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≈West of the Cascades≈
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1. Early Fall
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Do you see the deer in the picture? That's my problem a lot of the time. I get so busy looking at the flora & fauna that I sometimes forget to pay any attention to the hunting part. In fact, being a birder, I sometimes find myself looking into the tops of trees. Then I have to remind myself that deer don’t often climb trees, and I get back to the task at hand. I have hunted the Jackson & Josephine counties of Southern Oregon since the early 1970’s. It has always been an enjoyable thing to do. Well that is unless somebody gets lucky, and then it turns into work. When my older brother Ted moved back to Grants Pass from Mammoth Lakes, he convinced me that it didn’t take any longer for me to drive to southern Oregon than it had for me to drive over the Sierra’s to hunt with him there in California. He was right, but he forgot to mention that I needed a non-resident license. Oh well, I was gainfully employed, and I liked the area so much that I continued to return year after year. My youngest brother Lloyd (Pinky) would hunt with us from time to time, but Ted & I would be out every time I came up. Well, not entirely true… There were times when I would arrive a day or two early and Ted would have to be teaching. On those occasions he would line me up with one of his friends or I would just head for the top of a mountain with my sleeping bag, some food, and hunt until dark. The next morning Ted would work his way up the hill until we managed to find each other. Ted Died in 1983 and the following hunting season, my other younger brother Bill began to hunt with Lloyd and I. Ted’s death made us all realize that we couldn’t keep putting off the chances to get together on an indefinite basis, as time tends to win the race. Over those 25+ years the three of us have spent a lot of time climbing up* mountains, and spending what we consider to be quality time with each other. *(Never start your hunt downhill because you might see a deer.)
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2. Late Fall
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We don’t usually get snowed on while deer hunting, but when it happens it's always memorable. Lloyd and I had been hunting for several days and had gone to The China Bowl to try our luck. As it turned out, it had snowed at that higher elevation and we really were not prepared for snow conditions. We moved to a lower area and wandered around in search of the elusive buck. For some reason we were not too serious about trying to be successful. In short time we had decided to go back to his house, put the studded tires on his truck, and then planned for a hunt the next morning in the snow. About 4 a.m. the next morning we left for another favorite area that we knew would have considerably more snow. It was higher in elevation and it had snowed throughout the night. We were right, and best of all, we were alone in the area. I'm not certain why we did what we did, but we decided to drive the back roads through the snow until we came to some tracks. Our intent was to follow the deer until we came to the place where it had bedded down.At no time did we ever think that the tracks would lead us anyplace but to where a big buck would be. (Notice the optimism in this plan.) It is almost impossible to tell by looking at tracks in a foot of snow if it is a buck or a doe that left them there... at least it is for us. It’s also impossible to tell if the deer in question simply walked up the hill for a little ways and bedded down or if it went to the top of the ridge, dropped down into the canyon, and then looked for a sheltered spot for the day. As it turned out, the latter was the case. We can always assume that it was the biggest buck on the mountain, as we didn’t track it down the other side*.
*Remember – don’t look downhill for deer, Christmas trees or firewood. (You might see some.) |
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3. Rag Rock |
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You will notice that I don't give any exact locations to any of our 'favorite spots'. That's because hunters tend to be a little secretive. We hunt at places with names such as: Coyote Draw, Wounded Knee, Top of the World, Brigadoon, Alex's Rock, Lost Man Mountain, Cardiac Hill, China Bowl, The Hell-hole, Sky Ranch, and Rag Rock. You will find none of these place names on any maps or reference books related to the areas we hunt. They are our names for our places. Usually because we didn't know the real names but wanted to be able to say, "Let's try (place name here) in the morning. It's so much easier then saying, "Let's try that place where I shot my deer and then we couldn't find the same spot the next year until the sun had been out for 3 hours." (Doesn't Brigadoon sound easier to say?) This story is about Rag Rock. Rag Rock is probably my most favorite place to hunt, even though my success rate there is only moderate, and it's pretty steep. However, it isn't as steep as Cardiac Hill, our hunting spot on the hill just to the west. Ted discovered Rag Rock one day when he was scouting out some new places with a friend during the summer. As he crested a saddle, he saw a mountain lion laying on a rock that overlooked two game trails. One trail came straight up the draw (which we have named Slide-ass Pass because it is steep