St. Vincent Island Sambar Hunting – Part 2 with Chad Rischar

Hopefully Part 1 of the St. Vincent Island Sambar deer hunting blog developed the rhythm section, so now it’s time to dedicate the next post to lead guitar and vocals.  Please take a big step back with me and appreciate the time frame of the hunt. Gear options were as limited as our budget and we  enlisted the camp gear we collectively owned.  At that time, we didn’t own all the pleasantries of modern equipment and gear.  Folks have camped and hunted with inferior gear for centuries and more recently decades. I am compelled to share that we were generally prepared – just not like a 2018 hunting party might be with more modern gear and accouterments and a fistful of cash to invest on a Sambar deer hunt.

Access to St. Vincent Island & ‘Trailering’ Gear:

This is not camping on a beach, although you may perceive it in that fashion since SVI is an island and the designated campsites are near the beach. Boating yourself to SVI is an option, but we chose another approach using a local charter Captain for ingress & egress.  The tide and breakwaters are a dealer’s choice of whether your boat is afloat the following day – along with which Federal Wildlife Officer won the daily lottery pool of missing and/or sunken boats.  When I learned that the sunken boat lotto was an annual amusement, the appeal of trailering a boat entirely diminished.

We actually pulled a horse trailer with all our gear that was semi-protected from storms.  Why a horse trailer you ask? To inevitably meet a Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Affairs (DACS) officer along each major District jurisdiction.  If you drag a horse trailer, even without livestock, you must stop at the check station and shake hands with the law officer.  We were unaware of that statute provision, so we met the DACS officer the hard way…. in the pitch-black dark on a two-lane country road after crossing the Suwannee River.

The officer chased us down, bubble gum machines firing off like we were hauling swaying moonshine jugs.  That’s a fine campfire story that I’ll reserve for a few belts staged around a circle of oak coals.  Suffice to say though, if the DACS officer could have written us a ticket for a carton of eggs, I bet he would have smiled when he peeled off our copy. We stopped on the return trip home.

Sambar Deer Hunting Terrain Considerations:

 In Part 1, you may have noticed the picture of all the gear hauled in the horse trailer, loaded onto a 22’ boat and hauled to our beach campsite.  I’m quite hopeful that I’ll draw this quota hunt again, and will likely appreciate a more pronounced budget and gear selection. Simply stated, we brought a bunch of stuff and most of it proved useful.  Our group didn’t lack for the basics, but we were in the minor league compared to what we own and know now.  Our hunting party of four had never stepped foot on SVI prior to the hunt, but we were accomplished hunters from across Florida and Georgia- we were well aware of Coastal Plain terrain and weather.

SVI is, and likely will forever be, a scalloped inner-dual swale landscape dominated by slash and sand pines with shallow marsh depressions on the interior and brackish marsh along the periphery and dominantly along the southeastern edges.  Interior access is fair, but coarse and sandy trails are the common access corridors.  Obviously, elevations gains are minor, however, the landscape is a steady ruck of loose sand trails, muggy conditions, and blow-down pine trees. I’m describing the landscape as an over-arching description, the other less-dominant habitats are captivating marshes, cabbage palm canopy edges, and a fistful of deep marshes- prime Sambar habitat.

Choose your approach wisely: Run-n-Gun, spot-n-stalk, or climb and rest- I don’t have enough evidence to determine one approach is superior to another.  We all chose climbers of various brands and each enjoyed a vista of varied sunrises and sunsets accordingly.  Given the technological advances of Run-n-Gun sticks and stands, I feel certain SVI is appropriate terrain to deploy that approach.

sambar deer rub

Sambar Deer Hunting Gear

While I appreciate updated gear, this hunt requires mental fortitude and persistence more than thousands of dollars in gear.  We made it all work with our collective selection of camping and hunting equipment. I invite you to consider well-equipped waterproof boots, rain gear, Run-n-Gun tree stand rig, and whatever creature comforts will complement the long weekend of adventure on a primitive camping/hunting pursuit. One of the most interesting items we brought was a small solar panel and small 12v battery rig that I crafted into a phone charging station. It resembled an external trail cam battery mated with a double cigarette outlet.  Come to find out, an extremely lucrative market exists for solar powered phone chargers.  It was useful to have charged phones during the day for safety, text communication, and basic navigation.

Part 3 to follow shortly will cover firearms selection, Sambar deer habitat and habits, and a final rundown and conclusion to the trip.

Links

Read Part one of Chad Rischar’s St Vincent Island Sambar Deer Hunting by clicking HERE

Part 3 of this series can be found HERE

Chad Rischar is a Southeast Chapter Board member of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and resides in Northeast Florida. He’s a generalist hunter, angler, and outdoorsman. As a scientist, natural resource manager and conservation advocate, he appreciates the inherent value of the out-of-doors and is seeking to improve the well, not just the pump. Chad can be contacted at Florida.BHA@gmail.com