When I first read about Red Boat on Ravenous Couples website, I was intrigued. I remembered fondly from my childhood in Saigon the pure fish sauce (nuoc mam) that was exported from the island of Phu Quoc to Saigon. My Saigonese friends would always laud it as the best. But, over the years, and only offered the same best option as everyone else outside of Vietnam, Three Crabs fish sauce, I forgot what made real nuoc mam so special.

That was until I exchanged emails with the owner of Red Boat Fish Sauce and learned we were only separated by the San Francisco Bay. When he offered to drop off some samples in person, I responded with an offer of lunch and a recipe adaptation I’d been playing around in mind with ever since I tried it at the restaurant owned by a friend who had escaped from Hanoi in the early 1980s. Called Loi’s, and now run by his sister, it’s still on Irving Street in San Francisco—serves the best North Vietnamese street cuisine in the city.

So, Red Boat owner, Cuong Pham and his director of sales and marketing, Robert Bergstrom, joined me for my experiment with bear and deer meat. First, though, I had to make a comparison. Before opening the bottle, we read the ingredients label: Red Boat has only salt and anchovy extract; Three Crab has anchovy extract, water, salt, fructose, and hydrolyzed vegetable protein. Red Boat is the real deal!

 Then, I poured into a small tasting bowl. It’s viscosity was impressive. Most nuoc mam pours out like water. Red Boat leaves the bottle like maple syrup.

 But, it was the taste test that sold me: Three Crab is salty coming in and going past the tongue. Red Boat starts salty, but finishes sweet. It has a savoriness that reminds me of why for some back in the Vietnam nuoc mam makes a complete meal by being spooned over a small bowl of rice.

 Filling a clay pot with the grilled black bear meatballs and marinated venison slices, I mixed up a batch of nuoc mam cham, the dipping sauce that you’re normally offered with Vietnamese cha gio (deep fried imperial rolls). And then that’s when I knew, beyond the shadow of doubt: Red Boat is THE BEST nuoc mam you can find in the United States!

 Here’s the recipe for you to find out yourself:

 There are three parts to Bun Cha. First is the ground meat, then the grilled whole meat, and then the vegetables that make such an aromatic and healthy meal.

 It may look pretty involved, but once you have the veggies and meats all set up, the grilling and nuoc mam cham steeping is pretty quick and easy.

 Nuoc Mam Cham

 2 Cups water

½ Cup rice vinegar

½ Cup sugar

10 TBS fish sauce

2 small fresh chili peppers, chopped

1.  Bring the water with the vinegar up to boiling, then turn off the heat
2.  Pour in the sugar to dissolve
3.  Add the fish sauce and chopped fresh chilis
4.  Normally, you let this cool, but for Bun Cha, pour over the meat warm.

 Cha Thit Gấu (Ground Bear Sausage)

1/2 lbs. ground bear meat

4 cloves of minced garlic

1 TBS sugar

1 TSP salt

1 TSP black pepper

1 TSP white pepper

1 TSP coconut caramel sauce, or molasses

1 egg beaten

1. Mix all ingredients thoroughly
2. Place in a non-reactive/non-metal container, covered, for at least an hour, or preferably overnight
3. Form them into handball-sized meatballs and place a number of them on a skewer for easier manipulation on the grill
4. Grill over a high heat coals, starting your cooking before the venison
5. As bear meat is like wild pork in terms of parasites such as trichinosis, it’s important to cook the bear through. That’s doesn’t meant dry, but to an internal meat temperature of 160 degree Fahrenheit.

• 
• Bear meatballs on a stick ready for the grill

Thit Nai (Venison component)

1 lb venison roast, thinly sliced about 1/4 inch or so (not too thin that it’ll dry out during grilling)

1/8 Cup  minced Lemongrass. If you live in temperate zone like California, worth growing in the backyard for a number of great recipes and teas, and it’s a natural mosquito repellent)

2 TBS sugar

1 TBS fish sauce

1 TSP ground pepper

2 Cloves garlic, minced

1 shallot, minced.

