Category Archives: Hunting

Tough Washington turkeys

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After a successful Rio hunt in Oregon I was looking forward to getting back over to Eastern Washington to hunt Merriam’s turkeys in May with Joe from Double Barrel Ranch again.  We loaded up the new trailer on the 5th and did the long drive across the state and set up camp in Riverside State Park along the Spokane River.   The plan was to hunt one and a half days, if needed, then drive back home while Catherine did some foraging in the park.  The campground and park were amazing, probably the best state park we’ve visited and we will be back.  Tons of trail, an amazing stretch of the Spokane River and a nice quiet campground made for a great spot.

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Big K Blast & Cast

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My friend Mark and I had tried to get together for a turkey trip last season but didn’t pull it off so this year we set one up in Oregon so I could go after my first Rio Grande and he could go after his first turkey ever.  He got us booked into the Big K Guest Ranch outside of Elkton on the Umpqua River for one day of turkey hunting and one day of fishing.   I decided to fly down to Eugene instead of doing the 7 hour drive down and back and it worked pretty well since the ranch had a shuttle and I knew I could pack light for a two day trip.

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A lack of spots – Texas Axis deer hunt

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After a failure to see elk in Oregon back in August, a blown mule deer buck in September and then a follow up elk trip moved by the outfitter then taken out by winter storms I was onto Plan C in order to avoid a meat crisis in a few months.   I started looking into Axis deer hunts in Hawaii or Texas and ended up finding a special being run from Southern Buck Outfitters for Axis does and figured.  It was a free-range hunt instead of a high-fence hunt which I liked and also semi-guided which meant we’d be hunting more or less on our own but dropped off by the outfitter.   I put the trip together with my nephew Dalton and hunting partner Lisa in a matter of days and then quickly I found myself on an Alaska flight to San Antonio.  

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2018 – Looking back

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2018 was a good year but a tough year in several respects and I’m actually kind of glad this one is over with.   Thanks to Lira I hiked close to 2000 miles this year and we managed to get out and do quite a bit of fishing and hunting, logging 108 days total in the water, hills or fields.   I also somehow managed to build a boat for the sole purpose of taking her fishing with me since she coludn’t quite work out in a float tube.   Catherine and I had a lot of fun spending many days exploring the Middle Fork Valley this year and also camping and hiking on the Oregon coast.

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Chasing Chukar

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This year I was getting a bit bored of spending so much time walking the wet grass and woods, not to mention getting hit by shot, at Crescent Lake and Stillwater so made a decision to get over to the dry side of the mountains to hunt wild birds more.   Early in the year I got Lira out at Cooke Canyon a few days on planted chukar just so she’d have some exposure to the birds and that was a lot of fun so this fall we took up chukar hunting for real.   We just got back from our fourth outing after these birds and it has been a lot of work and a lot of fun.

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Adding more bird species

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Up until this year Lira and I spent all our time hunting pheasants but this year that changed.  Yes, we still hunt a lot of pheasant but we also started hunting frequently in Eastern Washington for other upland birds as well as spending some time in the woods hunting grouse.  Trust me hunting is the appropriate word for grouse, we didn’t spend much time killing grouse.   So far this season we’ve added four new species of birds to our list.

Chukar

Chukar have sort of always intrigued me as a game bird ever since reading East of the Mountains by David Guterson.  Tough terrain to say the least and they are hard to hit.  Early in the year we hunted some planted chukar at Cooke Canyon just to get Lira onto a new bird.  While deer hunting in Ellensburg we saw so many chukar that I decided it was time to hunt them for real and have spent several days now along the rimrock and high flats searching for them.  We have managed one wild chukar and that is one Lira literally grabbed out of a bush.

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Stalking oneself

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During this year’s early muzzleloader mule deer hunt I learned a lot about stalking deer and managed to get within 30-40 yards of a bedded down buck after a very long stalk.   I had spotted this deer from over a mile away at just the time it was getting ready to bed down.  I’d already blown two stalks where I only had gotten to about 100 yards from the animal and this time I was very careful and managed to get much closer.  I just forgot one final part in the process of stalking a deer and took one step too many busting the deer but still it was an experience I probably won’t forget and I learned many lessons from it.  I’m now getting ready for late season and was thinking back on the early season hunt and the things I need to remember later this month to be successful.

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Trip to the dry side

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The rains started in the Snoqualmie Valley last Thursday and things got wet fast.  Friday mornings pheasant hunt was wet and windy, we got out of the woods when big branches started crashing around and we never found a bird.  With the rivers rising and no end of rain in sight it was time to head east and get into a drier climate.   On Sunday I packed up the shotguns and Lira and met Lisa for a 3-4 day trip to Ellensburg to hunt chukar, quail and pheasants and also, hopefully, to break my slump.

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One month in slump

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The last bird we took home was a previously shot one Lira recovered.

Pheasant season has been going for about a month now and I’m in a slump which I’m hoping will break soon.   We’ve managed to get in 14 days of bird hunting so far and have bagged 14 pheasants but this week Lira has worked her tail off and found 10 birds and I’ve missed or not had a shot on all of them.   Up until this Sunday I’d been hitting the majority of birds but now I can’t seem to hit anything.   What changed?  I’m still shooting my Benelli 20 gauge, still using my Carlson Early Season choke, still using my Prarie Storm FS Steel, …  I have started wearing gloves part of the time and yes, a few of my missed birds were because i didn’t get the safety off,  I’m also wearing a jacket instead of a few layers of wool.  I think the real problem though is I’ve got myself psyched out.  Shooting is a mental game for sure and I know when I’m in a trap slump it gets way worse before it gets better.

What to do?  Going to mix it up and head east.  Go after some quail and chukar instead of only pheasant and hit the sporting clays course.  Maybe I’ll pull out my 12 gauge, my only issue with it is that we don’t seem to find birds when carrying it and am convinced it has an old Italian curse on it,   Probably hitting the local fields tomorrow then off to Ellensburg for 3-4 days and hopefully bringing something home for the freezer.

Muzzleloader mule deer hunt

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This year my plan was to have an easy hunt to fill the freezer with a cow elk early and then have a challenge hunt to really push it trying to get a 3pt or better mule deer buck with my muzzleloader.   Well, the elk hunt didn’t quite pan out so that put a bit of pressure on the mulie muzzleloader hunt.   I knew if I’d done this hunt during rifle season I’d probably be able to take a deer but really I wanted the challenge of a true stalk and having to get in close, especially since I’ve been so lucky the last several years.   Given the difficulty of a buck with a muzzleloader I decided to do the hunt at Red’s in Ellensburg and got access to their 16,000 acre Mt. Baldy Preserve and was the only hunter during muzzleloader season there.

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