Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game It's not over, till the Fat-Lady .... ?

OK, the leaves are turning colors ..the days are getting noticeably shorter and I almost have to run the furnace, to stay warm in the house ... .It must be Oregon Buck-Deer season ! Get out my well honed hunt-list and like Santa ...check it twice. Over 5 days of packing and after everything is finally loaded in the truck and trailer ...quickly look around the garage for any last minute oversights ... tire chains (?) ... It�s October and its gonna be 65 degrees in the afternoon ... �We don� need no steeenkin tire chains�.

I hit I-84 Eastbound just after the morning commute rush has subsided, with the utility trailer following close behind. Cruise into Pendleton at 1pm ... a splash of gas and back on the road. About 10 minutes out of town, I�m in moderate traffic on the 60mph 2-lane and I start to smell the unmistakeable stench of burning rubber. Oh No ... I power tilt the side-mirrors down and glance at my trailer tires ... Nope ...they look good. Then up ahead in my lane I see a red Honda and its right rear tire is sending off a thin stream of black smoke. The tire is almost completely flat and the rim edges are running on the deflated rubber. I put my headlights on, speed-up and started honking my horn, trying to get the drivers attention ... but the young lady continued on for another 1/4 of a mile before she acknowledges me ... as now the smoke from the tire was generating a black cloud behind the car. Finally she pulled over on the gravel shoulder and as I went by, I saw that she had a male passenger, who was quickly out of the car and looking at the remains of the tire. Doing this good deed alone, likely qualifies me to be nominated for next years Nobel Peace Prize.

An hour later, as I reach the National Forest boundary and cruise into my hunt unit on a gravel road, there is little traffic in the forest and most of the usual camping spots are vacant. About 1 mile from our intended campsite, I slowly brake, as I spot a 5x5 bull Elk, about 75 yards out, on the uphill side of the road. He proudly displays his good genetics, swaying the mass in his rack, as he waltzes out through the timber, crosses the dirt road .... casually glancing at my truck ... then walks off into the timber and down into the nasty draw on my left. I�m first to arrive at the football field sized meadow that we regularly camp in and I leave a prime spot under the trees for Bob, who will be towing in a small A-liner trailer. By 3pm I�m laying out metal poles and frame connectors for the 14x15 foot wall-tent. Bob arrives and we get camp all setup, gather firewood and have a nice steak/wine dinner. Then its lights out and a full moon illuminates the camp meadow as the temerature plunges to 26 degrees.

Next morning, its time to lay-out the Game plan for opening day. With my limited mobility, I elect to use deer-hunting play # 34 .... sit quietly in the woods on opening morning and whack-a-mole (er: a Buck) as he travels from his bedding area to a feeding area or back. So we scout an area near our camp, where I plan to sit (cammoed) in a lawn chair. We pick a spot just 50 yards off the road, that offers me good shooting lanes, concealment and I can easily carry a lawn chair to. We use a hand adze, to grade the terrain smoooth in three nearby spots and clear any downed limbs out of the trail that I will take in the dark to get there. Visions of Venison dance in my head, as we turn in early.

Opening morning had Bob heading out of camp on foot to the South and I drove a half mile mile down the road to my secret crossover-spot. Exiting the truck, I slip on my butt pack ... shoulder my rifle (chamber hot) ... lawn chair in my right hand ... ski pole as a walking stick in my left hand and I sneak into my hide, 10 minutes before legal shooting light.

Everything was quiet for the first 45 minutes ... no Deer, no Elk ... not even any traffic on the dirt road. Then the signal must have changed back in town and over the next couple hours, 2 dozen rigs slowly road-hunted their way by past me.

Around 10am a Bronze colored Chebby extra-cab comes along and they slow down and stop ... just behind a screen of trees. Figuring they must have seen a deer, I quickly glass ahead of them .. planning to shoot any possible buck out from under them. How dare they road hunt where I�ve been set-up for hours. I see nothing, but now the passenger door opens and someone gets out ...where�s that deer ... I glass intently ahead again.
Could this be the Fat-Lady Warming up ? ... the passenger starts walking quietly down the road away from me and when they break into the open, I see the short heavyset figure carries no rifle. It appears to be a woman and once she�s 30 yards down the road, she steps off though some trees that screen her from the truck .. but is directly in one of my shooting lanes.

She then stops walking, looks back toward the truck and begins slowly spinning in place, while eyeing the ground like a dog about to lie down .. and without warning ... when facing away from me .... the Sweat-pants come down and ... My EYES - - My EYES ! ! She moons me !! This could make me go Blind ...