1 TSP soy sauce

1 TBS molasses

1. Mix everything but the venison
2. Place the venison strips in a non-metal/ non-reactive container and cover
3. Let the meat sit in marinade for at least an hour—I like to leave it overnight.
4. Lay the meat strips in a fish or veggie-grilling basket to keep them from fall into the fir
5. Grill the meat for four to five minutes on each side, to a brown or black on the outside and slight pink inside.

The Veggies and Rice Noodles

 1 Cucumber

1 Bunch of Cilantro

1 Bunch of Thai basil leaves

1 Bunch of fresh mint leaves

1 Head of lettuce

2 Cups of pickled daikon and carrots in a seperate bowl for serving

Pickled Daikon and Carrots  (Do Chua) recipe:

1/2 lb. carrots -shredded in food processor, sliced in thin rounds or thin match-like strips.

1/2 lb. daikon radish – cut same as carrots.

3 cups warm water

3 Tablespoons distilled or rice vinegar

2-3 tablespoons sugar, depending on how sweet you want your pickles

2 tablespoons salt

1.  Mixed the brine and heat for total saturation, and then after cooling, pour it into non-reactive container, like a ceramic pickling jar
2. Shred the carrots and daikon into two to three-inch long thin strips
3. Place the carrots and daikon in the brine, and let pickle for at least an hour before using. It can last for up to five months in the refrigerator.

Bun Cha Serving Steps:

1. On a large serving dish, please a heaping mound of rice noodle. I use pretty much one full package of rice stick that I quickly dip into a hot pot of water, using a basket ladle. Only about a minute at the most to soften the noodles, and making sure to lift and drop to get most of the excess boiled water out
2. As it continues to hydrate and become opaque white, lift and separate the bundle to give the noodles loft as they cool
3. Once they’re just warm and not hot, you can begin an arrangement around the rice noodles of sliced cucumber, whole lettuce leaves and sprigs of mint or basil and sweet basil
4. On another plate lay a stack of Bun Cha (cirular rice paper). It’s served with a bowl of warm water for diners to wet the Bun Cha to soften it enough to make a the roll 
5. Once everything but the meat is ready, and placed at the dining table, begin the cooking process for the two meats on the grill 
6. After the meat is cooked, place it in a pot, sliding the meatballs off the skewers. My preference is a traditional Asian claypot as it keeps the meat warm 
7. Warm up the nuoc mam cham, and pour over the barbecued meatLet the meat sit in the sauce for fifteen minutes, then serve.

 How to eat Bun Cha:

1. Take a bowl and place a softened piece of rice paper in the middle
2. Grab pieces of cucumber, cilantro, lettuce, basil leaf and place them in line up the middle of the rice paper
3. Place a thumb-thick collection of noodle strands on the line of veggies
4. Using your chopsticks, collect a piece of venison and half or quarter of one of the meatballs and place along the line of noodles and vegetables
5. Top with a few strands of the Do Chua
6. Spoon some nuoc mam cham down the line
7. Roll up the rice paper and eat like a Vietnamese burrito

Bon Appetit!

Bun cha ready for rolling and eating

Related Stories:

• Cambodian Honey Bear Steaks
• Veteran’s Day Mendocino Bear
• Julia Child’s Ours Bourguignon (Bear Bourguignon)

Vietnam holds my first memories, some of them horrific: the bloodiest days of 1968’s “Little Tet” Offensive in May, marked in my mind by a US Army chopper firing rockets into a Vietcong machine gun post in a Saigon highrise; waking up in the public recovery room at the US Army’s hospital at Tan Son Nhut, among Vietnamese civilians wounded in the war…all well recorded in my 2004 Amazon Topseller memoir.               

Other memories as the son of an American expat businessman, weren’t so traumatic and actually quite pleasant: skiing up and down the Saigon River to the Club Nautique (no, the Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction wasn’t playing on the transistor radio) , trips to Dalat and Vung Tau, and my first taste of grilled venison noodle salad, otherwise known as Bun Thit Nuong Xa, thit nai being the venison (“meat deer” syntax) and xa the lemongrass that I think makes any wild game that much better.               

The restaurant was in Saigon and I think we started going there in 1970 and continued as patrons until our leaving in 1972. Owned by a Frenchman and his Vietnamese wife, and dimly lit for romance it had a décor that would have made Graham Greene envious, but it was the food that made it one of the better-known restaurants in Saigon.               

