Joe ... JOE!!!

Deer hunting simply is not a science. There are no hard and fast rules about what you should do and when you should do it. It’s all just deer hunting.

As I mentioned in another post I took up deer hunting relatively early in age. My brother, who loves to hunt more than I do today, picked up his passion for hunting later in life. Certainly not LATE in life, just later than I had.

My brother Joe has always been a better and harder worker than me. He just works. He works all the time. If something needs doing then Joe is going to do it. I think I work quite a bit, but I enjoy my down time as well. Joe works.

And so this is how it was with deer hunting as well. Once the switch was flipped Joe was pretty much all in. I believe his first hunt was at Red Lake but it was at Santa Flavia together that I think I enjoyed our time afield most. I don’t know this for fact but I’d guess Joe and I have spent more time at Santa Flavia than any other area of Alaska we hunted together.

Santa Flavia Bay is located on the South Eastern side of Kodiak but well North and East of some of the other areas discussed earlier. So there were, and we’d expected there to be, less bears. The first morning walking out as we peeled left from the cabin door to climb a slight hill, pull through some alders for about a hundred yards before exposing the back country that was the land we’d be hunting, my dad turns back and to all our surprise a small boar was on the other side of the alders looking at us as if to say “what the hell are you guys doing here?”

We wondered the same.

We hunted a few days on Santa Flavia that first trip and if I’m being honest the hunting wasn’t great. There weren’t many deer around at all and most of them weren’t the mature type of bucks we preferred to take.

So it was three days in as we cleared those same alders close to the cabin and we started walking due East into the valley. Generally speaking we’d stay towards the middle of the valley where the slope was more gentle and we’d glass either side mountain to see if any deer were around. Joe and I, for whatever reason, had pulled off to the right a little as we walked up this line of alder bushes while my dad was off to our left maybe a couple hundred yards away.

Much to our surprise a buck bumps from the alder patch and scoots out the other side. Joe and I both know its no booner but he’ll eat! And he stops about 150 yards away. Joe sets his pack down and uses it as a rest leveling his Ruger model 77 in .338 Win Mag (way too much gun for deer but we were hunting Kodiak soooo …). A loud thump from the Ruger and the deer falls back down near the alders and out of sight. In my glasses it looked to be a perfect shot.

It’s a happy time. Joe and I high five each other as we glance back at Dad and he’s smiling ear to ear. Meat for camp and a hunt that we now knew we wouldn’t get skunked on.

Did I mention hunting isn’t a science?

Dad starts making his way over to us as Joe and I wait a few minutes before approaching Joe’s deer. That is until the buck jumps up and starts making his way right the hell out of dodge! Joe and I were scratching our heads a little but Dad was a little less patient.

We heard only one word from Dad repeated many, many times and louder with each effort. “Joe… Joe… Joe!!!! JOE!!!!!”

So Joe throws another round in the chamber but at this point the shot has gotten much harder. The buck has moved some ways out. Joe barks at me “how far?” but you have to realize this was back in the days before fancy range finders. I mean I had some idea of how far it was… but not really. And so with that air of confidence and authority that sometimes you hear out of a politician’s mouth when they don’t know what the hell they are talking about I say “280 yards, aim about 5 inches high” I figured going with 280 would have been better than a round 250 yards. Maybe my brother wouldn’t have known I was full of crap.

Another loud roar of the rifle and the buck goes down. We can see him this time, and we can clearly see he’s not going anywhere.

Joe and I start walking now to get to the deer (and maybe close the gap a little just in case Act III happens???) We get up to him and he’s clearly expired. Alas, now the work begins. That is until one of us, I assume Joe but don’t know for sure, glances about 100 yards down the hill. And there lies buck number one. I swear they were identical twins. Same rack, same size, same deer. Only they weren’t. And just like that Joe was tagged out in Alaska with one deer he wanted and one deer he likely would have liked a mulligan on.

It’s not a science though which is why hunting can be tough. Plenty of deer have been shot and got back up. And rarely when the hunting is tough do you all of the sudden see two damn near identical deer in the exact same area.

And any science goes out the door when your Dad is yelling at you to shoot and your little brother gives such precise, albeit crap, advice on how far the shot is.

Milk Run

As many know, Kodiak is home to a few bears. Big bears.

While biologically not that much different than your traditional grizzly bear it is a factual statement that Kodiak grows big bears, and a lot of them.

