Columbia Blacktails

For a couple years now I’ve been wondering why I never hunted these deer during the few years I lived in Washington State. I just got to hunt the latter part of the rifle season down at my Dad and Mom’s place on the Wetside of Washington. Two days into the hunt I was reminded of the reasons of why I never hunted here. Blackberry vines are the absolute worst thing ever to try and walk through, the foliage grows so thick that the visual clarity resembles our Alaskan alder thickets choked with Devil’s Club…alright, maybe not that good. And the deer, they are around and all over the place - eating apples, leaving fresh tracks and droppings, buck rubs on most every tree, but darn tough to find any deer making those tracks in real time. I now know the meaning of an animal being nocturnal! No wonder that when Louis and Clark where in the Pacific Northwest, they would trade with the local Indians so they could eat dog for their meat …they figured there wasn’t anything around to shoot. Soon we started figuring things out. And some research beforehand started to fall in place. Want to see deer, go out when it’s dumping rain. And I’m talking monsoon stuff. The second evening on the place I was hunkered under the hood of my rain coat when at last light six doe and a big forky came into the clearing. What a joy it was to finally watch these animals. If I’d have known better I would have just shot that buck, but in my mind, hey, he’s just a big forky. More research on the internet that night had me convinced that he was at least a three year old…and actually a pretty good buck. And it might just be that I was pretty lucky to even have seen one. Three spike bucks the next morning was starting to prove I should have shot him, and the next three days of nice weather - which meant no deer sightings, confirmed my mistake. After that it was “nothing new under the sun.” I think that when he wrote that in the Bible, the author had been hunting these deer all week. Dad had to leave on Friday mid-morning to attend an unexpected business conference and I’d been praying that one of us would be able to get a deer down before he left. We were down to the wire in regards to being able to share in the first deer taken on their place. Thursday night I went to bed trying to scheme a plan on how I could possibly sit in a different location and be able to watch a hot spot that was loaded with fresh deer tracks. I needed to get up above the ground somehow to enable me to see over the terrain and see this particular crossing. The tree stand was already hung way out back (no luck there either), and I didn’t feel up to moving it in the middle of the night. I’d racked my brain trying to figure out some possibility. Early in the morning when going out to the garage to put my boots on I’d resolved to just sit down in the lower pasture. That’s when I spotted my solution. Morning light found me perched, above ground level in my high tech, camouflaged, super hunting accessory. Cabela’s should probably market this piece of deer hunting ingenuity. It flat out works. I’d put my seat cushion above my head in the branches because “torrential” doesn’t even describe the downpour of rain I was experiencing that morning. A little after 8am, I heard a noise behind me that registered different than the fatty rain drops pounding all around me. It was one of those subtle sounds that could have been easily lost to an inattentive ear. Looking over my left shoulder, the same big forky buck from earlier in the week, was just starting to make his way along the edge of the clearing. 40yards wasn’t a difficult shot off hand and I had my first Columbia Blacktail down. I ran to the house to get everyone and burst in the door a hootin’ and hollerin’ a good morning wake up call. We all went out for pictures and to share in this moment together. I’m so glad God’s really into the father/son stuff because it was neat to be able to have Dad there that successful morning. Everyone got a kick out of my colorful ladder stand – but hey, you gotta do whatever it takes. So, yeah, he’s just a big forky but I’m totally tickled with this guy. Probably one of my favorite bucks to have taken, and definitely a mentally challenging hunt. I’m still trying to dry out equipment after a week, but am sure looking forward to getting back and trying to find a big buck. I spent two days scouting and mapping their place so I’ve got some good ideas for next time. I have to agree with the consensus; that a big Columbia Blacktail buck is probably the hardest of all North American animals to get take.