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“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.
It is now always the size of the harvest, but the hunt and story!
Pine Grove, Oregon Blacktail on Opening Day
It is not always about hunting for the largest rack of antler on a deer. For the most part having harvest a number of dandy Mule & Blacktail bucks of the years, I have become pretty picky. Finding it easy to past up on smaller deer and sometimes just take a picture. Maybe I just don’t want the work afterwards that means a pack out.
Now that is not to say that I haven’t harvested some small bucks over the years, I have done so. A couple of them have been Blacktail bucks in more recent years than the past.
On one such hunt I had my son Frankie and another old hunting partner with me. We had gain access to a section of land up out of the town of Pine Grove on the way to Maupin, OR.
Now the rancher/farmer was a tough old bird and pretty picky who he would let on his place. He raised wheat, alfalfa, cattle and of course lots of deer.
My equipment was of course my Martin Pro Series Scepter II, Easton Arrows XX-75’s, Thunder Head 120gr. Broadheads, Mel Stanislawski’s Sight and Superb Arrow Rest. Ya! Know a bit of olds school on shoot aluminum arrows, sight and rest. I had been a shooter for Martin in the past on the word of Mel that I could get the job done.
Martin Scepter II Bow in the field 2011!
Having been in the area before during scouting trips, it was pretty easy to get a lay of the land. On this hunt there where only two (2) people hunting, Frankie and myself, with MM coming in later from a scouting trip for a future rifle hunt in the Grizzly Unit. Frankie and I would hunt slightly different areas, as I wanted to explore and he could work the gravel pit on the property. In remembrance, I should have stayed with him, as he got close to a number of good bucks (No Blood, just rocks). I saw my share of bucks, but could never close the distance on the morning hunt. It had to be about 90 degrees from first light to late into the evening!
It was extremely hot on this hunt and even though I would use the trucks going by and the running canal water used for irrigation, I could not be that quite and there were a lot of deer in the area making close stalking difficult.
Frankie and I regrouped in the afternoon and the old hunting partner came by for the evening hunt. We only had one day to hunt on this opening weekend of deer, as I had to be back to Valley RV in McMinnville on Sunday.
We had about 1 ½ of light left and we started to work a spur road on the property. Frankie and I got glimpse of the buck at the same time to our left; I was already up at full draw and heard the call from MM that he was at fift———y yards as the arrow left my Martin\ Scepter. The arrow hit the buck right in the boiler room, even though he flinched a bit and he went straight up in the air and came down in where he had been bedded. The arrow went completely through the deer and never to be found again.
Not sure if Frankie and MM could believe the shot, as I had released as the range came out of MM’s mouth. We did have to Hawaiian field dress the deer out and make a short pack, the owner of the ranch did not want any kind of vehicles on the place due to fire hazard.
He was a small 3X3 blacktail buck, not much to hang in the garage, but a great shot made on the buck, reassuring my son that the old man can still judge distance and make the shot happen. It was a good hunt with lots of game seen and it was the second time that I have harvested a Blacktail with him along.