To borrow an expression from my friend Big-Stick ...Talk about someone dropping a turd in your punch-bowl ... Please ! ... not in my Shooting lane ! She�s mooning me !
Oh the negative consequences of having a photographic memory .... If NASA knew about this moon ... they�d probably want to crash a space-craft into it! Yuuuucky ! I diverted my gaze to save my eyes ... while contemplating whether or not to applaud when she went back to the truck ... or just sit quietly. When the truck door finally slams, I looked over to see them continue down the road ... Road Huntin�.

Then a few minutes later, it started to snow ... and snow ... and SNOW !

(to be continued)

... Silver Bullet

So many Pirates ... so few Lifeboats

Then a few minutes later, it started to snow ... and snow ... and SNOW !
Visibility dropped to less than 40 yards and when snow had accumulated on everything around me, to a depth of about 2� ... I called a Time-out. I folded my lawn chair and retreated back to my rig and drove back to the tent.

Bob was already there and had a good Tamarack fire going in the wood stove. We spent the afternoon sitting-it-out ... having a hearty lunh ... then alternately feeding the stove and rattling the tent tarp overhead, to cause the snow weight to slide off. It was coming down as corn-snow, then big wet flaky snow ... then dry powder .. then back to corn snow. It crunched underfoot when you walked outside and you couldn�t sneak in it at all. It never stopped all day and by dark, we had 8 inches and the threat of 5-7 more inches on Sunday.

Did you pack your tire chains ? ... �No� .. You ? ... �No�. - - - - DOH �

Bob left his trailer set-up and headed for town on Monday afternoon, as he had to teach a class on Tuesday morning, but promised to be back Tuesday afternoon.

In the afternoon on Monday, I decided to explore some parts of the unit at lower elevations .... and drove East, finally getting down out of most of the snow. While sitting at a monster viewpoint around 1pm, that we typically glass from during our spring bear hunts ... I spotted an animal that was totally white ... grazing near the top edge of the canyon. It was a Mountain Goat and I recalled that ODFW had transplanted a handful of goats to this unit to spread-out the herds that were building up in the Elkhorn Mountains South of Baker City. This goat was feeding on a gentle grass slope (just above a steep rim-rock band) ... but only 30 yards from a tree-line that led back to the flat timbered area on top. A stealthy Cougar in the trees, could hit this guy, without getting out of first gear. I figure he will be cougar bait, before old man Winter is over.

An hour later, after driving to another overlook some 5 miles away, I met another hunter who was already glassing the broad canyon below us. He told me he had also spotted a Mountain Goat ... and the goat was bedded down in an area of steep cliffs, just 200 yards straight below us. Through my binoculars, I could see the orange tag in the goats left ear and he briefly rose and fed for several minutes, before bedding back down.

That night (Monday), I�m tucked into my sleepy bag by 8-pm and around 10pm get a rude awakening. It�s a Bull Elk, bugling about 200 yards from camp. He�s immediately answered by another bull and another. For the next 10 minutes, I have 5 separate bulls bugling at each other and an estimated 35-40 cows/calves mewing. The cow and calf calls (mews) were so intense, that it reminded me of the time we had a bag-o-cats and ...Nevermind .... thats another story. The herd stays close by for over an hour ... keeping me awake with their music. The next morning, I�m up at 6am to pee (in the snow) and a final bull bugles, about 400 yards away, as the herd moves off.

(continued)

... Silver Bullet

Save a horse ... let a Cow-Girl ride ya'

26 degrees? I haven't been that cold yet. Maybe you should relocate. Mooses is bigrest than elks.

But the bastid only swam in circles in the lake at 40 yards and blew bubbles, while whispering sweet nothings to his lady friend...

Havent heard from you in while, SB. Welcome back.

Good post.

My partner returns on Tuesday afternoon and we both hunt in the snow on foot, near camp (unsuccessfully) until dark.

On Wednesday morning, after a short, boring and fruitless hunt (I have not yet seen even a single deer), I decided to head down to an elevation where the snow has melted off. 15 minutes and 5 miles later, down around 4,000 ft, I came around a corner into a mix of tall grasses, ferns and scattered pine trees ...
When what to my wondering eyes should appear ...
but a tiny gray figure ...
that looked like a deer.

To the Naked-eye (there�s that bad-memory again !) it�s obviously not a 30� 5x5, but it might have horns ... so I slowed down and pulled off the left side of the road to a stop. The deer is directly uphill, about 50 yards out, standing in the shade and in a slight depression ... looking straight at me. I slide the Zeiss classics off the dash and looking up into the sun, immediately see horns ... looks like a tender eattin little forkie. It�s Game Time .... but here, there�ll be no half-time report ... no 2-minute warnings ... and no chance for a do-over ... (no patch-n-releases either).

