Just got back from my first Hunt and I learned a lot

[kd7nqb]

So I just got home from 3days of hunting in the Tillamook Forest of Oregon. We ended up all getting deer and black bear tags and coming home with not a single kill. But I learned a lot. This hunt had a lot of special meaning to me because I went with a disabled Iraq vet who spent 2yrs learning how to walk again and still out hiked us all this week.

1. Its way harder to be silent than I ever imagined
2. Hunting in Oregon will always be colder and wetter than expected
3. My mosin M44 held up great even after falling in the creek with my rifle it fired just fine when we gave up on hunting and took to some target shooting at our camp.

 

[Dksimon]

dont get down. I have been on plenty hunts that we didnt get anything.
If you got your game every time they would call it killing and not hunting.

I always dress warmer than i think i will need to because you can always take layers off but you cant put on layers you didnt bring.

I also always take an extra change of clothes and leave them in the boat incase i accidently fall in. A fall in the drink could be fatal when its 5 degrees out!

 

[theken206]

"1. Its way harder to be silent than I ever imagined"

practice and patience my friend

how much scouting did you guys do before the season if any??

 

[waterhill]

That is the way we gain the wisdom of the woods.

 

[kd7nqb]

We did quite a bit of scouting visiting the site probably 5 times in the past 3 months. All of our scouting was promising ranging from just seeing fresh prints to actually seeing deer. During our hunt we did see does several times but never saw any bucks at all. We blame a majority of our failure on the fact that we stuck together too much so there were three of us in the same area meaning 3x the scent and noise and we got an unpredicted cold front that caused the animals to hunker down.

 

[Sunray]

1) You may have been hearing yourself breathing. Bambi and Yogi won't hear that. They're usually used to most bush sounds anyway. Both will sometimes come by to see what made the noise too. No talking though.
Moving quietly takes practice. Watch where you put your foot. Put your heel down and roll your foot around the outside. You can practice moving quietly anywhere. It does tend to make some people crazy when you appear out of nowhere in absolute silence. Used to drive my ma up the wall. Stalking a sleeping house cat is the ultimate test. Watch the ears and stop when they move towards you.
A lot of it has to do with the material your coat is made of. Wool is best. Wool will keep you warm even when wet, but it gets heavy. Wool that hasn't had the natural lanolin washed out is the best of all. Hard to find and expensive if you can find it, though.
2) Hunting everywhere will be colder and wetter than expected. Wear a wool or acrylic 'watch' cap. Take lots of t-shirts and wool socks, a few pairs of gloves, a couple of sweatshirts plus a rain jacket(avoid PVC or nylon if you can. They swish as you walk.). If your feet get cold, change your socks. That works immediately. Dry your boots at night too. Stuff 'em with newspaper.
3) Milsurps are like that. They were made to take abuse and keep on working. Moisins especially. They were made to be issued to illiterate conscripts who could be taught to use 'em with minimal training.
"...leave them in the boat..." In a plastic garbage bag tied or taped up tight.

 

[jeepmor]

Good tips Sunray, and I've hunted those woods kd7nqb as we share the same back yard if you will. I'm from here, so this advoce is a long winded. I recall you moving here from the East a while back via this nice forum here.

1. Cat stalking, I think that's the best stalking advice ever, unless the cat's awake. I remember scaring the daylights out of a cat as a kid, he jumped 2 feet in the air.

2. Clothing - Polar fleece will also keep you warm when wet and can be wrung out more thoroughly than wool and is strongly suggested over wool. My brother in Alaska doesn't use wool at all. Columbia brand fleece is the best w/o the Polarfleece logo price point. And it doesn't have the laundering characteristics of wool.....D'oH, that used to fit!!! It's also lighter for the pack, but pretty bulky.

The only quiet rain gear out there I've been able to find has a camo print. In the Portland area, a Sportsman's Warehouse, Joe's or Bi-mart are good place to start. In the PNW rainforests, waterproof breathable is your only choice for exterior shell clothing. You'll still overheat in the steep coast mountains if you hike a lot. Go thinner layers this way. A thin skin tight base layer, a thin fleece mid layer, and an alternating thicker fleece for midlayers or 2 midlayer, 'damn it's cold' days. That high humidity really penetrates, so a tight underlayer is really key to overall comfort in my experience. A waterproof breathable outfit with a mesh liner will add a lot on insulative value purely by keeping that cold outer layer off your thinnest undergarment. By much more than you'd expect.


3. no milsurp experience here.

Rain is good, it keeps you quieter because it makes quite a bit of background noise and softens twigs to your advantage. Game will also stay out in the open longer with overcast rainy skies. Tillamook forest is thick and steep, it's probably best to find some high use game trails and follow them to a good opening, hunker down, and wait before sunrise and near dark. Use the between hours to wander around the trails and hunt and find a promising spot for sundown.

couple more Oregon/PNW coast/Cascade mountain specific things I've learned
- you cannot move quietly through salaal bushes, period.
- a lot of the coast mountain hills are STEEP and wet.
- 100 years or so of logging roads offers a huge network of roads with lots of landings to glass the hills.
- The animals usually head down hill when the weather turns sour.
- Butler creek scope covers are a good investment at $12 or so. They will also spook a deer at 50 yards when snapped open instantly.

hope this helps, happy hunting.


Coyote hunting an excellent year round hunting refresher.

All that said, I missed a nice big buck this year due to buck fever and improper 1-2 second thinking. Any varmint hunting you can do in the 'tween times will keep your skills honed. SE Oregon is a good territory

 

[35 Whelen]

Don't sweat not getting anything. If you always got something, it'd be called shooting, instead of hunting. Persevere.
Regarding cold and wet, when I elk hunt, I always, always, always wear wool. Wool pants, wools socks, wool gloves, wool cap, and a wool coat/jacket. I don't know about any of the new trendy materials, but wool WILL keep you warm when wet. Period. On our hunts through the years I've waded creeks with leaky boots, been snowed on and rained on and sat in wet saddles too many times to count, yet I always stay warm. I wear the old OD green wool army pants. They can be found at military surplus stores for a song and they're very comfortable. The Filson brand wool caps with ear flpas are awesome. One of the nice things about most wool clothing is that since it's not "cool" looking and rarely comes in fashionable camo patterns, it can be had cheap! As an example, I bought an extremely high quality, "Made in the USA" plaid wool coat off of eBay for $10 a few years ago. It's a perfect high country hunting coat.
Last week on our annual elk hunt in NM, Dad and I spent the night on the mountain. We slept in a lean-to made of trees and two cheap-o rain panchos Dad found in his backpack. It rained all....night....long. We had one of those big Hudson Bay wool blankets under us and I slept in my woolies. It was a long, damp, miserable night, but I never got cold.
Good luck on your next hunt!

35W

 

[koja48]

The experience of being in the outdoors far outweighs a punched tag & each time you go, you'll get a little bit better in the woods. The "Learned" in your subject line says it all. Practice glancing quickly at the ground, take a couple steps, glance again . . . soon, your feet will have "eyes," because your mind will register where each stick, rock, pile of leaves are and you'll learn to place your feet without looking at that placement as you step. Sounds as if you had a great time.