Dream Season: Deer Hunting, Doubt, and Determination

Thirty minutes into opening day, a Columbia whitetail deer materialized in an oak draw I had been glassing. With its head down, feeding on acorns, the deer would have been an easy shot. The 3x5 buck was young, and knowing I’d likely never hold one of these prized tags again, I held off.

Three days later, I was second-guessing myself. Looming in my mind was the season prior, in 2005, when my wife drew the coveted tag. That marked the first year the season was reopened for these deer after a more than 25-year closure. We hunted hard every day, daylight to dark. It was unseasonably hot, and we didn’t see a mature buck. She didn’t fire a shot.

I grew up hunting and fishing in the game-rich Umpqua River Valley, near Roseburg, Oregon—the only region in the world where Columbia whitetails could be hunted. I’d seen them my entire life, but when the chance came to hunt the little gems, my view of them shifted. Sound management paved the way for hunters to once again pursue the western-most whitetails in North America. The odds of drawing a tag were low. Landowner tags were fetching $10,000.

Early October is hot in the Umpqua Valley and mature bucks are highly nocturnal. The brushy habitat they thrive in is not easy to hunt, especially when so dry. Glassing for bucks on the move early and late in the day offers the best chance, followed by searching for bedded bucks in thick cover by day.

Perseverance

On the final morning of the brief season, I spotted a buck working its way toward the hills from the river. When it disappeared behind a yellow, grassy knoll, I made a move. A speedy stalk found me in position, prone and secure. As the buck moved through tall, dry grass in a shallow draw, I waited.

The closer it moved, the more heavily my heart pounded.

I knew exactly what I was looking at through the scope, and when the 3x3 with eye guards buckled at the shot, a lifetime dream became reality. I never thought I’d get to hunt these deer, as my father and grandfathers did.

The deer season was off to a good start. I still held more deer tags. Six more, in fact.

Double-Drop-Tine Muley

Rolling into pronghorn camp in the dark, I saw a double-drop-tine mule deer in the headlights. The next morning, I spotted the buck again, its unique rack and double throat patch glowing in the rising sun. It wasn’t old, but no one would pass it up come rifle season—including me.

I had a Wyoming deer tag and returned a few weeks later. Glassing for most of the morning, I failed to find the drop-tine buck. The season had opened a few days prior, and I feared someone had shot it.

I watched a big whitetail buck chase a doe into some pine trees and that’s when the hind end of a mule deer caught my eye. The buck finally moved, and on the right side of the rack, through brush, I saw a familiar drop tine. It skirted the inside of the timber. I slowly followed. Temperatures were in the single-digits and the frozen ground was noisy.

A half-mile later, I caught up. That’s when I saw the left side of its rack tangled in orange baling twine. Moving behind big pine trees, I got to 160 yards, set up the shooting sticks and waited for the buck to emerge from behind some brush. Weeks of anticipation had come down to this moment. The shot was simple. Cutting the twine from the rack, I was relieved to see a perfect drop tine matching the one on the other side. It was a fitting end to a hunt I’ll never forget.

My Favorite Deer

A few days later I was back in my home state of Oregon, hunting what I consider to be the toughest trophy deer to consistently attain in all North America, the Columbia blacktail. I’d drawn a bonus tag for the Willamette Valley. For generations, my family has pursued these brush-country deer along the western slopes of the Cascade Range.

In the evening of the first day, I slipped into a wooded draw and rattled. I was in the same place I sat a year prior, rattling for my wife when she held a tag. On that hunt, the biggest deer that had ever come to my rattling briefly appeared, but no shot presented itself in the driving rain. After 30 minutes of rattling on my hunt, the wind changed. Seconds later a series of snorts resonated. A buck had been coming in. It was on the same trail as last year, and though I can’t say for sure, I’m betting it was the same big buck.

Day two found my four-year-old son Kazden by my side. More than anything, he wanted to skin a deer with his new knife. I wanted him along to experience the entire hunt, not just show up at the house with a deer for him to skin. He’d hunted with me before, but this was his first deer hunt. With Kazden, a trophy buck was no longer the priority. I told myself I’d shoot the first buck we saw. Minutes into the hunt, we saw a spike (legal with this tag), but I couldn’t bring myself to pull the trigger.

