I do love it when things come together for father and son hunts. A couple of months ago I got an email from Derek, that his son had a Gerber Reservoir Youth Tag for Antelope in Oregon for 2009.
I had my old spots when I use to hunt down there and I also touched base with one of my old hunting buddies to verify any additional information on the area that we use to hunt.
Derek and his son would be hunting the last part of the season in the Northern Sector.
Day’s successful 2009 Gerber Res. Youth Hunt!
Frank,
“I want to thank you for the waypoints for the Gerber youth hunt.
We went down Thursday night and had only 3 hours to drive the flat and spot.
Saw nothing and no sign at all! I had talked to ODFW and they had not been able to find antelope in the Sycan flat or Klamath marsh area during the fly over. Talking to some locals on the road they to say they have seen very few lopes in the area. I told my son that we better take any buck that we can come across.
Friday morning he went to the waypoint you had sent. He told me that there was no water hole there but we some sign in the area. I skirted the edge of the timber along the open flat and finally spotted a herd of 14. I got my son to re-group with me and he was able to get along the edge of the timber and came out about 75 yards from the herd. I had not closely spotted the herd as I did not want to spook them. He picks out the largest buck and dropped it on the third shot. They had trotted off so he was leading them by 6” on the first 2 shots. The lope looked ok from a distance but ended up be a juvenile so the horn to ear ratio looked good to my son so he took it.
The area looked like a great area to explore more and maybe hunt again with a bow. Hopefully the lopes have just moved to the rivers edge or up on Winter Ridge due to the hot weather. Also all the dry lakes were full, so there is water everywhere.”
Thanks,
Derek Day
Frank,
That unit is 100% draw for a bow hunter, or used to be. I drew it some years ago and took my son who was 16 and learning to drive with me and my wife. We enjoyed the camping, but the lope hunting wasn’t that good. We were clear out by some lake out past Bly. We almost had a farmer let us hunt his property where the only lopes we saw were feeding. Congrats to the young hunter he got the job done.
John