Oregon Willamette Valley Buck Hunt

 
“Dad, we need help!” “Holly has a buck down!” Sure she has a buck down, you have to stop kidding! “No she really has one down and we need your help, you still at work?”
 
This hunt would have to be related to a while back on this particular piece of private property in the Willamette Unit.
 
I have been watching the property for more than 6 years I guess. Since 2004, while driving to Valley RV Center in McMinnville, I would make that the route in the morning so I could get pictures of Blacktail bucks before the archery season, knowing that I would never get a chance to hunt the property. Finally this year I had the nerve to call and ask the landowner if it would be ok to archery hunt their property. During the course of meeting the landowner while in the field, permission was granted for Frankie’s wife Holly to hunt with a rifle during the general western buck tag. Frankie and I went through the archery season with zero kills on the land. We probably skipped a couple of key times in the field after running into what we felt was an armed pot grower with silent running dogs. Left un-easy feeling and it took about 2 weeks to make it back into the field.
In the Velvet with the group!
Buck is down with heart shot!
Holly and here 2010 Blacktail Buck

Finally the General Rifle season for bucks opened two Saturday’s ago. Holly with Frankie guiding her in the field made it the opening morning, encountering only one buck, but unable to get a shot off. The Sunday of the opener I went out with the kids and I had them stay on stand while I did the driving. NO BUCKS!

I got a call just after 4:30PM that they were going to go hunting and were into the field by 5:00PM.

The plan was to glass the plowed field from about and the entrance points that deer would enter the field to feed on WEEDS from about 600 yards. They spotted a buck and a couple of other deer in the field. The landowner had made comment that he didn’t want any shooting over into the field, because of the neighbors. The two of them decide to head to the entrance road to the property and park outside of the perimeter.

The deer had moved back into the timber and Blackberries and the last movement was in the direction of the draw that was mid-way up the access road.

Holly worked her way on the road using the grass edges as cover and sound proofing of the stalk. Little did she know that the buck would be just off the gravel road?

As she spotted the buck, which looks really big to her, she keeps her cool and pulls up on the buck that was broadside at 20 yards. Using a Remington Rifle 770 loaded with 130 grain, Remington Core-Lock Ultra Bonded she squeezed on the trigger only to have the rifle still on safety. Without hesitation Holly push the safety off and made the heart shot as the buck turn to run.

The 3X3 buck with symmetrical horns dropped in his tracks. Now Frankie and Holly shared High Fives on a great hunt… Now the work would start!

Ironically as you can see in the story I had taken pictures of this buck in Velvet.

With Frankie’s training on the movement of the deer in the area, he was able to calculate how he was going to hunt the property.

Holly\’s Blacktail Buck-During Archery

Holly and her trusted Remington 270 plus Blacktail Buck

End!

One thought on “Oregon Willamette Valley Buck Hunt”

  1. I have a muzzleloader tag that includes the willamette unit? Do you know any other properties where land owners might give me permission or could you give me the land owner where you got this deer number to see if I could hunt. Thanks.

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