Shooting the Breeze: Elk hunting buddies

Published 12:15 pm Monday, December 23, 2019

Good friends, I must admit that I am pessimistic when it comes to Oregon public lands hunting. I will be the first to admit that I am not the best, most dedicated hunter to have roamed the wild woods of Eastern Oregon. For me it is hard to keep motivated when, during a long-awaited draw hunt, one has a better chance of seeing more hunters than animals actually being hunted.

To this end, I have decided to focus on meat and damage hunts locally to help soften the damage done by winter herds to our local ranchers and farmers. One such friend and rancher has been “unfortunate” enough to have need of a few people each year to “scatter the herd” to encourage the local elk to move away from the lower ag lands.

This past season was my first to only apply for point savers on most game species. Deer, elk and antelope preference points can be saved up to focus on applications in better-producing public land units one might wish to hunt in the future.

Therefore my family and I decided to only hunt damage tags this season for elk. Elk are not small critters, and having one dead on the ground is only the very beginning of the work that is entailed in securing the meat for the freezer.

Now to the point of this rambling: picking the right hunting partner. This has to be a person or people that are willing to share in all the joys and hardships hunters face out in the wild in pursuit of game. I have, like many of you, spent most of my life hunting with family predominately, but as I age along with my traditional family hunting partners, I find that our party size is dwindling fast due to age, availability and health. Not that my abilities are remotely what they were 10 years ago, but finding people to share in the “experience” of hunting is one of the most critical choices hunters must make.

It is not easy to find a person or group of people that hunt in the same style, or same pace that you do. It may be that some hunting parties focus on traveling open forest roads looking for fresh tracks, or some people like to back country hunt where they carry every necessity with them on their backs, or even on horses and mules. No matter how you choose to spend your time in the woods, finding someone with the same or similar hunting styles can make party hunting more pleasant and relaxing for everyone involved. There are few things as frustrating as trying to integrate into, or integrate someone else into, a group of people who have hunted a certain way for years, only to be saddled with a member of the party that simply has done things differently when in the woods.

I was fortunate to find men and families through working connections that started as professional associations. These relationships morphed into friendships that eventually developed to be trusted enough to share the hunting experience over time. You see, hunting is a very personal activity, and it is emotional as well.

Hunting partners need to share the same value for the game and value for the time spent together in camps and woods living as part of the natural world. Giving new people the opportunity to share these experiences takes a bit of faith and some trial and error, but the rewards are lifelong.

What are your experiences, trials and errors in your search for new people to share our outdoor heritage with? Write to us at shootingthebreezebme@gmail.com!