As much of 2020 was full of the unexpected and ever- evolving changes to daily life, this was the way of much of my 2020 hunting season. With applications in for most western states and most draw results announced, I had only one tag to my name. I was left with my home state of Oregon and neighboring state Washington. It was my second year of applying in and hunting Washington. This time, I had the help of a good friend and hunting partner. We were drawn for a quality muzzleloader whitetail tag for eastern Washington. I had never hunted whitetails, nor had Cody. I know a lot of people do not think of Washington as a whitetail state, but the eastern portion has a strong population.
Our first hunting day was spent taking inventory of bucks. We were also learning whitetail behavior during the rut. We spent the first hour and a half of daylight glassing and decided to move to one of the farms we had gained access to. We looked for bucks, also checking higher on public land in the snow where we glassed a large buck across the canyon, but we never turned him up.
The morning of day two, we looked over another piece of private land that openly allows access. On the way in, we saw some deer along the road and stopped to try and determine if they were legal or not. There was a buck we both agreed was worthy of shooting, but he had made his way into private land and bedded down 100 yards or so from the property boundary. We let him be and moved to the farm we had written permission on. Turning up nothing, we drove to the other parking area. We decided to split up and push a large creek drainage from top to bottom. Cody would get out, and I would drive to the bottom and hike up.
I was glassing the head of the drainage we were in and saw a big buck cross through an opening. Cody and I met up and hiked up to the edge of the creek drainage to the stubble field edge and glassed. The midday lull prompted a short nap while periodically keeping an eye on the head of the drainage where I had last seen the big buck. I looked around a bit and spotted a buck about 600 yards out, heading our direction across the creek. We determined he was legal and a shooter. I wasted no time making my stalk. It went perfectly, and I ended up 80 yards from him in a small draw leading down to the creek. I got a shot, but when the smoke cleared, I had missed. I reloaded, and after a short chase up a steep hill, I landed another opportunity at an 80-yard broadside shot. The November air went white with the smoke from my muzzleloader. When it cleared, I saw a brief glimpse of him running off. I continued the direction the buck went through the field. Finally, to my left in some tall weeds in the cottonwoods lay my first whitetail buck.
Cody and I met up, got some pictures, and got to work. Once my buck was quartered, caped, and packed out, we returned to the RV park for the evening to eat dinner, celebrate, and prepare to find Cody a buck.
Cody was eventually able to fill his tag on a unique buck that had been previously attacked by a mountain lion and survived. This hunt wrapped it up for us for deer for the year. I am grateful that in the uncertain times of 2020 I was able to hunt four species of deer in four states.
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