A few hours of searching turned up nothing. Kazden kept asking about the spike. His level of interest put a lump in my throat. My greed may have deprived my son of what he wanted. We hiked back to where we saw the spike and found it not far away. A 150-yard shot put the little buck down. Kazden was elated and after helping me field-dress the deer, we dragged it to the truck and headed home. With my guidance, Kazden skinned the entire deer by himself. He still talks of that hunt, and we’ve been on many together. Ironically—for reasons obvious to a father—this buck stands out as the most memorable of my dream season.

Western Whitetail

Days before Thanksgiving, with an over-the-counter tag, I was in Idaho searching for a western whitetail. Hunting the rugged mountains in the Clearwater drainage, I found a good buck bedded atop a shale slide. Setting up the shooting sticks I felt good about the nearly 300-yard shot, until I looked through the scope.

The sun had just poked above the mountain behind the buck and was directly in line. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find the buck through the intense glare. Then it bolted. As the buck scampered up a steep hillside, I moved behind a big pine tree, looking for shade to cut the glare.

The buck was moving straight uphill, directly away. This offered a big kill zone. I put the crosshairs on the buck’s nose and pulled the trigger of the .300 Winchester Magnum. At 340 yards, the bullet hit the base of the neck. It was over quickly, but the packout was far from easy or fast.

Rattling Sitka Blacktails

I used to live in Alaska and love chasing Sitka blacktails on Kodiak Island. I arrived in early December, hoping bad weather had pushed bigger bucks to lower elevations, and that they’d not yet dropped their antlers.

On the first morning, I stumbled into a flat where several draws met. Snow had fallen all night and was still coming down. Fresh tracks and rubs were everywhere.

As I set up against the alders, my rattle bag and grunt tube sounded good. After fifteen minutes of rattling, I saw movement across the clearing, in the alders. It was a buck, but I wasn’t sure how big.

I was on the gun, hoping the buck would come into the open. Through the falling snow, a perfect 4x4 rack materialized. When it turned broadside, I stopped the buck with a mouth grunt, then dropped it with the .300. Carrying nearly 105 inches of antler, it truly was the Sitka blacktail of a lifetime.

South Of The Border Double

After Christmas, I headed to Sonora, Mexico. I was hunting with good friend and outfitter Jeremy Toman, whom I hunted with before. He takes one or two Coues a season in this camp, purely by chance. I knew that going in. We were hunting mule deer and if a Coues appeared, great. A record two-week cold spell put deer in the brush and slowed the rut. In the first two days we saw only one Coues showing any rutting signs. Fortunately, it was a shooter.

The buck was with a doe that was feeding on the edge of thick brush. The doe showed no interest in him. Eventually the buck bedded down. When the doe fed out of sight, we got low and tried closing the gap.

Weaving our way through the brush, the doe busted us. Both deer took off into dense cover. We kept going, but it felt as if it was blown. Minutes later we found the buck standing in shadows, the doe feeding on the backside of a thicket. Just as I got in the shooting sticks, he took off.

“I’ve been guiding here nine years, and this is one of the biggest Coues bucks I’ve seen,” whispered Toman. “There just aren’t many Coues here, and very few mature bucks.”

Quickly, we were in pursuit. Again, we found the buck next to the doe, but a small tree blocked the shot. By luck, the buck turned into a tiny opening. It was the only one I would be able to shoot through—and the bullet hit the mark. Had it not broken off two tines, the Coues buck would have measured 114 inches—a true trophy Coues. Not that inches matter, but it’s a good means to judge mature bucks.

Two days later, the cold weather broke and mulies began moving. We passed some nice bucks, hoping for better. On the second-to-last day a pair of fighting bucks clashed on a hillside. One was pushing 30-inches wide, but it had multiple broken tines. The other buck had a tall, heavy rack. As soon as the bucks separated, I shot.
Kneeling beside the desert muley, it hit me. It was the seventh deer subspecies of the season, and though I didn’t set out to achieve the undertaking, it just came together. The family enjoyed a lot of venison that year, save for the two bucks taken in Mexico that went to ranchers.

I learned a lot that season. Notably, that hard work is rewarded. Also, that sometimes it just pays to be lucky.

---