Glasses back onto the dash ... reach across to the passenger side and slide the rifle up from the foot-well ... chamber a single 168gr TSX ... Now I figured any normal buck would'a been outta there faster than Heussein Bolt being chased by a Cheetah ... But No ... the little buck is still looking at me curiously ... Quietly open the door ... (Thank you WD-40) ... one step outside the truck ... now the deer is thinking that the grass looks �greener� about a 1/4 mile away ... any 1/4 mile away ! He turns his head, raises one foreleg, pauses to look at me over his shoulder .... but before he can take a first step, crosshairs get planted behind the left front leg .... POW !!

(This section �edited� for the protection of the innocent)
Ya might be a Redneck ... if ya ever shot yer mirror off !
Just Kiddin ! ...... Why is my left ear ringing ???

We gutted the big bodied but little-racked 3x3 Whitetail deer ... (oops: guess that makes him a Texas 6-Pointer). I searched my pack, for a Zip-loc bag, as my partner wanted to save the heart, but when he searched though the gut-pile ... all he found left of the heart, was a tattered piece of red muscle that looked like it had made multiple trips through an industrial strength blender. So we grabbed the hind legs and simply guided the (now-empty) deer, as our good friend �Gravity� propelled the Buck some 50 yards down a wide deer trail, through the still wet grass to the road. Flip open the tail gate ... flop the deer into the truck whole ... close tailgate .... Touchdown ! ..... (I still hate road-hunters)

Don�t know if it was the growing Cougar and Wolf populations or the deep Winter snows of last year ... but, in two days of pre-season scouting and 5 days in the woods hunting:

Total Does seen = Zero
Total Bucks seen = One

As my buddy Spike always says: ...
�Never give up ! �
�It only takes One !� ... and ...
�It�s not over, till the Fat-Lady ... � ( Nevermind ! )

... Silver Bullet

If you�re not driving on the edge ... you�re just takin� up space !

Great story telling!

Total Does seen = Zero
Total Bucks seen = One

AND YOU KILLED HIM!!!!

Congratulations. I think. Maybe... Ah hell, he didn't have a womb anyway.

Las,

I get your point .... in fact, I spent multiple preference points (last spring) and drew a doe tag for the same unit for this year. The season opened yesterday (Sat.) and based on the low herd numbers we'd experienced, I elected not to purchase the tag or hunt there.
I'll see if I can get a photo of the little piggy posted and maybe a photo from my partner, of the gaz-inta/gaz-outa (entry/exit) wounds.
A 168gr TSX launched outta my ATT rifle at 3400 fps, makes for some permanent dirt-nappin.

... Silver Bullet

If ya only got a $10 head ... buy a $10 helmet - Evil Knievel

Obviously antler genetics were not this Whitetails stong suit ... but if he didn't have these little antlers and a big white "French" (surrender) flag, I would have bet that the sound he made was "Oink".
He carried two separate layers of Winter fat and was so heavy that when we attempted to hoist him up whole in the shop (using a single pulley) I couldn't raise him by my weight alone ... (and I trip the bathroom scales in the 250 range).

I'll try to append a photo in a follow-on post.
The barely visible entry-point was below (and forward) of the end of the knife handle.
By the way, that custom skinning knife was made for me by my cousin Tom Buckner out of SV-30 steel.
It has a spalted Maple handle and balances very nicely ... (did I mention that its really sharp !).

... Silver Bullet

Doin' the Lone Rangers wet-work ... for the last 40 years

One of these "may" work ....
Then again ... the Campfire seems to be getting too-smart, for 2 year old confusers:



or

(Dis-one no worky)

... Silver Bullet

When Insurance-Companies are outlawed ...
Only Congressmen will have Health-Plans.

Great story Silver Bullet. It was 17 degrees here last Sunday and 75 here today....go figger!

Good Read, and congrats on a successful hunt.

Always love your stories, SB, glad you're still around the fire.

I wasn't making a point- only an attempted funny, you humor-less sod. I'd have shot him in an instant... Would you look at his head/body proportions? A "pig' indeed. Enjoy the eating!

Just heard from my partner and it seems he forgot to take the requested Gaz-inta/outta photos after skinning the buck, so we'll have to wait till next year.
Feedback he's been getting from the locals, was that the buck harvest was down considerably in most NE Oregon units this season.

S.B.

Ketchup ... "Is" a Vegetable