonally for fairly long distances. Sometimes you will see some big deer at low elevations early in the summer that disappear for several months and then reappear later in the fall. I once saw a doe with twin fawns headed downhill across a logging road at about 4500 feet in elevation and several hours later saw the same deer still headed downhill at about 1500 feet on the same road system. I don't know a lot about seasonal deer migrations but I have hunter friends who can talk about these migrations like they are reciting from a textbook.

Deer season for modern firearms is the last three weeks of October and I had a lot of luck with this system of scouting, often knowing the best places to look for deer at the start of the season. Scouting gave me more up to date information on where the deer were. When my high lake project started consuming more of my time in September, I had to depend a lot more on luck, guesswork and past experience and became a little less successful at deer hunting, though I still got my share. In 2008, I hunted low elevations heavily for the first part of the hunting season. It was only in the last part of the season that I figured out that most of the deer were at higher elevations around 4000 feet or higher. If I had been able to scout more that year, I could have started hunting where most of the deer were.

When I scout for deer, I look for signs of their presence, tracks, trails, droppings, browsed plants, buck rubs etc. If you find an area with high concentrations of sign, it is a pretty good bet you will run across some deer before too long. It also helps to look in spots where deer are likely to be. Some of the best spots I know of are logging units, burns and river bottoms though I know a lot of people who also hunt heavy upland timber with quite a bit of success. I carry along my shotgun with birdshot in case I see a grouse. The best spots for deer aren’t always the best spots for grouse but there is a lot of overlap. I also usually check spots that are better for grouse.

When scouting and hunting I usually end up poking around in areas where I otherwise wouldn’t go and, as a consequence, end up seeing quite a few things that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen. This year the mushroom crop has been abundant, probably due to all of the wet, warm weather. 

One of the first things I do when getting ready for deer season is check the sights on my rifle to make sure they are still on (accurate) and, since I don't do a lot of shooting throughout the rest of the year, re-familiarize myself with the process of shooting. This makes it more likely that I will be able to hit what I am shooting at, and hit it where I intend to. I frequently hear of people who neglect checking theirs sights and end up missing cleanly, or even worse, botching a shot. I don't particularly like killing but it is part of hunting and love hunting (taking pictures with a camera is not the same thing in my book). Therefore, I try to take every measure I can to make sure I will kill an animal as quickly and with as little suffering as possible. A few times in my hunting career a quick kill has not happened and the feeling I was left with was one of the most awful in my life. I have found that paper plates with a circle drawn around a quarter in the center of the plate for a bull's eye is a cheap effective target. I like to sight my rifle for 100 yards which is the most useful range for the kind of hunting I do. Recently, North Cascades National Park abruptly and without warning closed the rifle range in Newhalem, in the Recreation Area, not the Park, that had been in existence for decades, years before the Park even existed. This made it a little more difficult for me to get my rifle sighted but I managed as did a number of other people I know. 

This is the first "group" that I shot. A group is a number of shots fired one after the other while holding the sights dead center on the bull's eye. Four shots is usually enough for me to establish a group. This repetition helps control for any errors you might make in aiming. This is a good tight group, all the rounds hit in about the same place but they are to the left of the bull's eye. This is a perfect example of why you should check your sights before hunting. These shots are far enough off target to possibly result in a botched shot. For years I only used open sights and disdained scopes. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. You don't have to worry about open sights fogging up or having to find your target in the sights. I now use a scope because my eyeglasses are thick enough to distort my vision to the point that open sights are often difficult for me to use effectively. 

This is the second group I shot after adjusting my sights to the right. The side to side adjustment of the sights is called windage. Now the rounds are hitting above the bull's eye. The vertical adjustment of the sights is called elevation. This is probably a good elevation for 200 to 300 yards because at those distances the bullet drop due to gravity would put the rounds at the same elevation as the bull's eye. 

This is the third group I shot. I fired eight rounds at this target. Most hit in the missing area just above the bull's eye. The two rounds to the left of the bull's eye were pulled shots. In other words, I didn't fire the round properly, resulting in my aim being off. I decided not to try to adjust my sights any more. Because I had to use a makeshift rest that wasn't really solid, there was quite a bit of wobble in my aim and it would take a lot of time and ammunition to dial it in closer than this, though, of course, the practice would do me good. As it is, this is good enough to make a good killing shot under most circumstances and, if the circumstances aren't right, then I shouldn't be shooting. 

This is the last group I shot at 50 yards, a typical range for the type of hunting that I do. The round to the upper left of the group is a pulled shot. 

