Feeling the Pressure: Two Tags to Fill

[welkin]

Out of superstition I cannot read this thread but I wish you luck. Going up high in a few days to find one.

 

[FairWeatherFisher]

Out of superstition I cannot read this thread but I wish you luck. Going up high in a few days to find one.

Best of luck to you too!

 

[wide_groupings]

Glad you saw one! It's amazing what that can do to the spirits.
My buddy got one this past weekend. Walking around, small buck that was bedded just popped up and he shot him. Can happen in an instant, keep pouring the coals

 

[ORhunter74]

I went hunting for a few hours yesterday morning. I hit up a friend/mentor I’ve met through the OHA to see if he wanted to go hunt w/ me, and he invited me over to his place for a morning hunt. He has a Weyerhaeuser lease on some property behind his house, so it was kind of a private land hunt.

We went and did a few set ups where he’s seen deer before. Mostly dense cover, short range, sort of habitat. He did some calling with a fawn distress call, hoping to have a doe come running. No luck.

After the time he had to hunt had elapsed, and I headed home (about 10:00am), I had driven not 300 yards from his property, still in the lease area, I saw a fork running up the hill right towards his place. Of course there was no cell coverage, so I couldn’t call and ask if it was ok to shoot it at that spot. I watched it for a bit, then kept driving. Once I got a few miles down the road I had reception again, so I called and let him know it was headed his way. I didn’t hear anything later, so I assume he didn’t find or take it.
First buck I’ve seen all season.

Still, I learned quite a bit from this outing.

• Creeping into a spot should be wayyyyy slower than I’ve been going. We were going so slow my ankles were hurting from the stabilizing muscles yanking on my tendons. It was probably the quietest I’ve ever walked though.
• My fawn call is pretty good, so its nice to know that bad calling isn’t why it hasn’t worked.
• If a doe is going to come in to a fawn call, it’ll happen fast. I’ve been sitting and calling for 45-60 minutes, when I probably should have been moving on after 10.
• It’s not just me who goes out and doesn’t see deer most often.
• I did see a buck, and he was out cruising in the day time. It happened once, it can happen again!

I have to give you props for not shooting at that forky. Some hunters I’ve run across might have taken that shot. So, good on you for staying honest. Especially when it’s the first buck you’ve seen all season.

I am literally the world’s worst blacktail hunter so the advice you’re getting from everyone here is far better than anything I could pass on. My only advice is keep going. Stat out there. Rain, snow, sun whatever. ALL DAY. The later in the season it gets the better your odds of seeing something are. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to find one for a shot opportunity. Good luck!!

 

[FairWeatherFisher]

I have to give you props for not shooting at that forky. Some hunters I’ve run across might have taken that shot. So, good on you for staying honest. Especially when it’s the first buck you’ve seen all season.

I am literally the world’s worst blacktail hunter so the advice you’re getting from everyone here is far better than anything I could pass on. My only advice is keep going. Stat out there. Rain, snow, sun whatever. ALL DAY. The later in the season it gets the better your odds of seeing something are. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’re going to find one for a shot opportunity. Good luck!!

Thanks! I don’t have much skill, but I’ve got integrity.

 

[FairWeatherFisher]

Went out again tonight. Went to the nearest TMA as I didn’t have a lot of time.

Found a closed gate with no cars parked at it, and a few clearcuts behind it, so I parked and walked in. I could hear lots of vehicles driving down the main/only drivable road, I’d hoped that might push the deer away from the road and toward me.

Behind the gate I found a good bit of sign; heavy use trails & fresh scat. I set up at a few spots and glassed. The one cut had a lot of brush overgrown, and I really couldn’t see much even with a tripod. Just too much vegetation to see through. The second cut, a little further back was quite a bit more open, and I found fresher scat in this cut (which I thought was interesting given there’s less cover). I stayed there for a while glassing, and tried a little rattling too. Nonetheless, still nothing. As it got dark I hung a wick w/ some synthetic estrus urine that I found at bimart on clearance. I figure I’ll go back tomorrow at first light and see if it works, as I’ll only have a few short hours in the morning to hunt.

