Oregon Deer Season 2011

Tyler and Corey with their chukars, sheds, grins, and Corey's first forked horn. 

I knew moving from Wyoming, home to Oregon would be hard on me and my boys.  The hunting opportunities for big game are hard to beat in the square state!  Oregon, in the late 70's to mid 80's was still a pretty good place to hunt.  The 1988-89 winter we lost 80% of our deer herd to winter kill.  In 92-93 we lost 80% of the deer left.  In 1995, or so, we lost the ability to hunt cougars and black bears with hounds, to bait black bears, and in essence, to effectively control their numbers.  What deer we had left, didn't have a chance to rebuild and our deer herds have suffered greatly from that time.  (NOTE: the ODFW just finished a study on cougar diets, showing 80% of their diet at year is deer. Not just fawns, but all age classes of deer.   A study 8 or so years ago in either the sled springs or Wenaha units showed the greatest predator on elk calves is black bears.)

So, I embarked on this deer season with mixed feelings.  I love the Blue Mountains, well any time of year, but the fall is an amazing time to be alive--unless September is 95 degrees with no rain like this year!  The only other place I've found that I love as much is the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming!  I did some preliminary scouting in areas I knew held big bucks and I was sorely disappointed. I honestly didn't see a buck in my unit.  I found some small, young bucks, in the adjacent unit, but Sumpter just didn't produce!  I abandoned my designs and opening weekend I found myself scrambling to find deer.  We found a suitable spot with a fair number of deer, but it only produced one small buck opening morning.  We hiked down and across the country, leaving the hordes of hunters above us near the road, through chaparral patches that were easier to walk over, than through, and finally found a buck bedded in the burn, just off the top of the big, round ridge we were circling.  He commanded a superior position and I'm sure had seen us before we saw him.

I got Corey, my 13 year old, in a decent spot and pushed the buck out to him.)  Tyler had left his deer tag at home, so he was painfully watching from where we originally had seen the buck, 386 yards below him.)  I waited for the shot, and waited, and waited........Corey hadn't seen him jump up.  I took a parting shot at him, missing cleanly, and this alerted Corey to the buck.  Corey missed as well and we had officially blown our chance at the only buck seen in the area.  We didn't hear a shot all morning......well that isn't completely true.  We heard the distant echo of some shots to our west, but no one was shooting in the canyons around us.

We went home that evening with nothing but a blue grouse between us.  The next Wednesday I was hunting again.  I hunted 2 days without seeing a buck on public land.  The only buck I did see, on private land, was a very small 2x3 I wouldn't have shot anyway.  Saturday was a pretty depressing day!  The boys and I headed for a spot I knew held a lot of deer in the decades prior, but so had all the other spots we had checked, so we went without hope!  We took shotguns, because its loaded with chukar, and that day marked the opener for upland game birds.

We hiked hard that morning, beating all the bird hunters and deer hunters that showed.  We got high on the ridge and worked our way along the backbone, following fresh 4-wheeler tracks.............not my kind of fun!  We climbed to the top, circled another ridge and didn't see a deer......but we heard and had seen lots and lots of chukar.  This country is open, you can see for miles in any direction, and there wasn't a ungulate to be seen............anywhere!  So we consigned ourself to chukar and duck hunting that day.  We were walking back along the top to the ridge we'd climbed when I looked below us, under a juniper, and saw the unmistakable profile of a mule deer buck bedded in the shadows of the tree (it was actually 4 bucks).

I got Corey lined out on the biggest buck we could see and Tyler and I waited.........don't ask me why I didn't have Tyler lined out, I just didn't think he wanted to shoot a spike or tiny forked horn, but I found out later he'd have shot either.  With three nice Wyoming 4-points under his belt, I wasn't sure he was wanting a small buck like that.  Corey shot the buck in his bed and when everyone else took off Tyler and I opened up.  We should have saved the ammo!  But Corey got a nice deer, we found three good deer sheds, and killed a load of chukars that day.  Not a bad end to a frustrating season.  I don't know what we will do next year............go back to Wyoming I guess!