Bun Thit Nai Nuong Xa was only one of what were several courses required of business dinners designed for schmoozing clients, and especially bringing the family as family is very important in Asia. Company wining and dining budgets sure helped keep a family of four fed in those days. All I cared about though, as a boy of seven and then eight, was that big bowl of rice noodles topped by a mound of venison darkened by fire and sweet to the taste.               

Over the years since I started deer hunting, I’ve played with the idea of putting it together as I remembered. Often, though, I’d just make a venison chili, marinated steaks, or an oven roast. As I’ve matured in my tastes and trained myself to recognize the different spices that make up dishes, I finally asked myself, what was it about that dish, aside from great tasting venison (probably a muntjac deer hunted by some Degar hunter in the Central Highlands, or a market hunter on one of the rubber plantations)?               

When I shot such an amazingly tender mule deer up near Alturas, CA with the great assistance of newfound friends this last deer season, I suddenly got a bug to expand more than the normal repertoire of venison meals. For a meal with such a variety of aromatics and flavor, Bun Thit Nai Nuoung Xa turns out to be a very easy dish to prepare.               

In California, it’s pretty easy to keep a stand of lemongrass growing all year in the Bay Area and Southern California; in a mini greenhouse, everywhere else, all year long. Makes a great tea with or without sugar and shows up in a majority of Vietnamese, Cambodian and Thai dishes, making it a worthwhile addition to anyone’s yard or window herb garden.             

Finally, I said yesterday would be the day I made Bun Thit Nai Nuong Xa…and when I was done, I wondered why it too me so long: like my ours bourguignon that tastes better than beef bourguignion, Bun Thit Nai Nuong Xa tastes better than Bun Thit Nuong, i.e. the normal restaurant variety made with farmed pork…or the chicken and beef varieties for that matter.               

…Yes, it’s that good!               

Now you can purchase venison from ranches, but as far as I’m concerned farmed-raised deer is just a very lean beefsteak that used to have antlers instead of steer horns. Farm-raised means drugs, if even the lightest amount of antibiotics, and worst, fed a regulated diet of pellets and feed that comes in bags for improved muscle growth for weight at the market…all thanks to the USDA: we wonder why there’s obesity in the US?               

If you want to get true organic venison, one that has been feeding on a variety of naturally occurring flora, living life in the wilds, absorbing all that made us that more connected to the healing qualities of the Earth, you’re going to have to get your venison with a gun or bow, or have a friend willing to share…             

And while I’d never hunt muntjac in Asia as they’re definitely endangered there, I’d sure hunt them in Ireland and the UK where increasing numbers run the risk of a detrimental effect on native species of deer…as for New Zealand, with its low human population and major red deer populations hunting’s a given.              

Now there are a lot of Vietnamese BBQ meat noodle salad recipes out there, but I’ve been enjoying reading the Vietnamese recipes published by the Ravenous Couple. Many of their recipes bring me back to the ones my mom learned from her Saigonese friends. Of course, as with all the recipes designed for meat from farm animals, I had to modify for wild game…             

I wanted the venison to stand out, which means I had to remove some ingredients in the salad, and add to, and modify the marinade to deal with the dryness of venison—you’d be amazed at what good molasses can do!              

Here is the recipe and please remember to comeback to make a comment below once you’ve finished enjoying your home cooked Bun Thit Nai Nuoung Xa–like traditional publications, it costs money to bring these articles FREE to YOU, paid for and supported by advertisers…part of which is attracted by rankings on Google, which is added to by the number of comments…You clicking on advertising links and making sure to make a comment on something you enjoyed means we’re able to keep bringing you useful information..and if you have a blog, too, the link to your blog through your comment brings your ranking up, too: win-win–Thank you and bon apetit!    

If you’ve not got a local Asian foods market, you might find these ingredients and other things at Amazon worth ordering:
             

Bun Thit Nai Nuong Xa (BBQ Venison Noodle Salad)  [Recipe]

Serves four

Perfect Thit Nai cuts

Ingredients

• 1-2 lbs of moose, blacktail, whitetail, mule deer or elk sliced ¼-inch thick and large enough so they won’t fall through a fish BBQ grill
• 1 Cucumber cut in half, or quartered and then julienned
• A bunch each of fresh mint, Thai basil, and cilantro some rolled and sliced, some leaves left whole for the chopped salad
• One package of rice vermicelli
• 2 green scallion minced
• 1 tbs peanut oil
• 3 tbs fresh peanuts coarsely ground then roasted.