In my growing up there the reality is you rarely saw bears around town. Or even on the outskirts of town. For the most part you had to go south of town to get into bear country. There aren’t really any roads down that way so your options are float plane or a boat.

Annually my dad would go on these big 10 day hunts with friends out in the bush. They’d be gone, sans ANY communications, for those days and inevitably would return with incredible hunting stories and lots of racks from successful Blacktail buck hunts.

As a youngster you can imagine I had dreams of doing one of these hunts one day. And relatively early in my hunting days my mom and dad allowed me to join a hunt (though I didn’t get to go for ten days because they still wanted me to go to school and such)

My first “big” hunt was to a Lake called Karluk or the O’Malley river. I don’t know why we call the same place two names but it’s just what we do. O’Malley had life’s luxuries by any hunting standard that we’d known. The cabin was a little cabin that bunked four. The outhouse had styrofoam on the seat … a luxury that should NEVER be overlooked and O’Malley also had a meat cache where you stored food and meat. The bears tend to like to steal your food when they can so having a meat cache kept the lines a little clearer should a bear opt to want to attempt such a robbery.

We land in a Cessna 206 and fairly quickly set up camp. Load up the small amount of supplies we had in the meat cache, get things organized in the cabin and are finally settled in. It’s too late to really hunt but the group on this hunt (Larry Pank, Roger Smith, Gerry Garner, Vic Barnes and myself) decide to walk the couple of hundred yards down to the O’Malley river and glass a bit.

There was plenty to glass as there were a ton of bears fishing the river. My memory is far too faded to know the count but were I to guess I think we saw between 20 and 30 bears. It was inspiring and all in the party seemed comfortable that the world was right. So I thought the world was right as well.

We made our way back to the cabin to begin prepping a little dinner. We know we’ve got an early start in the morning so my dad suggests I head down to the meat cache to get some boxed milk for cereal in the morning. A dandy of an idea I thought.

The meat cache if I were guessing was about 100 yards in between Karluk lake and the cabin. With the meat cache being maybe 50 yards from the lake. As I’m leaving the cabin I scan the shoreline and all looks good … no big critters walking around. The walk to the meat cache is a joyful one and I’m excited about the next day. Now the trip into the cache is really quick. Open the door, find the box with milk in it and leave. No big deal. The issue was when I came out of the cache, from my perspective, things had changed fairly drastically.

You see the bank doesn’t just nestle up nice and neat to the shoreline of the lake. There’s about a three to four foot ledge there. When I leave the cabin I glance to my left and low and behold there’s a damn big bear there… about 50 yards away. My dad, an experienced bear biologist, has always told me to never run from bears so you can imagine I’ve got a few conflicts going on. I assess two goals … separate from the bear … expeditiously (but without running) get my butt back to the cabin.

To hear my dad tell the story I was out of breath when I got to the cabin. I still contend that I walked .. briskly. I can barely utter the words and I’m sure I simply spit out “buh buh buh …. bear!”

No one is nearly as upset as I but everyone walks out to take a gander. The bear isn’t there … he could have cared less about me. Or could he?

This bear became a bit of a nemesis for us over the week in camp. Ok … in fairness it may not have been the same bear but I sure have my suspicions.

A good Alaskan lesson for you all … don’t leave a white gas can outside your cabin at night. You see when they find a nice thing to bang around that makes a ton of noise they accept full responsibility to play with it. All night.

This first night in particular this young boar just knocks this can around for hours. Larry Pank (who was my dad’s boss at the time) say’s “Vic, are you going to do anything about this?” to which my dad replies “Um … no” (full disclosure, I am certain my dad’s answer was more colorful however my mom may read this at some point and there are certain words we simply are not allowed to say (hint, they begin with F, end with CK, and are NOT Firetruck))

You will recall though that I said the cabin slept four and if you’re good at math you can assess that there were in fact five of us. I was on the floor of the cabin. So none of the rest of the hunting party was too terribly concerned because if the bear opted to come in I would obviously be his first snack.

This isn’t the end of the story though. There is one final piece to this pain in the butt bear. We’d been hunting for a few days and you’ll recall my mentioning of the styrofoam seat in the outhouse. Let me just say a bare bum on cold wood is not an entirely pleasant experience. A little styrofoam goes a long ways.

Well… midway through the hunt this bear decided our luxuries were too indulgent so he decided he wanted the styrofoam. So he took it.

The remaining trips to the out house were never the same. I always took my Ruger Redhawk with me though….

