As you might have heard…no elk were found. I had a great time in the mountains of Eastern Oregon with family and friends…and we saw literally hundreds of deer and two herds of wild horses.
Every year I go elk hunting (9 of the last 10 yrs) with my step-dad and his hunting partner/best friend and their boys. They both have sons named Mike and Mark who are almost the same ages. Plus, my brother Curtis and sometimes others such as my step-brother-in-law (my step-sister’s husband) also go. They are a great group of guys … we always have a good time.
We leave Portland early Monday morning driving 4-5 hours. We stop and have breakfast at some diner along the way and then set up camp when we arrive. Our tent is approx 16’ X 36’, it is an old army tent with a wood stove in it and other modern conveniences (gas stove, refrigerator, and generator to run lights and one sleep apnea machine). We often will spend a few hours cutting wood for fire wood that first day, as well. This year we brought wood.
Tuesday we scout the area for a few hours and then relax and enjoy God’s creation.
Wednesday is opening day…we get up between 4:30 and 5:30 eat some breakfast and then head out in search of the big game. We will usually stay out until dark on opening day.
Thursday – Saturday is much the same as Wednesday; however bad weather and lack of elk sign might cause the troops to shorten the day at both ends. Plus, lunch breaks become more frequent as the week progresses.
If no elk sign is found early in the week we will try other areas. This year we drove an hour south from our tent site two days to hunt the area between Cougar and Timber mountains. This was a nice area with the added benefit of having wild horses for us to enjoy observing. But no elk.
Sunday we clean up camp, pack up the tent and other gear into the pickups, have a communion service, and then shoot our guns at targets, before heading back to Portland.
Cory & Cade
About Me
- Cory
- Eugene, OR
- I own GANT Construction. I am a General Contractor who is currently doing home remodels and repairs. I am hoping to begin building energy efficient homes in 2009.
I am a certified Aging-In-Place Specialist (CAPS) who would like to be building new Universal Designed (UD) energy efficient rental homes. However, financing has become a problem in our current economic environment, especially to the small business person.
More importantly ... I have an amazing family - a beautiful wife and three awesome boys.
My interests include all things outdoors (cycling, hiking, backpacking, etc.) as well as Bible study, preaching/teaching, history, stock trading, listening to music, photography, native plant landscaping, basketball, architecture, and traveling with my wife.
We also enjoy going for drives and sampling restaurants, especially Mexican restaurants and locally owned diners, cafes, or burger joints.
1 comment:
Sounds like a typical elk camp. We hunt the 2nd season in a remote Eastern Oregon canyon (to be kept secret). We have not drawn the big bull tag for several years, but our prefernce points are now at 9 so we should be drawing a couple or so out of our 8 hunters in 2006. This year we saw several branch bulls. We shot three spikes. We arrive at our hunting spot at 5,700 feet on Thursday. Second season starts on Saturday. On Thursday we erect 2 15X21 wall tents, hook them together, a wood stove in each. We cut firewood and then on Friday we do scouting. We pretty much hunt from dark to dark from Saturday the opener, thru the next Friday...We usually break camp on the next Sunday or Monday---and because of our elevation we are usually chained up on all fours to ease our way out of snow up to two feet and down to lower elevation. We have been doing this as a party now for 30 years. We now have three of our sons joining us which makes it nice for packing out the meat. No 4-wheelers here! This is rugged remote country and you see very few other hunters. We live in The Dalles and Dufur area.
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