Marinade

Nuoc Mam Cham (This is the sweet delicious dipping sauce you get served with Chai Gios [Imperial Rolls]) 

•   ½ cup Nuoc Mam (Fish Sauce)
• 1 cup cold water
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 2-3 tbs white vinegar
• 1 tsp fresh lime juice
• 1 Thai bird chili finely chopped

NOTE: Personally, I never started adding the vinegar until a friend of mine who escaped Hanoi on  a refugee boat, and started the best Hanoi-style noodle shop in San Francisco, called Loi’s—and after  a long hiatus started Cheramoya in Burlingame—turned me onto his use of vinegar.               

And even this recipe I just mess around with above for my own tastes everytime I cook…               

Everyone…and I mean EVERYONE has his or her own family take on this sauce in Vietnam. I’ve had it salty. I have had it bitter…and I’ve had it so sickeningly sweet I should have poured it on a strawberry sundae—you have my permission to experiment!                

Steps

1. Mix the marinade to taste. Remember, everyone has different tastebuds and cultural tastes. Myself, I start with the recipe I’ve put together and add and subtract at each cooking session to make sure the marinade tastes exactly the way I like it.
2. Immerse and stir the venison in the marinade. Cover and set in the refrigerator for at least an hour. I like to let it set for 2-3 hours to really get that marinade to the core.
3. Start up the grill. I prefer to use a small Weber–and use charcoal…gas sucks. If you use a large one, you have to fill it up with a lot of charcoal. With a small Weber, I get high heat without wasting a bunch of charcoal—you want that meat right down there, almost touching the coals to really sear and get the molasses to crust over. Crusting helps keep the normally dry venison moist.
4. Place the meat in a fish and vegetable basket grill and place on the grill.
5. Cook the meat on one side for 2-3 minutes (we’re talking high heat here) until browning and slight blacking of tips…all that caramelizing for great taste!
6. Remove the venison from the fire. Might be sticking, so let it cool on the grill so that it’s not falling to pieces as you remove it from the basket grill.
7. While the meats resting, roast the ground peanuts in a dry frying pan to brown them slightly and bring out their flavor, then set aside.
8. Heat up the peanut oil, or cottonseed oil can work, and fry the minced scallions until slightly sweated and then place on a paper towel to remove some of the oil and set aside.
9. Boil the package of rice vermicelli, drain and set aside—if you want your noodles cold, then I suggest doing this first, or while the meat is marinating.
10. In a soup bowl (if you have an actual Pho bowl of china, so much the better), place some of the chopped salad, then a layer of the rice vermicelli.
11. Slice the cooked venison into large bite sizes easily picked up by chopsticks and place on top.
12. Top with a light sprinkling of the prepared scallions and peanuts
13. Serve with chopsticks and small bowl of the nuoc mam cham for your guests to dip the venison, or just pour over the whole dish and mix.

Enjoy!

Cork Graham sighting in the WOTAC 4-14×50

 With only a couple months until California’s coastal deer opener, it was time to not only check out the new custom loads received from Nosler, but also the Wonders Tactical (WOTAC) 4-14×50 scope (4th generation) I’d been given by their sales rep, Forrest Ebert. Just yesterday, I learned that I’d been lucky in the special deer draw with an X3B tag, so I’ll not only be hunting with the WOTAC scope for the first time, but also using it on my first California mule deer…good hunting luck on my side, I hope.  

My first trials at the range were excellent. The glass is very clear, and the elevation and windage knobs turn easily without that mushiness scopes made in Asia can have. A number of target shooters had requested louder clicks to them, and WOTAC has made those improvements.  

First trained on the MilDot reticle in the military, I was actually very impressed with the EPB reticle. For really long shots, those over 1,000 yards, I’d still recommend doing “come-ups” with the turrets (1/4 click MOA adjustments). But, for ranges under 1,000 yards, I can see how just raising or lowering, using the small hash marks along the main verticle line of the crosshair can be very easy and accurate.  

