September 27, 2007This buck is huge -- and you can hunt him
Here's the thing about these deer: You could kill one. So could I. Even though this picture was taken on private land, the property borders public property near Roanoke. The guy who sent me this didn't provide too many details, and I don't blame him. Even if he did I wouldn't advertise the location. The point is, there are some big bucks on public land. You might have to sit a while until you see one, but if you do your homework and put in your time, you can kill a monster out there. September 26, 2007Five-by-five bull not bad for first bow kill
Greg started bowhunting about the time I got back into it, six or seven years ago. It has been frustrating for him. Bowhunting for elk and blacktail deer in Oregon is a different game than hunting for Virginia's whitetails. For one thing, it's not like you can drop the bow when rifle season comes in. When you pick your weapon, you're committed. Also, blacktails just aren't that plentiful out there, especially on the public land where Greg has been doing most of his deer hunting. Making it tougher, he's an elementary school teacher so has limited time for hunting. He had a couple of close calls, but also gone long stretches without seeing a single deer, let alone one in bow range. In the same time I have shot at four with my bow, and passed up at least twice that many, Greg has yet to shoot at one with his bow. As for elk, he'd also had a few missed opportunities. During a bow hunt in Eastern Oregon a few years ago he had a big 6x6 within range but the elk didn't present a good shot angle. It's probably a good thing because he was hunting alone and taking care of that animal would have been a massive undertaking. Things finally came together for him on Sunday, the final day of the early archery elk season.(People actually get to hunt on Sunday's in most states.) A few days earlier the landowner told Greg he'd been seeing some elk. Friday evening Greg went up there and saw 15 cows and a big 6x6. Most of the elk got no closer than 200 yards, although a cow got to about 90 yards. Sunday morning Greg got a little closer to some cows but that didn't work out. He was actually about ready to pack it in when he happened upon this and another bull. The 50-yard shot was perfect and the bull fell within seconds. Now, 50 yards is a pretty long bow shot, especially in a hunting situation. But Greg is an excellent shot. Also, you have to keep in mind that an elk is a massive creature and its vital zone is pretty huge. At the processor, this bull weighed just short of 400 pounds, and that was without the lower legs, the hide or the head. So you're talking about a 550-pound animal, about three to four times larger than the whitetails most of us shoot. Also, elk don't jump the string like deer, so in the right situation 50 yards is a responsible shot. One of my dreams is to hunt elk with a bow out West, so I'm a little envious. But I'm mostly happy and proud. Greg could have been forgiven for giving up on bowhunting. But he stuck with it and this is his reward. Equipment: Hoyt Cybertech (70 pounds); NAP Thunderhead broadhead (100 gr). September 20, 2007Trail cam shot: Freakish and huge non-typical
You can't see it in this shot but the 8-pointer (to the right) has some great palmation on its right antler. There's no explanation necessary on the non-typical. That G-2 has got to be 12 inches long, maybe longer. Wow. September 19, 2007The kind of deer that makes time go realllllly sloooowww...
As if time doesn't drag enough in the weeks leading up to deer season, this is the kind of picture that makes things really painful. Will opening day ever get here? Not that this monster eight-pointer is going to be wandering around in daylight come Oct. 6. And even if he were, what are the chances he'd be in bow range? Not good. But come late October and early November, he will start getting out during the day. The hope is he does it on this property, and that he'll walk by my buddy or one of his friends. If you've got a trailcam shot of the buck you're dreaming about, send it my way. I'll try to post as many as I can over the next three weeks. And, just like with this picture, I won't blab about the locations of the trophies. No need to do that. September 18, 2007Rebellious kids break rules, feed deer
From the closest parking area, the hike is about a mile to the falls. It's a decent pull with some rocky spots, but the girls buzzed right on up. On the way up and down they spent a lot of time collecting acorns. At first, they would wait until they got handfuls, then they would pelt me with them. Eventually that game grew old and they started just putting the acorns in their pockets. On the way down we found an inchworm and a nearly-dead cicada. We decided to haul them down to a little pool in the creek where we'd spotted some small brook trout. The trout gobbled the worm and the small pieces of the cicada. On the way home I wanted to drive by the Peaks of Otter to look for deer. It was late afternoon and they were hitting the grassy areas around the road pretty heavily. The girls enjoyed it, especially when they figured out how to get the deer even closer. They were both munching on apples, and rolled down their windows and started holding the apples out. "Are you deer hungry?" they asked. That proved tempting to those whitetails, which obviously are used to handouts. I explained why it was important to not feed the deer. I didn't sugarcoat it. "If they get too used to getting handouts from humans, they won't know how to fend for themselves," I said. "Then, if the human food goes away, they may starve." Of course they wondered why it was OK to feed trout but not deer. That was a tough one. I said we probably shouldn't have fed the trout. I also said it was illegal to feed the deer and asked them if they wanted a park ranger to give me a ticket. Apparently they did because the next thing I knew they were emptying their pockets and tossing acorns at the deer, which gratefully gobbled the nuts. I hurriedly rolled up the windows and we headed on down the road. The girls didn't care. They were out of acorns anyway. September 11, 2007Trail volunteers get some help from a special horse
Hikers, horseback riders and mountain bikers did a lot of the lifting, and plenty of it was pretty heavy. I helped carry two loads of lumber in the half-mile to the site and I'm still sore. While most of the lumber could be managed by us, four huge beams -- 28 feet long, 650 pounds each -- would have required at least 20 people each to move. So organizers brought in Jason Rutledge of the Healing Harvest Forest Foundation and his team of Suffolk logging horses, which were featured in March in The Roanoke Times. Those are some awesome animals, for sure. Unfortunately I couldn't stick around to watch but fortunately Jason sent me a few pictures taken by HHFF's Kate Coates, including the one above. Some other photos of the volunteers are available HERE. September 5, 2007News flash: Deer hunting could kill you*A couple of interesting scientific studies have gotten some attention in recent days. Not because they are particularly groundbreaking, though. In one, researchers found out that men, when searching for mates, pay a lot of attention to women's looks. Yeah, that's a shocker. In another, scientists determined that men with certain risk factors for heart disease face a higher risk of having a heart attack when deer hunting. I kid you not. The researchers affixed monitoring equipment to 25 heart-attack-waiting-to-happen men. Of the hunters, 17 had a history of coronary disease. The rest had other risk factors, such as being overweight, smoking, or suffering from high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Amazingly, walking over "uneven" terrain -- i.e. hills -- or dragging a dead deer got the men's hearts pounding. Duh. It's called physical exertion. And you know how we deer hunters say our heart starts pounding when we see a deer? We're not making that up. Seeing and shooting a deer also elevated the subjects' heart rates. THAT'S WHY WE DO IT. Anyway, the increased heart rates can cause irregularities and could lead to heart attacks, etc. I'd like to think that hunters who hear about this study might be motivated to try to get in decent shape before the season. Some might. I fear others could just use it as excuse to never venture more than a few feet from their truck or ATV, which they were probably doing already anyway. *If you are already at risk of dying because you have a bad ticker.
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About this blog
While growing up in rural Southern Oregon, Mark Taylor developed a passion for the outdoors while he and his younger brother tagged along with their father on fishing, hunting and camping adventures. Graduating from Northwestern University in 1988, Taylor spent four years as an officer in the U.S. Navy based in Norfolk before moving into journalism. After five years writing about the military for a Norfolk-based publishing company, he became the outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times in 1998. He lives in Roanoke with his wife and twin daughters. .....Advertisement.....
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