Hunting Hawai’i: Skill Issue

Another article in my Hunting Hawai’i series. Now we cover the second full day of hunting feral deer on Molokai. Take a look at the earlier articles to get caught up, and if you feel frisky, head on over to the shop to support the blog!

After our long night chasing deer across the mountains to Molokai’s North Shore and the infamous Kaluapapa peninsula, I was completely worn out. Before Bret and I collapsed on Brian’s couches, Brian had promised us that we would get up early for our second full day of hunting and hit it hard until well after dark again. As he said it, “You’re only here three days, you can sleep on the plane.”

Sometime before light on the second day, Blaze came back to Brian’s to pick us up, but Bret and I were dead to the world. Brian decided to let us all sleep, and I woke up a few hours later to find Blaze racked out on a sleeping pad on Brian’s concrete patio. Aside from our obvious exhaustion, a new development changed Brian’s plans for the hunt: One of his repeat customers, a bow hunter from California named “Buck,” had texted Brian the night before to let him know he was going to be in Hawai’i and wanted to hunt Axis Deer with a friend he brought along.

This additional personnel meant that Brian had to make a run to the only airport on Molokai, making him unavailable for an early morning jaunt into the mountains. I didn’t mind the change of plans, and neither did Bret or Blaze especially when it meant we got another couple hours of much needed shuteye.

Our new plan was for us to head into Kaunakakai for breakfast, then around mid-morning, Blaze was to take Bret and I up to the same area I hunted on my own on the first day. Bret and I would high-tail it up to a hide site in the hills and wait for Brian to drop off Buck and his buddy in the lowland forested area below us. The idea was that the bow hunters would have the chance to get shots on close-up deer in the thick, scrubby forest, and then Bret and I would be able to take longer rifle-shots at the herds of Axis Deer that would migrate back up into the higher-elevation forests later in the afternoon.

A solid plan, in my book. Our breakfast consisted of coffee from one of Kaunakakai’s cafes, then food at another cafe. Once we were satisfied, we made a final stop at Brian’s house to pack our rucks and grab our rifles, then headed off in the Can-Am UTV. Blaze dropped us off, and Bret and I quickly made our way to our first hide site of the day.

On our way up, we spotted a small herd of deer, and decided to hunker down and wait for them to move on. We didn’t want to spook them before we made it all the way to our first spot, so we waited about thirty minutes for them to move out of our way, then continued on the trail. It was getting hot in the late morning, and by the time we arrived at our first hide site, my boonie hat was soaked in sweat.

Bret and I sat in this first hide site for a couple hours, hydrating and watching for deer. We mostly drank water, because after the initial herd of deer, we didn’t see very many Axis picking their way around the hills and valleys in front of us. I pulled up my phone to look at the map and satellite images of the area, and decided we should relocate a little further East, and a bit further uphill.

As Bret and I picked our way uphill to a new hide site, we carefully crested one of the ridges and discovered a small herd of Axis Deer resting under the shade of a Koa tree. We quickly set up, and Bret lined up a shot on a large Doe laying under the tree. I settled in behind my own rifle scope, telling Bret that I would spot for him, and take a follow up shot if we needed it.

“How far do you think that is?” Bret asked. The heat caused a mirage, and the hoof-trampled patch of barren, red dirt around the tree swirled with dust in the breeze.

“I would say about three fifty, maybe a little more.” It was my best guess, as my loving wife had ordered me a range finder for Christmas, but it hadn’t shown up in time for me to bring it with. “I’m on her,” I told Bret. “Take your shot when you’re ready.” I had my scope dialed back from its maximum magnification, wanting to give myself the widest field of view, my own crosshairs held on the Doe.

BLAM! Bret’s shot was dead on, and a cloud of dust kicked up into the air. The Doe jumped to her feet and sprinted in the opposite direction I had anticipated. Unscathed, she ran at breakneck speed down into a draw, coming up on a ridge about a half-mile further to the East. We were baffled, and quickly made our way to the Koa tree to look for a blood trail.

When we got there we discovered that what we had thought was the Doe’s body was actually a large, thick root feeding the Koa tree, and Bret had drilled a trench through the dirt at the bottom and a hole in the exposed wood. She hadn’t run the direction that I had anticipated because what I thought, through the mirage and swirly dust was her body pointed West, was a nice, thick, bullet-proof tree.

Bret and I shook our heads, took solace in the fact that a clean miss is better than a bad hit, and then high-tailed it to our next hide site. This one was almost perfect, a circle of boulders tall enough to shade us from the Sun, at the intersection of three different draws and ridges, and overlooking one of the main trails that the Axis Deer would use for their daily migration back up into the mountain forests above us. By the time we settled in, it was well into the afternoon, and Bret and I set about taking advantage of the water bottles I lugged up the mountain for both of us. I had loaded my ruck sack down with a 12-pack of water bottles, and as we settled in, I realized I had forgotten my flashlight. No matter, I did bring an external battery pack for my phone, so I figured that at worst, we would just use our phone flashlights to make our way downhill when Blaze came to pick us up.

Within minutes, we started seeing Axis Deer milling about. “Oh man, check this out,” Bret said from his side of the site. I looked in the direction he was pointing, and with my naked eye, I could make out hundreds of deer moving around on the hills over a mile to the East. From that distance, they looked like ants crawling on an ant hill.

Closer to us, there was a bit more action as well. A Doe came out on Bret’s side, and he lined up a shot on her. BLAM! Another Doe runs away unscathed. Bret had been using the .300WSM, and I offered to give him the 6.5 Creedmoor he had used the day before, but he is young and stubborn, so he stuck with the .300WSM, albeit not without complaining.

