“Czar”

The Best Hunting Horse

When it comes to hunting and phases (cowboy-mid life) that we all go through in our lifetime of hunting is sometimes very interesting.  I have always had wonderment about horses, having worked on getting my Merit Badge in the Boy Scouts at Camp Baldwin up near Dufer, Oregon when I was a kid.  On that outing of two (2) weeks, it was all about having the horses jump over logs and riding a Palomino.  The idea was to lay back on the trail so the wranglers wouldn’t see us doing so!  By the way, the Palominos’ weren’t the best horses on the trail.  It only took me some 20 years later to get worked up on horses again!

I would like to say that Czar was the wonder horse of all!  He was in the aspect of his hunting skills, which included the ability to climb and never wanting to stop.  I would have to turn him downhill so he would take a rest!  Lower the ramp on the horse trailer and he would come running and load up!  He was not a fast horse by any means, but he did get there always!  Czar had the ability not to be distracted by the blood of game, or anything else that might be on the trail as a distraction.  When I first had Czar I took him up to Pilot Rock on an elk hunt up Little Pearson Creek.  We came upon a fresh Cougar kill of a deer on Government 80, the snow was about a foot and half deep, Czar walked up to the kill and smelled it, then moved on!

Czar came into my life after renting horses to hunt the Steens Mtns., in Southeast Oregon in the mid eighties for deer.   It was a real mess on that hunt with the rented valley horses, with there inability to work the east slope with mountain trails, or load up on the trailer. The horses would want to work you up against the fences with one mounted on them.  It had to be the worst time on a hunting trip in my life.  The hunt, which should have been a great harvesting hunt, turned into nightmares.  This included having to chase a loose horse around in the sage brush at Hampton Station at 1AM!  The man that rented the horses had told me they were hunting horses of the best quality as was the horse trailer made out of an old Rambler axle.   It was all crap, but than there would have been nothing to talk about if it had all gone well!  I had to go back the following weekend and hunt McCoy and take a buck using the old truck!

Talking about that hunt with my Uncle Dave and that I needed to get my own horse for hunting,  Uncle Dave said he would sell me Czar, as he now had a younger horse called Brandy for his hunting.  I knew that Czar had hunted Texas Butte and Madison Butte in the Heppner Unit in Oregon for elk.  He had packed out many elk from Texas and Madison Butte. A deal was made and I would pull Czar from Uncle Dave’s place in Oregon City and take him to Madras.

I quickly went out and got a two (2) horse trailer, trade a rifle (Colt AR-15) for all the tack that I would need.  It was great to be running a sporting goods store and having all the right vendors to work with.  Including having a special scabbard made for my left-handed Weatherby Custom 340.   I still have that scabbard today some 25 years later. I made arraignment with a rancher in Madras, Oregon to leave Czar.   I was told in those days that you got to take the horse out of the valley and turn them into a mountain horse.  The great thing about Madras place was there were always rimrock, water and feed for horses.

I did most of hunting for deer and elk in the Pearson Creek area outside of Pilot Rock a great deal, but had drawn my first Snake River Elk.  I would be hunting on the South End of the unit and would hunt north of 32 Point and go into Summit Creek.  I was fortunate to have a customer that wanted to hunt the Steens and traded information on the Snake with me!  The first year I was un-successful in harvesting a bull, but the following year I harvested a good bull that won the pool pot (280 bucks).  I had made a very long shot (won’t give you the distance as you won’t believe me) on the bull and he was on a steep hillside in Summit Creek.   It took me more than an hour to get to the bull some three ridges over.   I had to finish him off in his bed (long range round had hit him in the neck) on the steep hillside with blow down.   I tied the rack up so the bull would not slide and get stuck in the blow down, so I could quarter him out.  After doing so I ran, yes ran up the hill to the ridge road (marathon runner) to get Czar.   I got Czar down close to the elk, I had ground tied Czar which was a great mistake, and he slipped and went down with both front legs over trees that were down.  Quickly pull the lead rope knot and got him back up to shack off the experience.  I had to move Czar to a flat spot on the trail about 100 yards away.  Like I’ve told you all he was a great horse with character! I had gotten new bags for Czar and loaded up the quarters, still having a head & rack with the backstrap and tenderloins to get loaded up.  My buddy Ben Olsen came along with my other horse, one that was given to me by an old boss.  Ben was always a hunting partner that knew what was going on and could read my mind.  It was the first time for mare to be used for hunting and she did pretty good getting down into Summit Creek with Ben leading her down to Czar.   The rest of this story in the Snake was not so nice, with the mare balking over a tree limb and flipping over backwards and rolling down the hill.  Ben was on her fast and un-cinched the saddle.  She got back up on all fours, but in the end I let Czar go and he led the mare out of the canyon with the loads.   When Ben and I finally to too the top, Czar and the mare were standing at the trail-head.  Many times while hunting in the Snake, I had left Czar on the Ridge Road in the timber and hunted the canyons below.  He would always be easy to find, as he seem to know when I would get close and I could hear him neigh.

Czar never let me down in the 10 years that I had him! Czar made a number other hunts with me up at Wild Bill’s place up on East Birch Creek.  Wild Bill was an old time horseman and rancher, so horses was the way to go.   Of course it was required to pack a six shooter side arm also. I once loaned Czar to old Chuck Megeske to use on an elk hunt out of Heppner.  He and his party had 8 cow tags.  They hunted in the snow and Czar drug all the elk out from what Chuck informed me with pictures!   I think he was feeding his Care Home folks with all the elk meat though!

When I started to hunt the Grizzly Unit in Oregon, Czar was not longer needed and I sold him, the Mare and all my tack, including the trailer to an old hunting buddy MJ.  He used Czar for guiding for about 4 more years and finally retired Czar to a mutual rancher outside of Ashwood, OR.  His daughter needed a 4-H horse during her High School years in Madras, Oregon.

The modes of operations for hunting the Grizzly Unit was either walk in or use a Quad to get from point A and B.  Spot the game and go after them in the sage, juniper and rimrock on foot!

The road to Frenchglen, pulling Czar! Yes we did cross the lake!