Easy to use turrets and parallax correction

It was very fast to get on target with the adjustsment and longer hash mark at the bottom easily aids shooting for a crosswind. Would I use this scope to shoot an animal at 1,000 yards? No. Would I shoot a deer at 600-700 yards? Absolutely!  

Ethical long range shooting will be covered in a later article, but you don’t have to start adjusting for elevation until 300-plus yards on a modern high-velocity rifle, a move from 300-600 is not that much of a challenge, especially if you’ve been practicing—and it’s all about practice!  

What the hash marks (each represents a shift in 2MOA) do is make quick elevations using the reticle that much more effective. Let’s the take the new rifle I’ll be using this year. Sighted in at 200 yards, there’s a 68.8-inch drop at 600 yards with the 130 gr. Nosler Accubonds out of my .270 Winchester Model 70 Super Grade.  

The EPB Reticle

All I have to do is check the wind speed (let’s say an afternoon 10 mph crosswind from the right). Then, raise the rifle so that sweetspot at the deer’s shoulder is halfway between the fifth and sixth hash mark. Compensating for wind, move the rifle muzzle to the right, so that target center is two and a half hash marks to the left (4.75MOA) of the vertical crosshair.  

This is done with the scope zoom ring set to MOA. There is also a mark on the zoom ring for MIL.  

Either MOA or Milliradian

What I don’t like about the scope are the turret screws. They are too small and always worry me that I’ll strip them in trying to make sure they’re tight. I’ve already read reports of stripped heads. Best would be to either have the turrets locked in with one larger screw, or to have a flip-lock system as can seen on the Premier Reticle scope.  

Now it’s not a US Optics, Premier or Nightforce scope (And you know how much I love my Nightforce Optics™ 3.5-15×56mm NXS with MilDot!). It’s also not priced in the thousands of dollars like them, either. Like those higher-end scope manufacturers, Matt Wonders, the owner of WOTAC, offers a solid guaranteed. If you’re not happy with your WOTAC scope, contact them within 14 days of receiving it and they’ll either replace the scope or give you a total refund!  

For a scope that provides good glass, an excellent reticle design that can efficiently turn your highpower 300 yard rifle into a consistent 600-700 yard shooter, it’s a very good deal at $329. If you’re looking to get a scope that you can accurately adjust your crosshair in the field for longrange shooting,  the WOTAC 4-14X50 is an excellent scope to start with.  

Looking forward to putting it through its trials on a real hunt instead of just at the range! 

For more information, or to order your own, contact Wonders Optics Sales Representative Forrest Ebert at email: ebco2009@gmail.com  

For your daily commute on your MP3 player – Download and Enjoy the latest news at Wonders Optics (WOTAC) on Cork’s Outdoors Radio:

TOPICS: Wonders Optics Sales Representative Forrest Ebert talks about the history of Wonders Optics line of tactical, target and hunting rifle scopes.

The Ziploc read “Stew meat 2008.” I tried to remember the deer from which it was taken. That’s when I remembered 2008 was the last year my good friends, the Caugheys, and I were allowed to hunt the Mindego Hill Ranch.

Though my buddy’s uncle was promised by his father, the Admiral, that he would never have to worry about losing their family’s little bit of heaven on Skyline (now tall and massive, olive trees and fruit trees were planted around the cabin over 40 years ago by the long departed Admiral when he was a professor at Stanford), with an amazing view of not only the San Francisco Bay Area but also the Pacific, the uncle’s mother passed away, and suddenly an $8 Million bill from the state of California arrived: it could only be paid by selling the property.

What a lesson in living trust and wills in California: especially those that were written to guarantee a stress free handing down of land ownership among the middle class…

So what had served as a great source of venison, for at least 25 years—for an Irish/Portuguese-American family that has hunted these San Mateo County mountains since the mid-1800s—was forced out of their hands. Where it ended up was with Open Spaces, which means unless you like to only hike or mountain bike on specific trails—you can’t even walk a dog there—you’re out of luck.

You can already see where the brush—on what were previously cattle ranches and now under Open Spaces ownership—is taking over the feed for the wild animals: in 30 years it’ll all be covered up in non-nutrient brush…the same flora that the local Native Americans had burned over thousands of years in order to keep their venison supply healthy.

