We took two good hikes on opening day. The first one was in snowy conditions up a steep hill. This was a nice view from the back side of the hill looking over the Summer Lake Valley.
Our second hike was later in the day, around 10:30 AM. We hiked up and around another pretty steep hill. We parked the truck and started hiking towards the hill thinking it was pretty close, but it ended up taking us a bit longer than we thought it would. We made it to the top of the hill and had a great view of Silver Lake (it's dry so that's why you can't see any water in the background).
We didn't see any deer on either of our hikes, but we did see some next to the road. As we looked for another place to hunt for the evening we spotted a deer on the side of the road. Sure enough it was buck, so my brother dropped him. Then we realized there was another buck with him, so I blasted him too and we were done! It all took place so fast, we couldn't believe it.
Some additional thoughts about our hunting trip:
My brother and I loaded up his GMC Yukon and were leaving Springfield as it began to get dark. This was one of the most memorable parts of our trip for me. The ride seemed to go pretty fast as we talked about everything from hunting and fishing to politics to our faith and so on. We were glad to reach Ana Reservoir RV Park, but we were a little bummed out to find out that there was no fire ring there. Camping without a fire is not quite camping if you ask me, especially when the temperature is like 28 degrees, not to mention the cold wind. But, we managed. One thing that was kind of funny, looking back on it, was when we were just crawling into our warm sleeping bags, all of the sudden there was a loud growl and menacing BARK, right next to our tent! My brother practically jumped on top of me, seeing how it was right next to his side of the tent. We thought it was a coyote or something because we didn't hear anybody calling their dog back to their RV or anything like that. And, to be honest with you it sounded more like a coyote than a dog. It kind of freaked us out for a while, but we got over it. Next morning we drive into the snowy hills. We saw a couple of deer next to the road at fist light but couldn't tell what they were because of the snow and fog. As mentioned above, we went on one hike in the morning and after that we saw two deer as we drove around looking for another place to hike. They were both does. After our second uneventful hike we decided to go over and try our luck fishing at Thompson Reservoir. Well, we fished for a while in a delightful little snow storm without a single bite. We did see some deer tracks right on the bank, though. So, our thoughts quickly turned back to hunting, so we headed back in the general direction of camp and... And that's when it happened... After we loaded our deer on top of the Yukon, we decided to just head home, considering the conditions and all. So, we headed back to camp and hurriedly packed up our gear and headed home. We had to stop and get some gas and it was about 10:45 PM. At the nearest open gas station, in LaPine, we fueled up. Heading out of the gas station we were quite dismayed to see blue lights flashing in our rear view mirror! So my brother pulled over and it was an Oregon State Policeman in a big Chevy truck. Not more than a minute or two later, another truck showed up. We answered their questions and showed them our tags and talked about how good eatin' those bucks would be, 'cause they weren't really wall hangers... We made it back to my brother's house at about two in the morning. We were thankful that WalMart was open, because we needed to go and get us a couple of good strong ropes and some game bags. And so we did, and we strung them boys up and skinned them out and cleaned them up as well as we could, and called it a night... or a morning, rather. Now let me tell you, that couch in my brother's front room felt like heaven after I took a shower an laid down on it at about 4:00 AM. I was so blissfully tired after the day's activities, I couldn't even go to sleep for about 15 minutes. When sleep came, I knew nothing. Sunday afternoon, I took my trophy home and hung him up in my garage. Monday, about mid day I butchered him up and wrapped the steak and took the burger meat down to the Pepper Tree here in Albany to get it ground up. Got about 40-50 lbs of meat in my freezer now. Looking forward to Saturday. Got to fill my antlerless deer tag!
Happy Hunting! -nimrod243
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