2nd Season in Mendocino NF - Looking for Advice

[PVHunter]

For starters, I'd like to say thank you to all of the regular posters on this forum for sharing their wisdom with the rest of us. As a new forum member, I hope that I can give something back in time.

As the post title mentions, this will be my second season chasing blacktails in the Mendocino NF. Last year I put some time on the east side of the forest to the north / northwest of 162 / FR7 (thinking about the areas from Rattlesnake northwest toward Fiddlers Green) and spent most of my time glassing and the rest of it cursing chaparral. I'm not too proud to admit I ate tag soup.

I'm spending my evenings on Google Earth & OnX staring at the other side of the forest. I've been trying to decide whether I ought to enter MNF via the Potter Valley area and work northwest of the lake or put in the travel time to work into the northeast side of the Yuki Wilderness. Asking because I have a young family and hall passes can be hard to come by (every hour counts). Not asking for spots (I plan to do a fair amount of hiking) - just generally where you'd be inclined to invest the limited scouting & hunting time.

Thanks in advance.

 

[jfs82]

Ill be on that NE edge of the Yuki, but this is my first season ever hunting so I have no clue what the hell I'm doing.

 

[Bubblehide]

You might want to read this study that another poster just posted on another thread:
https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=153193

 

[3pointer]

That’s terrible , I hunt these areas and witnessed these results first hand, I pretty much knew most of this naturally but to see it broke down like this crushes a guy, this freakin state

 

[MeatBuck]

Looks like they killed 4 deer and one lion during capture... Too bad they didn't accidentally drown all the lions.

Best advice, lace up your boots and wipe off your bino lenses. Get out of the truck and use the boots and binos to find the answers you seek.
Once you figure out a way to be successful, stick with it until you are ready for a new challenge, then find a new way to be successful.
Bottom line, it starts and ends with time in the field. If you don't have the time, you are counting on luck and that won't get you very far in the blacktail woods.

 

[PVHunter]

Thanks for sharing the study. It made for interesting - if discouraging - reading (also, wildlife biologists use linear algebra - who knew?). I'd always heard that most deer had a home range on the order of 1 square mile, but the study suggests that it's actually smaller than that by half or more (working on the conversion of 1 sq. mi. ~ 660 acres)

The average seasonal home range size for all deer more than 2 years old was 0.71 km2 (175.4 acres). Summer home ranges averaged 0.61 km2 (150.7 acres) and were slightly smaller than winter home ranges which averaged 0.86 km2 (212.5 acres). There was no difference in home range sizes of prime-aged and senescent deer during summer

I'd be curious to hear what others think about the observed sex ratio in the population based on the tract analysis

Of the 761 deer fecal pellet samples that yielded full genotypes, we identified 342 unique individuals with an overall sex ratio of 2.72 females per male or 37 males per 100 females.

Found this interesting, too, given that the study covers M1 - FH7 and some of the ridges I'm sure we all frequent

Forage quality of Brewer’s oak (Quercus garryana breweri) and mountain whitethorn (Ceanothus cordulatus), the species most frequently eaten by BTD in our study area, were estimated from plant samples collected from each fawning area.

And the punchline:

Given the low survival rates for individuals from all age classes including fawns it is not surprising that the deer population in the Mendocino National Forest is currently predicted to decline dramatically

In spite of the lion's being responsible for the bulk of observed mortality, they finger the bears as primary culprits given high population density & overlap with the lions, bear theft of BTD carcasses (see neat-o vocab word below), and excessive predation of fawns < 30 d of age (full hypothesis with supporting points is on pp 32 / 33). Well, I'll take my buddy's advice and grab that bear tag today, too.

Also, I learned an excellent new word for the vocabulary: kleptoparasitism.

@MeatBuck: I more or less assumed it'd be boots'n'binos. I'll make do with the time that I have and if it doesn't happen this year, then I'll keep putting time in until cumulative effort pays off in the future. Never a bad day in the woods, right?

 

[OXN939]

Thanks for sharing the study. It made for interesting - if discouraging - reading (also, wildlife biologists use linear algebra - who knew?). I'd always heard that most deer had a home range on the order of 1 square mile, but the study suggests that it's actually smaller than that by half or more (working on the conversion of 1 sq. mi. ~ 660 acres)



I'd be curious to hear what others think about the observed sex ratio in the population based on the tract analysis



Found this interesting, too, given that the study covers M1 - FH7 and some of the ridges I'm sure we all frequent



And the punchline:



In spite of the lion's being responsible for the bulk of observed mortality, they finger the bears as primary culprits given high population density & overlap with the lions, bear theft of BTD carcasses (see neat-o vocab word below), and excessive predation of fawns < 30 d of age (full hypothesis with supporting points is on pp 32 / 33). Well, I'll take my buddy's advice and grab that bear tag today, too.

Also, I learned an excellent new word for the vocabulary: kleptoparasitism.

@MeatBuck: I more or less assumed it'd be boots'n'binos. I'll make do with the time that I have and if it doesn't happen this year, then I'll keep putting time in until cumulative effort pays off in the future. Never a bad day in the woods, right?

Yeah it was interesting, none of their list of recommendations at the end mentions anything about controlling the population of Mountain Lions. Would be interesting to see what the population density of Lions around Mendocino is relative to other areas.