Even though Bret’s warning shot had announced our presence to any Axis Deer in the area, we stayed put. This was about where Brian said we wanted to be in the late afternoon and early evening, and there were so many deer out there, I figured it wasn’t going to hurt us to stick. Sure enough, small groups of deer started wandering past us, within 150 yards minutes after Bret fired.

Having now missed two does, Bret announced that he was now going to only shoot at big, trophy stags. I said that made sense, especially considering he was now running low on ammo. He then made fun of my Australian boonie hat, but it was obviously half-hearted and misplaced because my hat was awesome and a gift from my loving wife from her recent trip to the Land Down Under.

Bret got his chance at a trophy stag as the afternoon turned to evening. On the flat part of a rise about 400 yards downhill from us, near another large Koa tree, two big Axis Stags started duking it out for breeding rights, with a third, even bigger stag wandering in while we watched from our perch. The biggest stag stopped nearby and waited for the two stags to break it up, so he could stomp the winner and earn breeding rights over the herd of does watching disinterestedly around them.

Normally, deer follow a very seasonal cycle of breeding. For instance, in Minnesota, the Whitetail Deer “Rut” or breeding season is in the late fall or early winter, which means the Whitetail Does give birth to their fawns in the spring. On Molokai, there really aren’t seasons, just hot and dry or hot and rainy. This means that, while most deer follow some sort of seasonal rut, there are always some stags in rut with some does ready to breed, and some who are not. We were hunting during the winter, when most of the stags were in velvet. Velvet is a phase of a stag or buck’s antler growth where the antlers are covered in a soft, blood-rich coating that allows them to grow antlers faster than nearly any other bone in the animal kingdom.

We were fortunate to see these three, huge, “Hard-horn” stags to battle for that ancient and primal reason: to knock up as many does as possible. Bret and I watched for a few minutes, then Bret decided he was going to take a crack at the biggest one, the bystander waiting in the wings to become champion. I settled in next to him with my own rifle scope, and waited for Bret to shoot.

BLAM!

“High.” Bret cycled the bolt. The Stag does not move, even though the Does have now decided to beat feet and get out of there.

BLAM!

“Low.” A cloud of dust kicks up, and the Stag now chases the Does over the ridge, kicking up his own puffs of red dust as he hauls ass out of the line of fire. Bret starts cursing the rifle, the wind, the heat, the dust, and eventually his own lack of practice prior to heading out on this hunting trip.

We still had a few hours of legal shooting light. I decide that the best move is to sit tight, but get out of sight. Bret and I sink down behind our boulders, quietly chitchat, and sip our remaining water. As we talk, I realize something metal is digging into my butt under the tall grass. I shift, reach underneath myself, and pull out a huge, led Mag-Lite flashlight.

“Did you just find that?” Bret asked.

“I did.” I reply, “I was sitting on it.”

“Does it still work?”

“I doubt it,” I respond, flicking the button while looking at the business end. The Mag-Lite blinds me. “Never mind, it works.” I tell Bret while blinking purple stars out of my eyes.

Hours pass, and the sun starts to set. Bret and I start seeing more deer moving about, and decide to work up the courage to peak out.

“If you’re going to take another shot,” I tell Bret, “I think you should aim for a neck shot.”

“Why?” Bret asks.

“Well, with it getting dark, I don’t want to track a bad hit,” I reply. “With a neck shot, either you hit and drop it, or you miss. Either way, that’s that.”

Now we have groups of dozens of Axis deer milling about in front of us, but none of them seem to fit Bret’s criteria. By this point, Blaze and Brian have both been texting me looking for updates, and I keep telling them that yes, that was us shooting, and no, they don’t need to come up and bring down any meat. I also tell them we plan to sit tight until dark. Brian calls us adventurers. I don’t know if thats accurate but I am wearing the hat for it.

As the last vestiges of light are beginning to fade, Bret finds a Stag that piques his interest. A Stag in Velvet, just barely 100 yards away, following two Does through the scrubby bushes of the next ridge. Bret has just two rounds left in his rifle, so I bring my own over to yet again spot for him. We both settle in, Bret lines up his shot.

BLAM!

The Stag disappears, and Bret starts furiously cursing his poor aim. I keep my rifle and scope pointed where the Stag was, and tell Bret that there were three deer near the bushes, and I only saw two of them run away. Bret tells me that he was aiming right for the Stag’s neck, so I say we should hustle over and check for a downed deer.

We pack our gear quickly, and rush down into the draw and back up on the ridge where the deer was. The sun is just going down when we find the Stag, dropped right where he stood with a perfect neck shot.

As darkness fell, I held the Mag-Lite while Bret busily skinned the deer and deboned all the meat. It took us far longer than Blaze would have done it, but Bret wanted to save the hide so he was working carefully. With the meat and hide packed up, we hustled downhill to Blaze waiting for us in the UTV. After his afternoon of warning shots, harvesting this velvet stag changed Bret’s attitude. He kept gushing about how the trip was totally worth it, which was good because we still had another full day to go.

“You guys get some?” Blaze asked us when we finally made it back to the UTV.

“Just one,” I told him.

“Just one?” Blaze looked at us inquiringly, “I coulda sworn I heard a lot more shots than that. Maybe five or six”

“Five,” I replied with a grin hidden in the darkness. “Bret missed three times, got one with the fourth. I missed earlier in the day, but we don’t have to talk about that.”

We tossed our bags in the back of the UTV, hopped into our seats. Blaze fired up the engine, and my new Mag-Lite died as we started back on the trail to Brian’s house.

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