and covered with shale.) The second trail crossed it at more or less right angles about 30 feet just above the rock. The lion quickly saw Ted and just sort of (in his words) evaporated. He thought that if a mountain lion thought the rock was a likely spot to wait for deer that maybe it would be worthwhile to come back during the fall. He also tied an old hunters-orange rag on the rock in hopes that he would be able to see it from far down in the valley. In the fall, the night before the season opened, I arrived at Ted’s house about 6pm. He had a backpack loaded some snacks and his sleeping bag. I tied my bag on and we proceeded to drive to his new hunting spot. As we climbed the ridge from a dirt road, he told me about how he had found it. At some point as it began to get dark, he made a right turn and we went about 50 yards before he stopped. Quietly he whispered, "Smell that?" I did, it was a very strong odor of deer drifting up the hill into our faces. We stood there for a little bit talking quietly about what a great hunting place this was going to be. He also told me that we needed to retrace our steps as he had made a turn when he should have continued straight. As we crested the top of the mountain and began to walk side-hill and slightly down, he told me to be really careful as it was possible to slip and slide for several hundred feet. We finally found the rock and a sheltered spot under some fir trees on the uphill side. We placed our sleeping bags on ground cloths and ate a few snacks for dinner. Shortly after that we went to bed and talked quietly about hunting, both past and future, and childhood memories – and drifted off to sleep. The next morning we were up and out of our beds just before dawn. We decided to just sit on the rock and wait. No, we didn’t see any deer, but the sunrise was worth the climb up the hill. A few weeks later I arrived at Ted’s house on a Thursday. My plan was to go to Rag Rock and he would come up Friday evening after he was through teaching school. If I had a deer hanging, then we would take it down the mountain; otherwise we would spend another night at the rock. That night it was pitch black and moonless. As I lay in my sleeping bag I began to think about the fact that Ted saw a mountain lion about 6 feet from where I was laying when he first came across the spot. I don’t know about you, but my imagination can sometimes kick into high gear. As various thoughts raced through my head, the stillness of the night was broken by a blood-chilling howl. Every hair on my body stood at attention. I am sure that even the hairs that had fallen from my head over the years were standing straight up somewhere. When my pulse finally slowed down to about 150, and my heart returned to its normal location from where it had jumped into my throat, I heard the noise again from down the pass. A coyote had been hunting its way up the draw until he picked up my scent. Finally, I had to laugh at myself as I heard it again talking to its hunting mate as they continued down the mountain. PS: There is a deer in the picture at the top of the page - right in the center. But if there is one thing I have learned... it is that you can sit on a hillside and look at the woods long enough to begin to find a lot of trees, shrubs, or bushes that begin to resemble deer! But, no matter how long you stare at a doe, it's really hard to make them grow antlers.
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4. The Yellow Jacket Deer
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I guess I have to tell a hunting story, but don't worry - it's not real gory. In fact, in a way, the deer sort of caused us pain in the end. One early fall day we decided to hunt Rag Rock. There were five of us, Bill, Lloyd, our nephew Teddy, and a friend of ours – Alex Hossack. We decided that Alex would go straight up the ridge to Rag Rock and sit and wait. Bill would approach the rock from a ridge that was almost opposite from the one Alex would use. It was also the ridge on the east side of Slide Ass Pass. Lloyd would approach Rag Rock from a point on the east side about half way between where Alex and Bill started. Teddy and I would approach from the west, but as there is nothing but extreme side-hill, he would parallel me staying about 300 yards above me and we would both move more or less eastward toward Rag Rock. The plan was that everything on the mountain would be driven right past Alex. Teddy and I probably had the toughest part of the drive. When we were approaching the base of the ridge that makes up the west side of Slide-ass Pass, Teddy saw 3 or 4 deer. They were walking parallel to the base of the ridge and were trying to slip through the heavy brush below* him. His shot missed, but it got my attention very quickly. Teddy was about 16 or 17 and had not been hunting very much. My guess is that he shot over the head of the buck he was trying to bring down. There are a lot of reasons for this, ballistics and gravity included, as the trajectory of the bullet tends to ‘float’ high when you shoot downhill. In any case, he missed and when I finally worked my way to where he was, he was pretty disappointed. We finished our drive, splitting up a little, and climbed up and over the ridge to where we expected to meet the others. When we finally made our way across the slope to Rag Rock, everybody was there. Nobody had heard the shot as the ridge muffled the sound, but when Teddy finished recounting his story we all agreed that the primary reason