Thursday, December 06, 2012
St Vincent Island Sambar Hunt 2012
St Vincent Is, FL Sambar Deer Hunt Dec 2012
Planning for this hunt begins in May with an application to be drawn for one of the 200 permits for the primitive weapons hunt. Dennis put in our group application (including Dan, John, Eddie and me) and we were selected, paid our fees and received our permits. Final planning requires that we decide what we need to be self sufficient on the island for 5 days because the only facilities are a small sandy clearings in the brush for tents and a few porta-potties graciously provided by the NWMA staff. This is not just a primitive weapons hunt (Bows or black powder), but primitive camping. We have done this before and were successful this time because at the conclusion of the hunt our list of "should a had" items was very small.
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| St Vincent Is |
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Slash Pine |
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Wet Area SAMBAR DEER Were the quarry of our hunt. This is a species native to India and S Asia. This is a large deer, up to 60" at the shoulder and 1200# but more commonly around 500-700# for the island population. The stags have antlers of exceptional mass and typically a 3x3 configuration. They are hearty animals that have lived as long as 28yrs in captivity but 12-14 would be more the norm in the wild. That is about double the lifespan of the typical whitetail. They breed intermittently all year and it is no trouble recognizing an area where a stag is trying to mark his territory and attract a female. They will rub the bark off 6" diameter trees and make large scrapes in their territory. They were introduced to St Vincent in 1908 along with quite a few other non native species such as antelope, zebra, black buck, and gazelles. I think the purpose was for the owner's amusement and for hunting. All but the sambar were removed from the island through hunting, poaching and failure to adapt. The sambar however have adapted, the population stabilized, and what was once an exotic on the island could now be considered an indigenous species for this habitat with the herd estimated at 75-100 animals. They seem to have integrated very well with the whitetail population. While their territories do overlap the whitetail deer prefer the dryer uplands and the sambar the marshes. Feral Hogs are also abundant on the island and were also a target species for this hunt. There has been some effort through trapping and hunting to remove or at least reduce the pig population on the island because of their destructive feeding habits. I think the only hope to effectively eliminate the pigs would be to open the island to locals so they could trap and run catch dogs. Not likely this is going to happen. One benefit to the pigs being there is that they are exciting to hunt and good to eat. Ferry Ride Well, we weren't the first arrivals but we did secure a nice enough camp site and within an hour were set to head into the woods to position our stands. We have found the best method of transport is by bike, towing a cart with a tree stand and any other needed equipment. It didn't work out so great this trip because the roads were pretty well sugared from extended drought. To add to the misery, my cart had a tire rubbing the frame which was pretty effective as an unwanted brake. Dann quickly assessed the problem and within a few minutes had the offending wheel off and installed a bushing that he fashioned from a piece of PVC. I'm sure if we hadn't had the PVC handy he would have fashioned one out of an oak limb or something. Dann loves a challenge. He also has that "Semper Fi" attitude of no man left behind. I like that. Pushing the bikes through the sand for a couple of miles was a workout. The good news is we could leave our stuff in the woods and would only have that struggle again on the last day coming out. Eddie and Dennis pressed on inland for about 5mi before setting up. A pretty good bet no hunters besides them would be making that kind of trek each morning to hunt. If you can't tell from the pictures that this island is a Jurassic Park kind of place, you have no imagination. What you can't see is the evidence all around us as we are trudging along of where other animals have trod. They like taking the easy route sometimes and that was evident from the tracks in the road and on muddy patches of the low water canal. There was the ever present plough areas where the pigs had been rooting, a drag line across the road where an alligator had crossed from one side of the road culvert to the other, large sambar tracks, small deer tracks, racoon, coyote, or maybe it was red wolf (there is an ongoing red wolf program on the island), the list goes on. Dann and I came across a large red-phase rat snake. Hiking back to camp that evening Eddie heard some low grunting in the palmettos. Thinking it might be a small pig like John caught last year he stalked up on the critter. It turned out to be the wile and elusive armadillo. We didn't put either on the menu. We had hot sausages from last year's venison waiting on us in camp.    
Speaking of menus, we ate well. A couple of days for breakfast we had Eddie's creation of breakfast burritos, those were the best, and by saving my 2nd one til noon the 2 kept me going all day. The other days were oatmeal. Pretty good but it had no staying power. That generated a lot of phone messaging stand to stand on what was in the snack pack, sammiches or gorp or vienna sausage. Evening meals were sumptuous. Scott, who was planning to go but couldn't because of other obligations, sent along his vegetable-venison stew. One night was Becky's famous chili, and I made a cauldron of Bob's Bodacious Barracuda Chowder. We were well nourished to the point that campfire stories didn't run long into the night, at least for me. I managed to get all the beauty rest I needed for the next days adventure.
Thursday was the first day for hunting and we were up at 4:00 for coffee, breakfast and attending to ablutions. Then it was "hit the road" for an hour or more hike to our individual stands. John, Dan and I were set up within 1/2 mi of each other. Eddie and Dennis were on down the island a couple more miles. We were all high in trees before daylight to listen and watch as the woodlands transitioned from a moonlit night to morning. There were more than 100 hunters scattered over the island which seems like a lot, but considering that sight range was generally less than 100yds due to the dense vegetation there was still plenty of room for the animals to hide. I heard surprisingly few shots that first morning, but one came from John's direction. He had in fact shot a nice pig, and found significant blood of good color for a kill shot, but after trailing it for quite a ways the trail petered out. I joined him for more eyes on the ground and we did find a few more drops of blood but no pig, which was disappointing to say the least. Dann joined in on the search a little later and demonstrated his proven technique of trailing a pig. His method is to get a "pig's eye view" which means hands an knees, crawling through palmetto tunnels hoping to find a dead pig. Of course another option of that scenario is to find a very angry pig confined in a very tight space with you at a significant disadvantage. This time the desired outcome was achieved and the pig was recovered. There was other game spotted that morning. Dann had watched some does feeding near his stand. "Lucky Eddie", as usual, observed the unusual. He was put on high alert a couple of times with the sound of creatures moving through the dry leaves of the forest floor, the first of which was an otter and the second was a alligator. I have seen both in the woods before myself, but in their natural aquatic habitat, not wandering through the woods. Too bad his gator tag was expired, but he did get the picture:   I was pondering Eddie's luck while sitting on my stand. Eddie was sitting on a stand 2mi further into the woods than me. Lucky that he had a change of "scent free" clothes to get into after his trek to the stand. Lucky that he had scouted these woods months earlier to find this spot. Lucky that his stand was positioned downwind of the trail that Sambar was walking. Lucky that he had ranged the tree where the deer first appeared was at 122yds and he knew that it would likely cross his shooting lane at 55'yds. Lucky that he had sighted in his gun for the heavy load he was using and the shot placement was exactly where he aimed. Yep, Eddie sure is Lucky!!  
Taking the deer comes with the special privileg of getting a ride back to the check station in the game truck. Eddie spent the rest of the day processing his deer for safe keeping.
 We will be back on the island in January for the whitetail hunt. Between now and then I'll do a little thinking on how I might improve my luck and see if I can give Eddie a run for the money. Trip Back to Civilization |