Walked back to my car creeping through the dark, didn’t bump anything along the way. Driving out of the TMA I didn’t see anything either. There’s plenty of sign, but these deer are damn good at staying out of sight. I think maybe the hot humid conditions kept them from wanting to move much.

Maybe the morning rain tomorrow will get them moving.

 

[FairWeatherFisher]

Well, no good plan goes unspoiled…or whatever the saying is.

I woke up this morning, dark and early. The TMA (like all of them around here) is open to access from 1 hour before sunrise, to 1 hour after, and I wanted to be sure to get there right on time. I made the 30 minute drive out there, and got to the gate exactly 1 hour and 2 minutes before sunrise.

I drive in the TMA and find there’s already several trucks parked along the road, including one at the gate that I had gone to last night. Behind which I had left my scent wick. The trucked parked there was dark and fogged up and definitely looked like they’ve been there a while. This was extremely irritating. Not only had this person clearly not followed the rules around access, but also I’m now unable to hunt over the attractant I put out, and if it worked this person is getting the benefit of it.

It’s public land (sort of) and that’s just one of the risks, some one else will take your stuff, but braking the landowner’s rules is running the risk of having access removed entirely for everyone.

I had to scramble to put together a plan B, as dawn was fast approaching. I flexed over to the area where I had bumped that doe earlier in the season, in hopes that she’d be out feeding and I’d get a shot at her. I sat and glasses in the downpour, but I didn’t see anything. After about an hour there I was running short on time, so I just took the long way back to the main road to “road hunt” that 10ish miles through Weyerhaeuser/blm checkerboard. Didn’t see anything but a fleet of other hunters in their trucks.

I’m coming to really regret buying this doe tag. Because of it I’ve been confined to the W McKenzie unit, and it’s just not working out for me to find a place that isn’t crowded and has deer in it.

 

[Redwing]

That kind of stuff is frustrating! Keep your head up, keep at it. Spend time out there and good things will happen. This is the point of the season where it really starts to feel like a grind, and some of the fun can get sucked out of the pursuit. Keep plugging away, keep hunting, you'll come across deer soon enough.



Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk

 

[Oregonhuntrboi]

Finally got it done. And was fortunate enough to fill my doe tag right after dropping the buck.

 

[FairWeatherFisher]

Finally got it done. And was fortunate enough to fill my doe tag right after dropping the buck.

Congrats on getting them filled!

 

[Oregonhuntrboi]

Congrats on getting them filled!

Thank you! Blessed for sure.

 

[FairWeatherFisher]

Update:
Yesterday my buddy and I went up the McKenzie to check out the TMA by Vida. In short, we didn’t see anything, or even anything very promising. One set of fresh tracks, but no scat or other indicators of deer being around. We drove around a bit, glassed up some replanted clearcuts, but finally night came and we didn’t see any deer. There was moment there just at dusk where there were 3 owls flying our heads, though. That was a neat experience. I blew my fawn call, and they came in closer and circled a bit closer, so it must sound good enough to them haha.

We went out again today, and what a day it was. This time we opted to go southwest, into the coast range. We get down there, and start looking for a promising looking cut to watch at first light, but holy moly is it steep out there! Just about every face we could see, we couldn’t see a way to retrieve any deer out from. So we bounced around a few spots until we found one that was a bit more gentle of a grade. We parked and got out, shortly thereafter we heard a clacking sound from the timber up the road. Thinking it’s a pair of bucks fighting, we excitedly started glassing into the timber, and we’re quickly disappointed to see it was a crew with machetes and hard hats whacking away at who knows what. Things went from 0 to 60 right back to 0 real quick!

We set out to find flatter ground, and found a patch down gated road on OnX a few miles away, so we went over to there. A short distance down the overgrown road my buddy says “great there’s a person…oh wait! That’s a deer!!” We both scramble to get a better look, but can’t make out if it had antlers or not. We watched as it trotted down the road away from us and out of sight, then we decided to follow it and see if we could find it, or others it’s with.