for the miss must have been ‘buck fever’. I know – it’s tough to miss a shot, and we could have allowed any of the other excuses to prevail, but after all – we’re hunters! Teddy took it all in a good natured way, but pretty soon he said he would have to leave as he had to be to work at 9. Teddy had driven up in his own car so that he would be able to leave by himself if we all wanted to stay for some reason, but we decided to leave too. I decided I would go back the way I came in, and if the rest of them would hike out along the top of the western ridge, maybe they would be able to throw a few rocks over the side into the brush where Teddy’s herd of deer disappeared. Who knows? I could get lucky. Well… I went over the ridge, moved about 100 yards across the side-hill clearing where I could observe the full length of the brush along the ridge. As I hunkered down I tried to find a way to secure myself so that I would quit sliding every time I moved. I know, don’t move, but it was so steep even breathing could cause slippage. Pretty soon I heard a noise directly up hill, which was to my left. As I turned my head I was looking into the right eye of a 6-point black-tail buck that had been walking on a game trail. It froze when he became aware of me. I slowly turned, placed my crosshairs at the top of his neck where it joins the skull. When I squeezed off the round I heard a very loud ‘click’! This had nothing to do with gravity, nothing to do with ballistics, and nothing to do with buck fever – honestly! The cartridge simply didn’t fire. I worked the bolt as the buck moved into its top speed of about 95 mph. I tried to hit him in the back of the head as he ran, but his head looked like a yo-yo in my scope as he bounded across the slope. A high bound followed by a low bound, repeated by another high bound. As I settled into his rhythm, I squeezed off a shot. I didn’t expect him to make two low bounds in a row, and as the gun went off there was nothing in my scope except the base of the ridge. I threw the bolt back and fired another shot. This time I let my keen instincts take over and did not try to over analyze the shot. The deer didn’t even stagger. It just kept running – for about 10 feet. Then it turned 90 degrees right and stopped. I thought, "OK, one last chance," and bolted another round into the chamber. As I tried to find him in my sights, the sun had crested the ridge and all I could see was a blinding light. The buck was directly at the base of a tree so I put my scope on the top of the tree and worked my way down. When I got the point where the deer should be, I moved the crosshairs slightly to the left and squeezed off the round. The deer slowly walked away, across the slope, and into the brush. Meanwhile, back at the top of the ridge, Alex suggested that maybe somebody should investigate, as in his words, "Marty must have stumbled into a war zone." You have to understand that the time of the 1st shot (not counting the misfire) to the 3rd shot took less time then the telling. I began to look around for the misfired shell that I had ejected, and although I never found it, I swear – I really had one in there. Buck fever played no part in that fiasco! (That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it!) As Lloyd approached, I guided him to the spot where I last saw the buck. Low and behold; he found a blood trail. When we found the deer, well below us, I discovered that he had been hit by both of my last two shots. Oh… why ‘Yellow Jacket Deer’? Well, Alex told Bill that he was going to go straight back to the truck. Bill arrived about the time that I was starting to field dress the deer. It was a hot day, and I had stripped off my jacket and shirts – right down to my bare skin. Bill and Lloyd removed layers right down to their tee shirts. About the time that I was half-way through the process, I felt a red-hot stabbing pain on my chest. I looked down, and discovered the ground was covered with about 1 billion yellowjackets. (This isn’t an exaggeration either. There were at least 500 million! Well, maybe just several hundred.) The buck had collapsed right over their ground nest. We beat a hasty retreat up hill (Never go downhill for anything… even retreats!) We surveyed the situation and realized that everything was in the area that was crawling with yellowjackets. Shirts, jackets, ‘butt’ packs, rifles, and even my knife. We were completely defenseless… left to hand-to-hand combat. We decided to make a quick downhill run (this time it’s OK). We made a plan and decided we would make just one pass. We wanted to be sure we didn’t all grab the same thing. Everybody had specific items to grab. So… we made our run for it, and we grabbed everything but the deer. When we made our way back uphill, giving the yellowjackets a wide berth, we pulled a light-weight rope out of one of the packs and began the process of trying to lasso the antlers and drag the buck up the hill away from the yellow jackets. When we finally accomplished that task we then carried everything about 50 yards to an area where I could finish dressing the deer and pack him back to the truck. All told, there were numerous red bumps around out upper bodies, heads, legs, and as I said at the beginning, we got it in the end too. We survived, and when we get to spinning hunting tales, the Yellowjacket Deer always comes up, and it gets longer every time it’s told. Never, ever, shoot downhill... you might hit something!
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