Yes, it was a fond goodbye. And though I had hoped to take one of the bruisers that make up the genetic stock of the San Mateo County blacktail bucks, I was happy to get the small forkie.

As I was looking at the bag of stew meat, I recalled how tender those steaks off the young buck were and waited impatiently for the meat to defrost, recalling a recipe for lamb curry that I’ve wanted to adapt to venison.

Cork's Venison Curry with basmati rice, egg and banana slices

Venison Curry Recipe

Ingredients

· 2 lbs of venison stew meat

· 2 large onions, chopped

· 5 cloves of garlic, crushed

· 2 Tbsp olive oil with butter

· 2 Tbsp curry powder

· 1 tsp salt

· 1 tsp black pepper

· 1 Meyer lemon sliced (with rind)

· 2 peeled and chopped apples (I like the sweet apples)

· 4 cups of chicken broth

· One can of coconut milk

· 8 small red potatoes, quartered

· 6 eggs

Marinate the venison pieces overnight.

Marinade: grind and mix with 2 Tbsp of olive oil

· 1 Tbsp of coriander seeds

· 1 Tbsp cumin

· 1 Tbsp curry powder

· 1 tsp thyme

· 1/2 tsp salt

· 1/2 tsp pepper

Preparation:

1 On stovetop, brown the meat in a little bit of olive oil in a large pot. Remove the meat from pot.

2 Add olive oil with a little bit of 1 Tbsp of butter to pot, add curry powder, cook on low heat for a minute or two. Add onions and garlic and cook for 5 minutes. Return meat to pot.

3 Add the sliced lemon, apples, chicken broth, salt and pepper. Put pot on stove on low heat and simmer for 3 hours, boiling down until the meat is almost falling apart. In the last 45 minutes remove the cover and put in potatoes and coconut milk. Let the curry boil down to the consistency you like. I prefer it halfway between dry and watery

4 Add eggs in the last 15 minutes (take them out at end, peel and put them back in the curry)

Serve over rice with sides of chutney, banana slices, boiled-egg slices.

Serves 6.

When I first arrived in California, I would have given my eye-teeth to get my hands on the information Haugen

Scott Haugen and a trophy blacktail

delivers in this masterpiece. Perhaps it’s because he was a biology teacher for years in Alaska and Indonesia, or has a phenomenal understanding of how to use a map from his university days in cartography-the major he took up for his bachelors he concedes was for improving his deer hunting-but he really teaches the reader how to not only recognize what makes blacktail deer special, but how to effectively hunt them as a blacktail deer hunter and not a misplaced whitetail or mule deer hunter.

Starting with a foreword by another well-proven hunting writer, Bob Robb, Trophy Blacktails’ chapter one covers the deer itself, taking you through physical characteristics and average blacktail life-cycle and then moving to diet. What caught me off guard was the information on Deer Hair Loss Syndrome (DHLS)!

I’d never even heard of it down here in California, but up in Oregon and Washington this is one big bad dude! DHLS is a caused by a louse that came to Washington from either the African or Asian continent, latin name Damalinia Cervicola. DHLS results from the horrendous skin biting from the louse.

As the hair is lost, the deer’s own biting and rubbing against the irritation leads to intense stress, and that added to chill of early fall and definitely during winter, deer loses too much weight and dies. Haugen describes two events of young deer standing near the wall of their house to hide from wind, only to see them within three days, dead.

It’s just in the last few years that DHLS has been seen in the most northern reaches of California. Who knows how long before it reaches down the rest of the coast and ventures further into mule populations, too? Perhaps the more benign temperatures south of San Francisco might help in keeping DHLS at bay, though just as likely not Damalinia Cervicola itself. Stay tuned!

Haugen carries on with record books classifications and trophy judging. He then delves into a very important aspect of hunting overall and in hunting blacktails specifically: The Mental and Physical Game. This book is a book for trophy blacktail deer hunter, in contrast to the recreational, though all deer hunters will benefit greatly from reading Trophy Blacktails. It’s not as hard to get an average blacktail as compared to one that has lived more than two or three years. Most deer taken are in the two three-year range. To get the buck that has survived longer than five years that’s when you’re getting to the bucks that anyone would unbegrudgingly call, trophy, and that’s the range logged in the books. That takes a mental and physical conditioning most are not prepared to follow through with, but if you do, Haugen suggestions will be that much easier to follow toward your own wall-hangers.