At the bottom of the road it opened up into a decent sized clearing, a square about 300yds across, filled with sparse reprod about 6-8” tall. We decided to split up, he went right, I went left. Almost immediately I flushed 3 grouse, that gave me a good startle. About 50 yards from where we split I see the deer!! It’s half behind a tree, all of 30 yards from me, and looking right at me. I back up behind a small tree to take the cover off my scope, and raise it up to get a look at it. Looking, I could now tell it was indeed a spike. The tag says any visible antler, and that counts! So I take the safety off, raise my rifle again. The buck has moved out from behind the tree a bit, facing right at me, slightly canted (butt my left, head to the right), but not quite quartering, towards me. I visually checked that my buddy wasn’t behind it somewhere, lined up my crosshairs with just left of center of his chest, and squeezed the trigger. All I saw afterwards was a flash of some white fur. I thought for sure it was dead where it stood.

Call my buddy over, and we start looking for it, but it’s not there. There’s no blood, no fur, nothing! We spent the next 1.5 hours making circles, following trials, making a grid across the whole clearing…still nothing. Thinking maybe my zero got knocked off, we went the the nearest blm patch, set up a target, I retake essentially the same shot, hits dead center. Zeros still good. We went back and combed the area for another hour, really getting minute looking for any blood or details that might have survived the rain storm…nothing.
Somehow, I must have flat out missed.

We spent the last few hours driving around and glassing up a few more clear cuts, but never did see another deer. As this was my buddy’s last day to hunt I’m really bummed we couldn’t get him on a buck. :/

I left a camera up at the spot we saw the spike, and I’m going to go back to check it on Friday. Hoping to see if he’s still around. I just really hope I didn’t sound him and he’s off dying slow and painful somewhere.

 

[roosiebull]

Workers were killing trees.

Everybody has missed a buck or 3. I wouldnt worry to much about it.

My last one was a big giant one and a chip shot… I hate missing, and it’s always something really dumb when it happens.

Lions are the worst, my last one put me just barely over 50%, and none of the misses were hard shots. I think when we have so much effort into one shot opportunity, it creates urgency when the opportunity comes, and urgency is not good for shooting.

 

[TripleJ]

Workers were killing trees.

Everybody has missed a buck or 3. I wouldnt worry to much about it.

This is so true. I've had more than my share of misses over the years. It happens.

 

[FairWeatherFisher]

Went out for the afternoon yesterday. In short, I let myself ruin my hunt.

Found an awesome looking clearcut up a closed road about a 1000yds. I walked in, and along the way I set out a cotton pad with some of that synthetic estrus.

The weather forecast didn’t call for rain, but almost immediately once I got to the cut it started dumping, and I hadn’t dressed for that. I sat there nonetheless for a little over an hour, convinced any second a deer would stand up or otherwise appear. After a while though, being soaked and cold got to me, so I packed up and started heading back to the road I came in on.

Just about then, the rain stopped and the sun came out. It was really beautiful, cool looking rainbow and everything. I stopped to take a picture, and saw that I had service on top of this mountain, so I sent the pic to my wife. I was in the process of typing something like “gorgeous views, but no deer” when I look over at the landing I had just been sitting on the last hour, and notice something very deer shaped. Holy shit, there’s one now!

Now’s where I really messed up. I should have just dropped the phone, shouldered my rifle and taken the shot. Instead I was struggling to get my phone back into my pants pocket with my cold wet fingers, so I turned away hoping the deer would think I hadn’t seen it, once I finally got the dang thing away, I turn back and it’s gone. Poof.

Pacific ghost indeed. Having no idea if it went back up the road or down into the clear cut, I tried calling on my fawn distress call a few times, in hopes that it would come back to where it was. When that didn’t work, I raced down to the clearing to try to see if I could see it in the road, or in the cut…nope, it was gone. I’m sure it was probably in the cut, but at this point I was so frazzled over bungling this whole thing, I really didn’t know what to do next AND it was getting dark.

I resigned that I just messed it all up, and headed back to the car. I stopped to slowly hunt up to where I’d left the estrus scent, and saw there were fresh tracks in the mud around it. Something had come by to check it out sometime in last 2 hours. If I had just sat near the scent for a while in the first place, I might have gotten a shot at it. I tried using the doe bleat to bring it back towards me, but nothing ever showed. Putting me 0/2 yesterday.