That Little Red Pack

For most of us we start hunting at a relatively early age. That was true with me as well.

I’m not certain how old I was when I shot my first deer but I think relatively young. And exceptionally naïve. My first deer was a Sitka Blacktail doe. My dad had partnered with some friends and we flew down to a place on Kodiak Island (where we lived) to a little lake called Spiridon. Like most when we are young I had no idea that a “little trip” like that on a Widgeon float plane in Alaska would be a bucket list hunt for so many aspirational hunters.

So we land at Spiridon and as we are leaving the float plane my dad’s friend chuckles at my little red pack wondering just what I was going to be packing out with that.

My dad and I proceed to hike up one of the mountains to see what we can get. For that year Kodiak had plenty of deer and there were several times that my dad would ask if I wanted to shoot a deer that we saw at maybe 200 yards with his Winchester Model 70 30-06 but the truth is I simply wasn’t mentally prepared to do that. So we hiked and spotted and hiked and spotted some more.

Inevitably we come around a little bend and to my surprise there is a doe standing perfectly broadside at 50 yards.

I work the lever on my dad’s Winchester model 94 in .32 Winchester Special (essentially a 30-30 but hey, .32 Winchester special sounds WAY cooler).

The dynamics of buck fever can never be fully understood until the moment of truth is in front of you. For me this was no exception. My first shot, believe it or not, hits one of the doe’s ears and we see her kind of shake her head a little. She doesn’t move though.

A second shot was off even more, as were my third and fourth shots. So yes, to put this in perspective this deer has been nicked in the ear by my first shot and she stands staring at us for three more shots. In all my years of hunting since I would have never anticipated anything like that happening.

And for whatever reason my fifth shot was as true as it ever could have been. A perfect shot that ethically was as good as one could ask for in terms of quickly killing one of these beautiful animals. The doe went down and I was on to my first successful deer hunt.

In truth, for me at least, taking a life is hard. It still is today. These animals are incredible. They are beautiful. And so to take one’s life is hard. It certainly was for me that day as I teared up when I saw her laying on the ground.

Then as is always the case, the work begins. We have to process her in the field as there are no roads to where the deer are on Kodiak. My dad obviously does most of the work but I help out on little jobs. All the while learning that the responsibility in taking this life is to use all its resources.

The final truth of this story is that my dad’s friend was right, that little red pack didn’t hold crap. I think I packed out maybe the heart and liver. Dad had the rest of her on his back.

We did make it down the hill though to the Widgeon and departed back to town.

The story of my first deer has never been what I thought it would be. I learned a lot from it though and it spawned many new and exciting adventures … most on Kodiak, and then on the north slope and then later in life in the lower 48.

The Story of Wilbur

I don’t know why I’m starting with this one, but it’s a start.

The story of Wilbur takes place in northern Alaska up the Kugarak river from Selawik.

The hunting party was myself, my dad Vic Barnes, my brother Joe and a close friend Greg.

Hunting Caribou on the north slope is a bit a game of cards. If the animals aren’t migrating then there is nothing to hunt. We elected to go early September and with unusually warm temperatures the fact was the caribou weren’t moving.

If you’ve never done this type of hunting I can say that a large component of the camp meals depends on harvesting an animal early to feed the camp. The rest of the meat from other animals is meant for the freezer or gifts to the villagers who rely on that meat much more than we do.

So a few days in I would say we weren’t starving but with no caribou we definitely were looking for some game meat.

One day we’re glassing the tundra from camp and low and behold we see a lone caribou off in the distance. This is strange at first to simply see a lone caribou. Secondarily it sets up a near impossible hunt. Caribou are curious animals to be certain but they are wary and certainly as a single animal this guy was going to be no different.

That said, Joe and I decide we have to take a chance and see if we can get the caribou in range. Our dad, and Greg, think this is a foolish adventure at best. Though it may provide for some comedy. So we hop in the boat and ride down a little further down the river just to get a little closer to this single caribou.

Joe and I hike up off the bank and the caribou is still there. He’s way too far for gun range so we know we have to stalk him. That is, in a word, a very loose interpretation of the term stalk. There is virtually no stalking on the tundra. You walk and hope that the distance can be closed for an ethical shot. If not, the caribou is gone.

Now, during the migration things are easier. You move to where you think the caribou will be and just wait. 9 times out of 10 they will move past you and you can harvest an animal or two for meat.

