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Pronghorns on the Rebound
If you’re one of those hunters who makes a point of applying for an antelope tag every spring, you will, by the law of averages, get to go afield for antelope once every eight to twelve years. If this is your year to hunt or you’re expecting to draw a tag next season, read on.
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Winter Wing-Shooting and Waterfowl Habitat
Ducks and geese drifted in and out of my dreams. It’s always hard to sleep the night before a hunt. When the alarm rang, I rolled out of bed and found my camo and my boots. An hour later, we tromped through icy marsh. A biting wind howled out of the west, driving a sullen…
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Thanksgiving Day Mule Deer Challenges Hunter’s Skill
On a high plateau bordered by rimrock, Steve Jones checked the cap on his blackpowder rifle. He looked out across the sagebrush below him to where he could see a four-point buck browsing in the open plain. His hunt took place in the new millenium but it could have been a scene from 150 years…
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Oregon’s Bird Hunting Preserves Expand Upland Opportunities
What do the words upland bird hunting mean to you? Kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk. A gaudy ring-necked rooster springs out of the standing corn, headed for the blue sky as you raise your shotgun to your shoulder. You shift your weight, moving your left foot slightly ahead, your cheek settling into the stock.
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Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad
“I’m not cutting my hair or shaving a whisker until I get a bear,” my cousin Neil told me over the phone. “I’m serious about this.” That was in November of 2005 with the fall bear season all but over and little chance of seeing a bruin until spring. “Well you’re going to look pretty…
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To the Patient, a Blackpowder Pronghorn
Sagebrush. Sand. Water. Waves of heat shimmered a veil across the distance and his eyes, squinted against the glare, closed… There was no sound except that of a dog lapping water. It registered.
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Stubble Field Anticipation in a Tip-up Goose Blind
A whispered prayer to bring geese out of the west? It seemed presumptuous somehow, but not entirely out of place on a hunt two days before Christmas. That day the mercury registered minus-1 degrees Fahrenheit and there was 18 inches of snow on the ground in Sisters, Oregon. First I stuck my Toyota in Sykes’s…
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New Hunts for Oregon’s Blackpowder Bucks
This fall, a few of Oregon’s muzzleloader hunters will grab their long-barreled rifles and sling their ‘possibles’ bags in pursuit of Columbia whitetails in the North Bank Habitat Area.
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Eastern Oregon for Sage Grouse
Every year, Eastern Oregon offers a hunt for sage grouse on the dry side of the Cascades. It is a controlled hunt and a bird hunter must apply for the privilege. In the 1800s, up to 1.1 million sage grouse could be found in parts of what are now 16 western states and three provinces.…
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Blackpowder Black Bear – Are You Ready for the Challenge?
“There’s a bear.” “There are two of them.” When we first spotted the bears we were close, less than 200 yards away. But we were in a skiff. “Put me ashore beneath that rock,” I whispered. At the shore, I couldn’t see the bears anymore, concealed by alders and willows. I clambered out of the…
Field Guide
Oregon Hunting
Hunting in Oregon is a more diverse experience than anywhere else in the country. One of the great things about Oregon hunting is the incredible variety of species available for the taking; a hunter can choose to pursue mule deer, blacktail deer, Columbian whitetail, northeast whitetail, Rocky Mountain and Roosevelt elk as well as goats, sheep and predators. The abundance of diverse habitat allows for everything from sage rats to black bear hunting in Oregon!
I’ve been fishing and hunting in Oregon since I was a teenager and I’ve gotten to know the country, habitat and hotspots. The result was an Oregon hunting guide—my book, Hunting Oregon.
The first Hunting Oregon was brought to you by Sun Publishing in 1999. As every Oregon hunter knows, animal habits and habitat change. That’s why we published the second edition—Gary Lewis’s Hunting Oregon. This update, finished in 2010, is completely new, with chapters written by Scott Haugen and Duane Dungannon. In full color, this Oregon hunting guide is what every hunter needs to have before they head out into the field.
There are other ways to prepare for your time in the Oregon outdoors, and I’ve listed a few helpful resources below, to go along with Hunting Oregon.