This year I decided to do a second turkey camp in Southern Oregon to get some more turkey meat in the freezer, to get a few more Rios and to check out the Rogue Valley. I had kind of wanted to do the West Coast Turkey Tour and fit in California but didn’t pull it off this year, maybe next year I’ll go for all three. I had debated on wether or not to tow the trailer or tent camp but decided the trailer would be way more comfy so did the long tow down on Monday and set up camp in Gold Hill, very close to some of the turkey spots we were going to hit.
Tag Archives: Hunting
Washington Turkey Camp
This year I headed back over to the Spokane area for turkey hunting. I had originally planned a trip to Winthrop a few weeks ago but the weather (don’t get me started) was horrible so that got canceled and I was placing all my bets on Spokane/Cheney area which also happened to have an extended three bird limit this year. I towed the trailer over on Tuesday and set up camp at Riverside State Park, wandered around finding a few false morels and then tried to get some sleep.
A very short turkey season
After last year’s short and hardly huntable turkey season I had hopes for this year. Everyone was confident cases would be dropping like a rock in April and May so things would be safe this year. Of course Washington and Oregon are still on the increase having fourth waves but at least I’m fully vaccinated as of last Saturday so I went ahead and had my trip that I had booked with Joe for last season. Even with the vaccine I had trepidation about the trip. The counties over here are the fifth worst in the nation for new COVID cases at the moment, I hadn’t shot anything in six months and I hadn’t been out using my shotgun since last fall when Lira got hurt. I did manage to get to the range and zero in my Fastfire red dot but still felt a lot of concern that I’d end up missing or wounding a bird. The whole thing tied me up in knots to the point where I was debating just stopping hunting altogether so I sort of needed today.
Hunting & Fishing in the time of COVID
They re-opened the outdoors in Washington on May 5th and after a week of letting the crowds thin out I decided to start getting back out there. Lira and I have been hitting the lakes early in the morning to avoid the crowds and the boat ramp backups. It has been fun getting out on the water but our freezer isn’t filling up too fast, I’m in a streak of losing fish and bringing home one per day out when I hook two or three more. I need about 8-10 trout to get the trout supply in decent shape for the rest of the year so I’ll keep at it while I can over the next few weeks.
Yesterday I went turkey hunting for the day over in the Teanaway. Tough to do in a day trip with no scouting but it was great getting out into the woods for a full day. I covered a range of spots in the DNR land over there and put in about 8 miles of walking with a lot of calling and sitting in good looking spots. The highlight of the day was when a mule deer walked out into one of my spots. The deer knew something was up but wasn’t quite sure what to make of me and it finally just walked off after looking in my direction a few times but not really spooking. Of course the only turkey I saw was walking across Red Bridge Road as I was driving back home. I may try to get in one more day before the season ends just because it was so nice being outside all day and not having to deal with running into other people at all.
I have no idea what this is all going to mean for fall so I’m hoping to take advantage of as many local opportunities as possible to get a deer in the freezer and do a bunch of bird hunting. All I know is that I’m glad we have a fairly well stocked freezer at the moment from last year and between that, our garden and CSA we don’t even need to go to the grocery store too often.
Montana Whitetail Hunting
After last season being a bust in the big-game department I decided that I would try and get out of state for a hunt at least once a year to better insure a freezer full of meat. I knew if we rationed I would get to October so we cut back on venison consumption and ate more fish and birds. I started looking for a trip and contacted Backcountry Montana Adventures who were listed as a RMEF supporter and began discussing options. Originally this trip was going to be Catherine and I doing a bit of whitetail doe hunting and looking in the mountains outside of Dillon for a mule deer buck. After planning the rest of our year Catherine decided against leaving Lira for a week so I switched the trip to be a whitetail only hunt and invited Christian along since he now had an empty freezer and had never been on a big game hunt before.
Tough Washington turkeys
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.
Big K Blast & Cast
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.
A lack of spots – Texas Axis deer hunt
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.
2018 – Looking back
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.
Chasing Chukar
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.