The story of Wilbur, this caribou, is different though. Wilbur sees us pretty easily and he clearly is not all that interested in Joe and I. So Wilbur decides to move out pushing farther and farther away. As you may suspect the caribou can move across the grounds much, much quicker than us two legged creatures. So Wilbur moves on. Joe and I are a little dejected and as we glass back at my dad and Greg on the hillside we know the jokes are coming … “those youngsters had this coming”

But then an unusual thing happens. As I’ve mentioned … Caribou are curious and Wilbur was, in fact, alone. So we see him peek back at us wondering what the hell we are.

My brother Joe is out of cards to play, or so we think, and so desperation sets in. He looks at Wilbur, see’s his beautiful maine and coat, and thinks maybe if he strips down to his white long johns that Wilbur may be more interested in a friend than worried about these crazy people walking on the tundra.

So Joe gets down to his long johns, he bends and the waist, and just kind of wanders around. Wilbur takes notice. And with a slow walk, Wilbur decides he needs to see just what is going on.

So Wilbur walks back to about 300 yards and stops. I keep telling Joe “this is working, keep it up” so Joe continues with the charades. And Wilbur keeps coming in.

For me, I’m a little surprised. At first I’m thinking I’m going to have to attempt a longer shot but Wilbur keeps on working in. He disappears under the land a bit and I begin to realize when he crests he’s going to be barely 100 yards away.

Sure enough, Wilbur peaks out at almost exactly 100 yards. I am well set up and make the easy shot to take him clean. Joe is ecstatic and of course he and I both have a little “told you so” story for Dad and Greg. They come down as Joe and I are processing Wilbur and we all pack him out.

Camp that night was special. Fresh, and much needed, meat and a cool story about a beautiful caribou.

Recently Sheryl and I were moving from Pittsburgh to New England and a friend was helping out. He noticed the caribou racks and made mention that he’d never seen anything like them. I gave him Wilbur’s rack. I hope my friend Chris someday reads this story and knows the story of the rack that now hangs in his shop.

It is truly a special memory, one of many.

Redjack

The Reason for this Blog

It seems a strange thing to have a blog on a photography site.

And it is.

The truth is my family is a family of stories. As most are. As I get older it becomes more and more critical to preserve those stories. Once many of us are gone, how will the younger generations remember them? I know I wish I knew more and more stories of my families past. Christmas’ lost, or hunting stories long in the past.

So that’s the reason for this blog. My hope is it starts with the stories I know, the stories I have either heard or know about, or even was a part of.

And then, if it evolves, then it can become stories of generations past. And future generations.

The story of Redjack as a name is part of all of this. My wife, Sheryl, and I have had many pets over the years. Our first dog was a brown lab named Mia … Mia will remain eternally in our hearts. And we have a few stories about her as well.

Our next lab we picked up in Mia’s later years, her name was Ana and she was a great pup. Sweet as apple pie and she adored her bigger sister Mia.

Mia lived a nice long life to the age of 13 and Ana passed away shortly after. At that point we decided a new dog was probably something to wait on.

A friend and co-worker though inquired about my opinions on a good place to purchase a lab and I had just been made aware of an incredible kennel run by my good friends at Mossy Oak. Ed, my friend, decided this was the place he would get a new pup from. He picked up a yellow lab named Red.

Shortly after Red arrived Ed calls me and says he has a problem. Both his wife and his son are seriously allergic to dogs and he asks if I know of a good place for Red. I was quick to say I would inquire but that we simply were not ready to pick up another dog.

A day or two goes by and I let Sheryl know about Ed’s issue. She immediately says we have to at least go visit the pup and I of course know (as does she) that the outcome is practically inevitable.

So we go to Ed’s house and of course Red is incredible. A few weeks old and full of life. I remember the moment so distinctly … I ask Ed and his wife Dede if we can have a moment to discuss. I tell Sheryl I can’t imagine leaving this house without that dog and Sheryl feels the exact same way. So we enter Ed’s home again, look at them, and I say “well … I think we’re pregnant.” Red leaves with us that afternoon.

When we begin to register Red we have to have a name so we register him as “Mossy Oak Red Jack Barnes” and the term “redjack” was born.

So that’s the name of the site, and that’s the name of our pup who has been, without question, one of our greatest blessings (one of too many to count).

The stories are important, and so that’s the reason for this weird section on a photography site.

Hopefully those of you who see them will enjoy them, appreciate them for what they are. And of course I am going to encourage the participants of these stories to validate my version and insure that what has been documented is in fact real.

I hope you enjoy.

Jack