I spent a few days hiking the rocky ridges and draws, brush-busting through stands of Gambel's Oak, and still hunting the ponderosa pine covered mountainsides.
On the next-to-last day of my hunting season I connected with my buck with a 150-yard shot across a little valley. I was lucky enough to have our oldest daughter, Rachel, there to help me field dress him and drag him out to the truck. Luckily, this year I didn't have to pack him out on my back with multiple trips to and from the carcass. What a blessing!
One tradition we have is for fresh deer heart after a successful hunt. This year was no different. I marinated the heart from my deer for a day, sliced it up into three cutlets, and threw them on a raging hot grill, along with peppers and onions. What a feast!
A few days later I found myself with a tenkara rod in my hand, in the company of my good friend Eric Lynn, owner of Mountain Ridge Gear. We had poked our way along a hair-raising jeep road to a piece of private water in the canyons near my home. We returned to a mile-long stretch of water, just a dozen feet wide, that's always filled with eager brown trout.
Here's Eric, having the time of his life...
Yours truly with one of many browns caught that day!
Enjoying a late fall indian summer day in the canyons with tenkara rods in our hands!
