Hunting the early deer season, with its hot weather and long days, has been a passion of mine since high school. Growing up in California, there weren’t whitetails to chase, but we had the California mule deer, and the early rifle season along the state’s central coast region opened August 10 and ran six weeks. Daytime highs routinely topped a hundo, the bugs could be ferocious, and daytime deer movement on the public land in the oak-studded mountains I hunted was usually less than an hour right after sunrise and just before sunset. The bag limit was two bucks, forked horn or better.
I hunted this area every weekend for decades, usually with a rifle but, beginning in the 1980s, often with archery gear. Every season I tagged at least one buck, and sometimes two. On my office
