NW Oregon Coastal Blacktail

[Little Big Man MT Chris]

My NW Oregon Coastal Blacktail hunt came to a finish yesterday with one day left in season. 19 trips into the field this year for me , I did everything I could to try and turn up a buck ,hunting my days off or evening sits on a high point and glassing the timber edge after work . Hour long hikes in the dark with a headlamp to get to remote clearcuts, never to see a legal buck, day after day , hour after hour , talking with friends and family and hearing the same story , nobody is seeing many deer this season, the feeling of frustration and disappointment over the lack of deer sightings , but in the end it was teamwork that helped me fill my tag, for the last week of season , my girlfriend and I take vacation to hunt deer together and spend time in the woods. My girlfriend gets the credit for this one , she spotted this deer from her side the truck as we were driving a logging road to get to another clearcut to glass, without her I never would have seen him , he was in thick timber and brush 30 yds or so from us , after 19 days of hunting, I felt more joy and satisfaction with this buck , which is the smallest Blacktail I've taken more so than the biggest buck I harvested last year. Today is the last day of Western Oregon Rifle Season, looking forward to taking the girlfriend back out on the mountain and see if I can't return the favor and help her find her deer . Just wanted to share some pics of NW Oregon where I hunt deer


This was the patch of timber I shot my deer in


NW Oregon scenery

 

[1_pointer]

Nicely done!! I need to get one of those someday.

 

[Hunting Wife]

Looks just like I remember it....haven’t been back in the fall in many years. Nice pics, thanks for sharing and way to go on the deer!

 

[hank4elk]

Well done. Steep,thick stuff,wet slippery..Yep, that's blacktail country!

 

[publichunter1]

Hope to do that hunt one day. Congrats and thanks for sharing!

 

[LCH]

Congrats on your buck! Beautiful place there.

 

[duckhunt]

Congrats

 

[MT_elk]

Congrats! Great pics!

 

[mixedbag]

I will get out there one of these years.Do you notice that they seem more active in rainy weather.When I was on Prince of Wales hunting them,the hunting got better in overcast/rainy weather

 

[SFC B]

Great pics and congrats. My first hunting experience was Blackies at Ft Lewis when I was 33....I am STILL convinced those jokers are one of the toughest hunts in North America. Ghosts of the rain forest is a truly appropriate tag. I know that year I hunted the entire gun season, saw a bunch of does but never could get a buck to poke his head out of the thickest crap on the planet. Got me hooked though

 

[IsThisHeaven?]

Great pictures and deer. Thanks for sharing.

 

[rtraverdavis]

I've hunted elk in that stuff. Nasty... Congrats on the deer. Success in that country is well earned.

 

[Little Big Man MT Chris]

I will get out there one of these years.Do you notice that they seem more active in rainy weather.When I was on Prince of Wales hunting them,the hunting got better in overcast/rainy weather

ya mixedbag, cold rainy wet cloudy weather , blacktails love that that type of weather and will be out all day in it from my experience

 

[Little Big Man MT Chris]

Just got back in from the field and what a day it was , it started with snow and fog up high , and ended with my girlfriend shooting her 2nd Blacktail, 10 min before sundown on the last day of season, but that was just the beginning........ we hunted hard all day and saw our 1st deer out in a clearcut feeding at 1pm only to find he was just a spike, forked or better in Oregon is what's allowed to harvest. So on we kept grinding , and then it came to the last hour of light , we were glassing a flat I've seen deer in , nothing , when I noticed a rig up the mountain from me and then look below and see a rig come up to me , i had a great talk with the guys in that rig and they turned and left and I followed, I had a place I wanted to take the girlfriend for the last glass of the night , but being second rig down the mountain, I looked at my girl and said whatever way they go we go opposite, and sure enough they went they I wanted so right turn we went and back up the mountain a different way we went , looking at my watch the minutes ticking away on our season , my mind racing where to go for the last 30 min of light , there was a cut at the end of the road I knew of that my buddy John sent me some pics of some bucks he saw on his 2016 Roosevelt bow hunt , pedal down, blowing past other clearcuts I went , got to our spot at 5:42 sunset is 5:55 , we got 20 min maybe of shooting light. I tell my girl we got a good chance to see deer here as we start glassing and within seconds of glassing the timber edge , buck my girlfriend says , I put binos on him , he has us busted , looking straight at us , I tell my girlfriend get ready , but the buck is stone like a statute , I can't see if he's forked , at this time I see a doe out in the cut In front of him feeding , she oblivious to us , the Rut is starting that buck ain't going anywhere, I don't want to move as I'm being stared down , my girlfriend moves ever so slightly up the hill and scopes him , looks at me , I see forks ... BOOM !!!! I see the buck start to rock and stumble forward and backwards, reload and shoot him again, i yell .... BOOM !!!! It's a miss , as I watch the buck , wobbly and stumbling back into the forest... we quickly work our way down to where he was last seen , nothing , I don't even see blood ???? What ???? We walk a little farther in , we here crashing off to our right , I get that knot in my stomach this ain't good , this is bad as darkness falls around us , we hike back up to the rig , got bars on the cell , call my parents who are 2 ridges over hunting with a friend , Maria shot a buck i tell them, but It got into the woods and we can't find it , on our way , mom says , I grab a flashlight and go back down the hill to where the buck was first shot, I am able to find some blood but it's not as much as I was expecting, follow it a few feet then nothing , now I'm feeling panicked, I knew my girlfriends first shot was good , he was barley moving , how can there be no blood , I hike back to the rig and wait for backup , I think it took 40 min for the folks to get around the mountain to our location, I tell the story to them , we all go down to the blood and start looking , flashlights in hand , nothing , not a sound , Jim stayed with the blood , the rest of us spread out and worked down hill towards where I last herd noise , nothing , we all came out of the woods on a lower logging road , let's go home dad says we can come back in the morning and try again , Jim calls my dad on his cell and says he found a little more blood , back in the woods I go by myself now , this time working my way up higher above Jim , seeing his light below , i holler out and we talk about the lack of blood , and the last place he found some , frustrated, and feeling hopeless, wondering where that deer went , I know what I saw , she thumped him good with her 1st shot , I take out my cell phone now and turn on the flashlight it has and hold it and my headlamp both above my head as high as I can and just begin to wonder aimlessly around in the dark woods , when off to my left I see a little bit of white . I move closer and the body of a deer begins to take shape, BUCK DOWN I begin to yell, BUCK DOWN ! Overcome with emotion I sit down and give a prayer of thanks to the LORD , then holler down the hill to my girlfriend, hey baby, come see your deer !!!! Everyone came up to me and it was hugs all around , and a few pics in the dark , then my girlfriend and I dragged her buck down to the road. This was a day I won't soon forget , i found the buck 75yds from where he was shot, but with no blood and in the dark, it was a miracle , he bled internally, the bullet entered through the ribs behind the right front shoulder, into the guts and passed diagonally through the deer and through his left thigh, i recovered the bullet upon skinning

This was the start to our day , light snow and fog , visibility 100 yds maybe



My girlfriends buck as I found him


One happy girl



At the shop, ready to process

 

[hank4elk]

Well done! Smile says it all!

 

[Brittany Chukarman]

Good recovery, way to stick with it!

 

[mixedbag]

That's awesome.By far the best eating of all the deer species.The POW blacktails were great table fare,but only 40lbs of boned out meat
Way to get it done,congrats to her