Deer browse on a red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa). The bare stems are hard to see in this photo but most are below the center of the photo. Red elderberry leaves and stems contain cyanide and are poisonous to humans but not to ungulates like deer and cattle. This plant was small, either it was a newly established seedling or an established plant that had been damaged during logging operations and was now growing in a stunted, slightly deformed manner. Deer seem to favor both newly established plants and new growth on damaged plants over more established plants. This may be because the newer plants may have a higher nutrient content or are easier to digest, etc. I had heard years ago that new growth of plants growing in logged off areas are lower in nutrients. This may be so but when many areas are logged you start seeing more deer there at least for a couple of years and the deer population in the area usually increases. 

Deer browse on new growth of fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium). Bare stems are hard to see in this photo but most of them are at or above center of the frame. This was in a logging unit. Deer don't seem to eat much fireweed once it is more established. I know that fireweed fibers are an excellent source for material for cordage (rope) so the larger, more established fireweed is probably much harder to chew and digest. 

Deer browse on salmonberry (Rubus spectabilis). There are numerous bare stems on this plant, some more obvious than others. This looked like an established plant that had been damaged by logging operations. 

Deer browse on bitter cherry (Prunus emarginata). This small tree was established immediately following logging operations. Bitter cherry bark contains cyanide (I think) and is poisonous to many organisms, including humans. I discovered this at about 10 years of age when some toad tadpoles I had captured began to metamorphose. I put some large wood chips in the tank so the newly metamorphosed toads would have a place to rest. Unfortunately I used chips of cherry and this killed every tadpole in the tank in about a day. 

Deer browse on thimbleberry (Rubus parviflorus). Again, the bare stems are hard to see but most are on the left hand side of the plant. 

Deer browse on youth-on-age or piggyback plant (Tolmiea menziesii). This was in a forested area with a pretty closed canopy where large patches of piggyback plant often grow. This area was logged about 30 years ago and has now grown back. 

Deer browse on western red cedar (Thuja plicata)seedling. This was probably browsed last winter or early this spring. Deer often browse cedar heavily in the wintertime but mostly leave it alone during the spring and summer growing season. I have a hunch that cedar may not taste that good so it is not preferred by deer when other forage is available.

Deer trail in woods between pastures, old fields and logging units. 

Deer bed in logging unit. Deer often use old rotten logs or stumps to make their beds.  They also often bed down right next to stumps, often on the side of the stump opposite of roads. One often finds deer beds in locations that provide good visibility and nearby escape routes. It wouldn't surprise me as well if many bedding locations are also determined by the prevailing winds which would allow deer to smell predators long before they are seen. 

More deer beds. There are often several to many deer beds in certain locations, probably because these locations are prime bedding spots for deer, allowing good visibility and good routes to escape from predators. 

Deer droppings or pellets. These are clumped together which might have a lot to do with the type of food the deer was eating. These pellets are also gray which means they are pretty old, probably months. 

These deer pellets are all separate which is a more common condition to find them in. These pellets are dark so they are newer than the pellets in the photo above. It is not obvious in this photo but these pellets also had white mold beginning to form around them which means they were also fairly old. Fresh pellets are shiny green or black. If they are steaming, they are really fresh.

Deer track on old road in forested area. Over the years, I have heard people swear that buck tracks are different from doe tracks. I have also heard people, experienced hunters say that you can't. I side more with the skeptics. The same goes for urine patterns in snow, with some exceptions. You can still get a lot of information from tracks though such as relative size of the animal and its gait, walking, running stotting. You can also tell something about an animal by the routes their tracks take. If a deer trail goes through a tight hole in the brush, and there is a separate trail that goes around the tight spot in a more open area, the animal or animals that made the side trail are probably bucks with antlers big enough that they can't get through the tight spot without hanging up. 

Fresh deer track in logging unit. I know this track was absolutely fresh because I saw the deer that made in although I didn't get a picture of the deer itself. This deer stotted or bounced away. It was a small animal but the stotting forced its hooves quite deep in fairly firm soil, much deeper than if it had merely been walking. 

Buck rub. Male deer or bucks use trees or brush to rub the velvet off their antlers  once the antlers have hardened.  Bucks also continue to use trees to spar with to get ready for the rut when they might be locking antlers with other bucks. 

Young buck blacktailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) rubbing the willow tree.  I took this photo from my front porch with the deer standing only about 10 feet away. This was the weekend before deer season opened. This little buck and two others he was with had been eating pears from the tree in our front yard. By opening weekend, they had moved on to somewhere else. A neighbor ended up getting this one later in the season. This is quite a large tree for the size of the deer so the size of the tree being rubbed isn't always indicative of the size of the deer doing the rubbing, an erroneous assumption that I had held for many years before seeing this. 

Hidden Lake Peak in the morning from the Irene Creek Forest Service Road 1550.  Scouting and grouse hunting are also another excuse to get out and about and check things out. I usually poke around in this area several times a year. The views from the road are great and accessible to anyone who can drive a vehicle. I am sure this road is slated for closure, along with many other Forest Service roads. 

West ridge of Marble Creek drainage from the Irene Creek Forest Service Road. 