Chapter two takes the reader through the strategies and planning taking into consideration blacktail behavior and scouting tactics, along with the best times and places to hunt for antler sheds. Fullfilling the rest of the strategies includes map research, locating does, and most controversial especially in California where the DFG frown and actually makes it illegal to implement: food plots.

Personally, considering how poorly the California DFG has managed its deer herds and major predators as the result of insane political pressures that have nothing to do with actually improving wildlife populations, I’m all for food plots. If I had my way, I’d have every hiker going into national forests and parks to plant foods that are most beneficial to deer, but also collaterally turkey, squirrels, quail and a number of non-game species.

I’ve always held to the belief that if you take care of the habitat the populations will follow. Is it any wonder that in the Eastern United States they’re complaining that hunters aren’t taking enough deer? Or that here in California our salmon populations have hit near rock bottom? Blow a few more dams and salmon populations will skyrocket back to what they were-how many people know that before the dam was put in to form Lake Shasta, the largest salmon run in America was the Sacramento River run? Yes, even larger than Kenai in Alaska!

How many more blacktail deer would we have in California if we allowed landowners to legally plant property to draw and feed blacktail deer with strategically placed food plots? Probably the same large healthy population of deer they have back east.

As for predators, they’ve needed a proper management program in this state for years. And no, contrary to what the Mountain Lion Foundation and other groups that make money off keeping the cougar on the no-hunt list, predator populations don’t drop along with the prey. They keep growing, eating everything until it’s gone, simply moving to find more prey, i.e. your dogs and cats in lower altitude areas as we’ve seen this drought year.

If you want to help deer populations, like I do: shoot two to three predators for every deer that you take and you might just make a small enough dent in bobcat and coyote population, and mountain lion population if the DFG’d actually get on the ball on this like they do in Washington, Idaho and California: isn’t it ironic that since mountain lions have been on the no-hunt list, there have been more mountain lions killed on depredations permits than there would ever have been on a hunting license/tag system? Right attitude: keep a healthy mountain lion population in California. Wrong implementation!

Now implementing the tactics described in Haugen’s Trophy Blacktails will bring you much more success than DFG strategies have brought to the improvement of California deer populations. Haugen shares these with you in a seasonal format that goes into the Early Season, Mid-Season, and Late Season.

As I hunt in California’s A Zone, I was most intrigued by what an Oregonian had to say about the early season as we start one to two months before the northern states. During the first half of the archery season that starts in July, most of the bucks are in velvet so it’s much easier to find deer in the open as they’re trying to keep them from breaking off on a tree or branch. Once the velvet gets rubbed off, they deer get real spooky and often become nocturnal, especially on public land with heavy hunting pressure.

By rifle season the bucks are deep during the day, offering a slight opportunity in the last one to two hours of daylight morning and evening. Because of this and the overgrown brush that has just gotten worse because of overzealous fire protection foregoing widespread controlled burning, with a tradition of use that goes back to the Spanish, we’re allowed to use dogs to basically drive deer out of that deep manzanita, low oak and chemise, though even those dogs don’t guarantee success as described in an article I wrote for Hunting the West magazine a few years back.

Cork's Blacktail taken with ELK, Inc. "Deer Talk Call"

Haugen really shines in his description of using calls, blinds and stands. Also of note is using spotting scopes for checking out the feeding habits of the targeted bucks. As one who called in a nice 3X2 in 2005, I’m a true believer in using deer calls. When used during the rut, which in the A Zone can occur during the last two weeks of the season, fawn calls can be very effective. The buck in question came in following a doe that was responding to the bleat I made with an ELK, Inc. “Deer Talk Call”.

There is one last caveat about Trophy Blacktails. I wish publisher had included an index for speedier referencing, something I do when riding up to a hunt or preparing a plan. I’m confident considering the excellent quality photos and content on this first run by Haugen Enterprises that the following publications will have that much needed index.

You can order your own copy here: http://www.scotthaugen.com/books/trophyblacktails.html