I was sitting on the tarmac at the Newark airport on a dreary, overcast November morning waiting for my flight to take off. As the wheels left the ground, I gazed out the window but could barely see a thing through the dense, heavy fog. I was headed back to Oregon with a spike-only Roosevelt elk tag in my pocket.
Eight months prior, I had purchased a two-person spike elk hunt at our local Safari Club International banquet. After purchasing the hunt, I reached out to Ronnie Davis from Hells Half Acre Outfitters to schedule the trip and inquired about adding a Columbia blacktail deer while I was there. He let me know the seasons didn’t coincide, but he had openings in his deer camp if I was interested. He offered me a deal I couldn’t pass up, but it meant I would be making two trips across the country in less than a month. I reached out to my friend, Nathan Raymond, who would be joining me on the elk hunt, and we decided to go ahead and make the most of the opportunity and go after both animals.
On October 23rd, I left for the Beaver state. My return flight was scheduled for October 31st, but with my wife’s birthday being the 30th, I told her I would do everything possible to come home early. Ronnie has a private lease of about 1,200 acres that we could hunt, but we also put in for and received a Bone Mountain area access permit. I arrived on a Friday evening and made the three-hour drive from the Eugene airport to camp. When I arrived, Nathan was already there, and we sat down and made a plan for the next day with Ronnie. Our first day of hunting would be Saturday, so Ronnie elected to try the lease in the morning.
As the morning sun began peering over the horizon, we were opening the metal gate to the lease and making our way up the logging road. We only drove a short distance when we came upon two blacktail does. A bit further along, we spotted a herd of about eight elk grazing along the ridgeline and then two more does and a spike buck in the sparse cover. By the time we reached the crest of the mountain, we had seen well over two dozen deer but no shooters. We approached a plateau that would allow us a vantage point to look over the bottom land. We planned on sitting there for the afternoon to glass the valley below until we would hopefully find the deer we were looking for. However, Mother Nature had something else in mind and a dense fog started rolling through the valley. Within minutes, we couldn’t see anything. We waited for a while but soon realized this wasn’t going to lift. We packed up and made our way back out of the lease to break for lunch.
After a nice home-cooked meal, we were on our way back out for the afternoon. We could see there was still considerable fog in the valley, so we made the decision to check out the permit area. There were a lot of hunters moving around, but we were still finding the occasional deer.
The second morning of hunting, we struck back out to the lease. The fog had begun to break up, and we were hoping for better visibility. We elected to split up with Ray walking up a mountain trail on the other side of the property. Ronnie and I went up the logging road again to that elevated vantage point. As the morning sun was rising, so was the temperature. We were seeing an occasional deer here and there but nothing like the morning before. We made the crest of the hill and started glassing when we heard from Ray that he had shot a buck. It was a very respectable 3x3 that he was very happy with.
Most of the midday was consumed with the recovery of Ray’s deer, and when it was time to return to hunting, Ronnie needed to go with Ray to the skinning garage and get the deer in the walk-in. I was paired up to hunt with Diesel Allen. We spent the remainder of the day patrolling the lease without seeing any action. The pressure was mounting as I really wanted to make it home in time for Traci’s birthday.
The dry, warm weather continued into the third day with very little deer activity. As evening rolled in, we were treated to watching a sparring match between two spike bucks, but no mature deer were found. The following day was much of the same. We spent the entire day glassing clear-cut after clear-cut in the permit area and then later on the lease. As we were headed down the mountain with only a couple hours of daylight left, Ronnie excitedly said to shoot that deer. A mere 100 yards away was a beautiful 3x4 buck bedded with a couple does. I quickly found a rest and placed a shot right where it needed to go. The deer ran less than 20 yards and fell. Walking up to the deer, I was in awe. He had everything I was looking for. His antlers were a rich dark chocolate color, and his forehead matched as well. Then there was the double throat patch. He was gorgeous and scored over 101 SCI points, qualifying for a bronze award. To top it off, I was able to change my flight and make it home a day before my wife’s birthday.
It felt like I was barely back home when I boarded the plane for the return trip to Oregon. As I got off the plane in Seattle and waited for my connecting flight, I received a voicemail from Ray. He had an employee in his company test positive for COVID, so he would not be able to make it to camp. This was disappointing news, but it was out of his control.
On opening day, we awoke long before the sun and made our way to the hunting area in an attempt to beat the crowd. Diesel would position himself overhead a couple miles away where he could see the whole area and radio us with information if he saw any elk. We walked the trail until we came to a fork. Earlier in the week, Ronnie had scouted two spike elk at the top of the mountain if we went to the left, but in the early morning light, we could see two elk at the top but no antlers.
As the day went on, the weather turned rough. The wind was blowing so hard it was almost impossible to stand still. We made a plan for the following morning to return to the lease where I shot my blacktail to get away from the crowds. Once there, we spotted a beautiful branched bull that looked to have six points on each side, but we still couldn’t locate the spike we were after. After spending half the day combing that area, we headed back into the permit unit. The crowds hadn’t gone away, but we were making the best of the situation.
As the morning turned to afternoon, we found ourselves on a lookout glassing the far mountainside. I don’t know how he did it, but Ronnie spotted a group of elk making their way out of the woods into the open over two miles away. Diesel threw up his spotting scope and confirmed there was a spike in the herd. The race was on. We piled into Diesel’s truck and rushed down the logging roads to get to the area before anyone else had a chance to spot the spike. Ronnie and I quietly edged our way up the inclining road. The high bank on the roadside kept us out of sight of the elk who were directly above us and about 175 yards away. As we crept to a point where we could see the herd, Ronnie put up the shooting sticks and said, “There is the spike.” I rested my rifle on the sticks, and the spikes of the bull came into my scope. The crosshairs found the shoulder, and I touched off the round. I was elated when the bull dropped. I hung my head and thanked God for helping me pull it off.
I was able to check two animals off my Super Slam list in a three- week period. I plan to start accumulating points and return to Oregon for a bull. I will definitely do that hunt with Ronnie from Hells Half Acre. I can’t thank him enough for the work he put in to make sure I had two great experiences. And thank you, Dad, for making me a hunter.
Oregon Deer
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