Anyway, going back out today after I drop my my in-laws’ dog at noon.

The saga continues.

Attached is the picture that was my demise.

 

[FairWeatherFisher]

Went out today, in the Dixon unit this time. Nothing really to report except that I didn’t see anything, which was odd given the amount of very fresh tracks I was seeing.

I was posted up in an old skid road that ran along a draw/drainage in a decently regrown clearcut. Trees about 8” tall or so. It was a nice natural funnel, and also along the edge of the timberline, had tracks going up & down, left and right. Looked like a place they use very often. I even put up a couple cotton pads with that estrus scent, hoping to bring in some bucks that might have been bedded down nearby.

Anyway, I sat and watched, but nothing ever came.

My only thought is that maybe it’s more active in the morning? It was in the area of the cut that got shaded first in the evening, and it got cold fast. It was low 30s by time I left, and frosty on the ground.

Only other thing to report is that I saw no less than 5 dead along I-5 between Eugene and Roseburg. One really nice looking 3pt that looked fresh enough that I considered using that roadkill salvage policy…but I’m not crazy enough to stop on the side of I-5, so I kept driving.

 

[FairWeatherFisher]

UPDATE: It finally happened, tag filled at last!

I went out this morning to the same clearcut where I saw that disappearing deer the other night.

I was late leaving the house and only got the the parking spot 10 minutes before sunrise, drinking my coffee in the way there. As soon as I got there, nature called. Perfect timing . I grab my TP, and find a tree to lean against. I tell you, I need to do squats or wallsits or something, because afterwards my knees were aching and my legs were shaking (this will matter later).

I grab my pack, etc. and head down the road. As I’m nearing the last bend in the road before the clear cut, I look to my right and see a little deer maybe 12yds away. Can’t tell if it has antlers, but I don’t care as I have a doe tag, too. As soon as I raise my rifle, it bolted. I have a short half hearted chase, but the trees were dense, and it went straight down a steep incline. I looked for it for a moment, then moved on. As I’m about to round the corner, I decide I better pee now, so it’s on the back of the cut bank of the road, and not blowing into the cut.

As I’m halfway into the process, this buck rounds the corner. I think I startled his as much as he did me! I pinch it off, and go after him, squeezing off a shot as he was fleeing with my bits still hanging out. I missed, and worse, that was reckless. Luckily I knew the terrain a bit, and I was the only one parked at the only access road, so there wasn’t anyone else there…but still.

I fixed myself, and went around the corner, and he was slowly trotting towards the next corner, 97yds away (I checked it with my lrf afterwards). I got down into a kneeling position, lined up my crosshairs center mass above his legs and shot.

Yup, right after chiding myself for shooting at a moving target, I did it again. Foolish.

I see him do a kind of double step/limp kind of thing and go bolting off around the corner he was rounding, followed by a crashing sound. I started to run after him, but remembered the lessons learned from that spike the other day. “Thoroughly examine the spot where you shot him for any blood, hair, etc.”

I slowly crept up the that spot, all the while listening for any more crashing in the timber. No sounds. No blood. No hair. I’m thinking “great, I missed again and blew it…but at least he’s probably not wounded”. Nonetheless, I followed the path I saw him taking to see if maybe it just took a while for him to start bleeding. 23 yards up the road, in a pull off area to the left of the road, there he lay. Dead.

Holy hell, it happened!

I get him gutted, and call a few friends to see if anyone wants to help drag him out of there. No takers. Ok, gotta do it myself. I wrap him in a contractor bag, zip tie it on, grab him by the and start pulling. The cars about 1000yds away, and the first 200 or so are up hill. By time I got back to the car I could hardly stand. Definitely going to invest in a pack frame for next year. I don’t know how much he weighed, but when I got him home I hung him from my fish scale; the scale goes to 110lbs and he maxed it out.

Super excited and grateful to have harvested my first deer. No tag soup for me this year!

 

[FairWeatherFisher]

Well its about damn time!!!

Way bigger than my first buck was

Any good recipe recommendations for the tenderloins and heart?

 

[Steve300xcw]

Dont over cook it. And dont take cooking advice from me

 

[FI460]

Congratulations. Enjoyed following along.