 

[OXN939]

OK, was interested enough to do some Googling. According to the Mountain Lion Foundation, the population density in Mendocino is, comparatively, not very high- the study estimates 4.3 individuals in the 1000 km^2 study area, while the average statewide is 1.7 per 100 km^2 (or 17 per 1000km^2, to keep the area constant.) Anyone got input on if that seems accurate?

 

[amassi]

OK, was interested enough to do some Googling. According to the Mountain Lion Foundation, the population density in Mendocino is, comparatively, not very high- the study estimates 4.3 individuals in the 1000 km^2 study area, while the average statewide is 1.7 per 100 km^2 (or 17 per 1000km^2, to keep the area constant.) Anyone got input on if that seems accurate?

Seems right
The lion population will reflect the deer population and will adjust according to food density or scarcity

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[bitbckt]

You got the right advice already - time in the field away from roads, and carry a bear tag with intent.

 

[srfdmatty]

OK, was interested enough to do some Googling. According to the Mountain Lion Foundation, the population density in Mendocino is, comparatively, not very high- the study estimates 4.3 individuals in the 1000 km^2 study area, while the average statewide is 1.7 per 100 km^2 (or 17 per 1000km^2, to keep the area constant.) Anyone got input on if that seems accurate?

WTF. How do these people come up with this crazy crap. Of course the mountain lion protection group says there's not enough lions. I've been hunting my family owned ranch for 33 years. The past 5 years has been the worst hunting I have ever seen. The thriving population of deer we once had has vanished since the lions were protected. I have seen more adult male dead heads the past few years than I care to think about. There is only one animal around that kills full grown mature male blacktail deer.....boots on the ground and personal experience doesn't lie.

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[JNDEER]

By eat tag soup... do you mean you didn't lay eyes on one buck during the season? How many days did you spend afield scouting and hunting?

In the MNF. Deer are where you find them. Whether 3 miles from the nearest road or cross a well used road daily.

 

[MeatBuck]

By eat tag soup... do you mean you didn't lay eyes on one buck during the season? How many days did you spend afield scouting and hunting?

In the MNF. Deer are where you find them. Whether 3 miles from the nearest road or cross a well used road daily.

Deer always use the topography to take the easiest route, path of least resistance. If that means crossing a road or even walking down it while feeding on roadside shrubs and grasses. Often the road is the only place where sunlight can support such feed. With timber being as thick as it is they use roads just to get sunlight too. This is why the vast majority of mnf hunters just drive around. They see just enough deer to keep the hope up that a buck will be around the next corner standing broadside waiting to be killed.
In reality all the miles of road systems in the nf do account for a large portion of its open/viewable space. But again, luck plays the biggest role in harvesting deer while driving the nf as you've gotta be in the right place at the right time, catch the deer totally off guard, hope he doesn't spook when you shut off the truck, get yourself out of the truck, then get your gun out,(try not to spill your beer), load your gun, get yourself off the road edge, all the while expecting the deer to still be standing there for the shot. That's obviously doing things the legal way, not rolling around with one in the camber and barrel resting on window frame for that slam on the brakes n shoot opportunity.
Doesn't seem very effective in my book, but every year guys kill lots of piss bucks this way. And maybe once or twice in a lifetime when all their lucky stars align they'll come around the corner to a good buck standing behind a hot doe and the rest is history. Doesn't make them a good hunter but it can make them successful.
My cousin refers to this type of hunter as an "ocean turd hunter" that is; a guy who bobs around the ocean waiting for a turd to float by.
Don't be that guy.

 

[PVHunter]

The study estimates on the lion population density are lower than the 17 per 1,000 sq. km you mentioned when Googling:

From these density estimates we can extrapolate that there were roughly 4.3 adult mountain lions in the study area (1000 km2 , 385 square miles) at any given time during our investigation.

I'm not sufficiently knowledgable about their estimation methodology to refute or endorse the validity of their conclusion.

There is only one animal around that kills full grown mature male blacktail deer.....boots on the ground and personal experience doesn't lie.

That's more or less what the study that @Bubblehide shared confirms.

The researchers shared the following about the lions they studied in this area

We conducted field investigations of 598 of 609 (98%) identified GPS clusters within an average time period of 6.78 days that ranged from 0 to 60 days after the mountain lion left its kill. We identified 352 kills, of which 82% were BTD. The remaining 18% consisted of two black bears and 62 small-to-medium sized animals including rabbits, jackrabbits, various rodents and birds

If you believe the study, the wrinkle seems to be that the fawns < 30d old are predominantly targeted by black bears, whose populations are far larger and overlap almost completely with the BTD in the study area (between M1 and F7). They also mentioned on one of the pages that the lion population density is on the lower end of the expected spectrum, but that lions are likely being driven to kill a larger number of BTD due to the bears' penchant for stealing kills (IIRC the return rate to a kill declines by 70+% once a bear has intervened and the lions in MNF aren't "caching" kills). So, you end up with a "bottom up" / "top down" set of detrimental pressures on the BTD population.

My takeaway from all of this is ... bring a bear tag.


Good luck out there next week.

 

[JNDEER]

Meat- you got a lot of learning to do... never turn the engine off, just put it in park.

 

[MeatBuck]

Meat- you got a lot of learning to do... never turn the engine off, just put it in park.

My manual transmission hasn't got a park... Nor does the rig have a parking brake. Here's a truck buck from my ol lady's m11 hunt last year.

 

[amassi]

My manual transmission hasn't got a park... Nor does the rig have a parking brake. Here's a truck buck from my ol lady's m11 hunt last year.
View attachment 121306

That's a cool buck

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