As far as I know this high point on the west ridge of Marble Creek is not named. The creek in the valley in front of it is called Haystack Creek so I have always called this high point "Haystack" which, by the form of it, seems appropriate.

Mount Formidable on the Middle Fork of the Cascade River from the Irene Creek Forest Service Road.

Telephoto view of Mount Formidable on the Middle Fork of the Cascade River from the Irene Creek Forest Service Road.

Ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus). These birds have a wide range, occurring all across North America.  Here they are quite common in river bottoms and old orchards and you frequently see them on forest roads that are either in use or abandoned. References that I have read on line state that they prefer early successional and scrub forest habitats which means young second growth forests. Ruffed grouse eat a wide variety of things from insects to leaves and berries to buds. I remember reading a scientific paper years ago that stated that bigleaf maple buds were important overwintering food for ruffed grouse in this area. This might explain their affinity for river bottoms. There is usually a lot of bigleaf maple and a lot of scrub. I have gotten ruffed grouse early in September with their crops full of Pacific dogwood berries (Pacific dogwood fruits are actually drupes, like cherries but they look kind of like berries). The crop of the grouse on the left was full of bigleaf maple buds and the crop of the grouse on the right was full of huckleberry (Vaccinium) leaves. According to Western Birds by Roger Tory Peterson, ruffed grouse occur in two different morphs or phases, gray with gray tails and red with red tails. The grouse on the left appears to be a gray phase and the one on the right a red phase. 

For having a seemingly mundane color palette of brown, gray, black and yellow, ruffed grouse are some of our most beautiful birds. And they taste good too. This is a close up view of the back of the red phase grouse in the photo above. 

Close up of the left wing of the red phase bird in the photo above. 

The tail is one of the most impressive parts of a ruffed grouse. For years I tried to figure out ways to preserve them and put them to some use. This is a tail that I pinned out years ago with the idea of somehow making a fan out of it. Sacha used some of the tail feathers of the grouse pictured above to make a mobile for Vashti who was quite fascinated by them. I gave the rest to a friend who will use them on his hunting bow. Sometimes the black and gray lines along the back of a grouse's tail will be broken with the lines on several of the middle feathers being discontinuous with the rest of the tail. I have always been told that this is the difference between male and female birds with the males having the unbroken tail lines.  

I ran across a number of mushrooms during my roaming and scouting. It was pretty wet this September, resulting in a bumper mushroom crop. These are chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius). 

More chanterelles. 

This is one of our (Sacha's) chanterelle patches. I say it is Sacha's because she likes chanterelles while I am not much into eating mushrooms though I think they are really cool organisms. The yellow objects on the ground that look like leaves are chanterelles. This is a second growth mixed conifer hardwood forest that was first logged about 80 years ago and partial cut about 50 years ago. From my observations, larger patches of chanterelles seem to be more common in second growth forests, either old burns or logging units. I saw one patch this year in a logging unit that was only about 20 years old.  

Lobster mushroom (Hypomyces lactifluorum). I saw a lot of these this year, starting in mid August. Many of the places I saw them were old roads and trails. This one was in the middle of an abandoned Forest Service road. This is mildly surprising because usually the soil compaction associated with roads adversely affects things growing there, although, on the other hand, I understand that fungi are quite remarkable at soil restoration. 

Lobster mushroom are actually composed of two mushroom species,  Hypomyces lactifluorum and a gilled host species, either Russula or Lactarius that it grows. The lobster mushroom infests the outer part of the host and may cause it to take on strange shapes. This photo shows the faint traces of the gills of the host mushrooms that are buried under the lobster mushroom. 

Lobster mushroom with the gills more visible but still obviously clogged. Many people highly prize and eat lobster mushrooms though, in Mushrooms Demystified, David Arora states that there is no guarantee that some are not poisonous, because the host mushroom may be poisonous, unless they only infest edible species. I remember reading somewhere else that a lobster mushroom infestation on some species of Russula turn them from tasting bland or unremarkable to tasting delicious. As I stated previously, I don't really like eating mushrooms so I wouldn't know.

This is a lobster mushroom that is either growing on a different host species than in the previous photos or has not infested the host completely. 

Underside of the lobster mushroom in the previous photo. The gills are obviously clogged but the mushroom is not completely orange. 

Russula spp, a potential host for a lobster mushroom. This one is not infested by a lobster mushroom. 

Underside of above Russula showing what the gills look like in mushroom not infested with lobster mushroom. 

Angel wings (Pleurotus porrigens). This relative of the oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) typically grows on conifer logs and snags where oyster mushrooms typically grow on hardwoods. These angel wings were growing on a Douglas-fir log. 

Dyer's polypore (Phaeolus schweinitzii). This was on a western hemlock log. I believe this fungus can be used as a dye for clothing as the name implies.