Deer

I worked my way out of the valley timber and eased through a stand of trees on a long finger ridge. The rim above, where winter snows melted in late spring, extended long timbered fingers down to the valley. Deep canyons and meadows between the ridges grew knee-high grass in the summer where snow and…

If I could pick one word to describe Western Oregon in November, that word would be ‘wet’. And wet is a good thing. The more rain and snow the better, at least if you’re holding a controlled muzzleloader tag for a November blacktail hunt.

It was 1993. Still three years before someone built a mountain bike trail through the big meadow and forced the deer and elk to find someplace else. I pushed the door shut, wincing at the click of the latch as it locked. We eased down the hill from the road in the dark just before…

In the mid-1800s, there was almost as much travel to the East as there was to the West. In forts, in saloons and around campfires, there was a lot of conjecture about what the pilgrim should carry between here and there. One of the authorities on the subject was Captain Randolph Barnes Marcy. In his…

I crossed the road from camp into the timber, grateful for the cover that the trees afforded from the driving rain. It had been falling since 4 a.m. and the tree tops were saturated, leaving precious few places where one could find dry shelter. Waiting for first light, I was grateful for the pound of…

In 1853, a pioneer named Alfred Beeson stopped for water at Tub Springs in southern Oregon. On August 27, 1853, he wrote in his journal, “… 15 miles over hilly stony roads through very heavy timber to mountain spring. Good wood, water and grass. Saw several bears, killed two deer.”

We followed the old logging road into timber company land behind a locked gate. It was mid-morning after an early hunt in which I saw a coyote and my wife had a bear feed to within 20 yards of her in the brush. I traced its tracks with my fingertip and wished I had seen…

High above the river, there’s a quiet place on a mountaintop where a few rocks have been piled atop one another. It was a place where young Indians used to go in search of their vision. I’ve been there. As we passed the trailhead, I remembered.

Road Closures are Key to Success for Oregon Hunters. It was opening morning. The sun was pushing back the shadows. It had been a long climb in the hour before dawn, but I was here now. I told myself to slow down, to be patient, to not settle for anything less than a mature buck:…

Every year, thousands of parents and their offspring are forced to make a decision between two great passions of autumn: football and hunting. This year, 12 year-old Jacob Lum, a wide receiver on his middle school football team, had to decide what was most important to him. Fortunately, his football coaches understood.