Mt. Adams is located in Southern Washington State between Mt Ranier and Mt St Helens. Mt. Adams is a little less developed and more remote than the other two. After I moved from Coos Bay, Oregon to Washington I needed to find another local area to hunt Deer. I chose the Mt Adams area because it was surrounded by virgin and second growth Douglas Fir, with a few clear cuts scattered here and there. The other reason was it wasn't hunted very hard during the Deer season, but came alive during the Elk Season. My Elk Hunting adventures is another whole book, we'll get to that later. The following stories relate the Deer hunts between 1986 and 1993.

********************************************

The name given to this story speaks for itself. From my previous stories one might think I'm one hell of a lucky hunter or I just might have some skill. The fact is the previous years were a little bit of both. When you give up your old hunting spots, its like losing your best friend. Years of scouting, tracking and planing go down the drain. In some cases it is near impossible to find other productive spots. As each year goes bye, we get more Posted and No Trespassing signs, less public land and access. But there are still places a guy can hunt successfully. I 'm currently grooming a postage stamp lot (about 300 acres of State Land) and if the conditions are right, it will be productive. And that is the way I looked at the Mt. Adams area. Against all odds I was going to be successful there as well.

**

I probably had four or five hunting camps in the Mt. Adams area during that seven years. Some of my hunts (most) were by myself for a few days to a week. I made a couple one day trips, seeing more deer en-route, in the dark, than at the hunting area. There was a beautiful high mountain lake nearby, named Takala Lake. The reflection of the mountain was a constant picture. I had several places directly North of the lake that were suitable for camps. I think I had both 11ft truck camper and tent camps. The camper was nice, because anyone who has lived in western Washington in the fall knows how cold, wet and windy it gets. You are hard pressed to get a camp fire going in western Washington during the fall. I remember one hunt when a co-worker of mine wanted to hunt with me. He was a vehicle mechanic I called him "Bucks" for short. He also was a farrier and owned horses. He said that he would meet my son and I down at Mt Adams, and he would hunt on horseback. My son and I put in a pretty good camp considering the weather which was pretty wet. We put up some poles and put several tarps over them creating a nice shelter. We waited pretty late and it grew dark and Buck's hadn't showed up yet, so we lit a lantern and started a very smoky fire. At 9.pm we gave up and went to bed. At 10 pm I heard the roar of a old beater Ford pickup coming in the area of our camp. Lo and behold it was Buck's towing a 35 ft horse trailer. There wasn't much room but we got him parked. I asked Buck's if he brought the whole herd (the huge trailer), he said hell no, just the stallion. Stallion (wonderful), he brought it out of the trailer and tied it to a tree about 20 ft from camp. He came over and wanted to know what was for dinner. I told him we had eaten 2 hours ago. I gave him some junk food and a coke and told him he could sleep under one of the tarp shelters I made. We went back to bed and were soon asleep. About 1 am I heard a loud crash and all hell breaking loose over where Bucks had tied his horse. Something had spooked the stallion. The stallion had pulled the tree clean out of the ground and was tearing around in circles. GREAT, just what we needed at 1 am in the morning. Buck's is trying to get his britches on and I'm running around outside in my long underwear trying to get a hold on the horse. I didn't even notice it was snowing. We captured the horse and pondered what next. Buck's says we need a corral. Say what, its snowing, I'm outside in my underwear, and Buck's wants a corral. Oh shit I say, off to the truck I go and get the chainsaw. I start sawing down 6 inch trees as fast as I can. After about cutting and branching 10 trees, I tell Buck's there ya are, I'm going back to bed. I tried to go back to sleep, but I was half frozen and Buck's was making one hell of a racket and swearing at his horse. My alarm went off two hours later. My son and I got out of the shelter, got the lantern and stove going. Hot coffee, bacon and eggs with home fried potatoes. Wahoo!! I kept yelling at Buck's to get up as dawn was only an hour away. All I got in response was a loud snoring. The horse was corralled in a maze of logs and didn't sound happy. After breakfast I kicked Buck's one more time and told him we were hunting and left some breakfast for him. He grunted and my son and I headed out. As dawn broke I was working some reprod (about 12 ft Fir trees) and could sense deer but couldn't see them. About an hour later it stopped snowing and there were sun breaks. We were sitting on a log watching an open area, when I heard a racket in the reprod, brought my rifle up, and made ready to shoot. About fifty feet from me a soaking wet Buck's astride his stallion exited the trees. He said did ya see those deer, I didn't see any deer. He said yes, I was driving em, I could hear them out in front of me. We hunted the rest of the day and didn't see anything. We had a good dinner and great campfire. The stallion was tucked in for a good nights rest. We hunted separate ways the next day but saw nothing but a spike buck that Buck's wanted to shoot, but wouldn't let him. We broke camp at noon and headed home, worn out, but we had a few laughs. Horse and me don't mix when hunting....................Grizzzzzzz

***************************

Like I said earlier, I hunted most of the time by myself. On occasion I allowed my sons come along. My son Alan had gone hunting with me several times, but never hunted. He finally attended the hunter safety course and also got his first vehicle that we called the "green pickle". I advised against buying this car, however he earned the money from the local pizza parlor for it, so I gave in. It was a crappy green color, old Toyota Celica. It was dead as much as it was alive and he had kicked it full of dents, every time it was dead. But it got him to school and work, what do you want for $600. bucks. He wanted to hunt deer, so I said I'm going down and you can come on down when you can get off of work. Every father who has hunted deer wants to be with his son when he gets his first deer, its kind of a ritual. Alan had proven to me he could handle guns at home in the field in a safe manner. I had taught him never to carry a loaded gun in a vehicle, and never take one in a house if it was loaded. I had him learn what I called the double check system. We checked are weapons every time we handled them, even if we thought we knew they were empty. It was mandatory if you hunted with me. He now hunts, just returned from Montana with a whitetail & a mule deer. I hope he still double checks and never trust his memory. Anyway I went down to Mt Adams in my 1979 Ford P/U F350 w/camper. (Last year built a good truck) It was raining like hell. Alan wanted to sleep in his tent, so I rigged a tarp over a small tent for him. The camper was a 11 foot Caveman, with all the bells and whistles, plenty warm and dry inside it. Alan showed up when he was supposed to and moved into his quarters. It rained and blew so hard it was impossible to have a fire. I wore rain gear, but even that didn't keep me dry. Worse yet did you ever try to see through a wet and fogged up scope lens. It was that way all the time I hunted the West Side. Alan and I hunted separate directions that morning. That morning was one of those mornings that I have eluded to. I had crossed a spot on earlier hunts that said right here to me, however I never spent much time watching that spot. That morning it was so wet I parked myself under a tree where I could stay half way dry and watch that spot. I dried my scope lens and checked my weapon and the wind. About an hour later I had become a little bored and was messing with something when I could feel something watching me. I slowly turned my head to the right, and about 50 yards out at the spot I had mentioned stood a four point blacktail buck. He was staring straight at me. I figured I might get a quick shot before he jumped into the brush, but I never raised the weapon. We just continued to look at each other. This was the first and only buck I ever saw, that I would consider shooting, in the forest surrounding Mt Adams. Not today, I said. I finally changed position and the buck walked off behind some firs and was gone. Not today I said. Alan hadn't seen anything either, and I didn't tell him about the one I didn't shoot. We cooked some good food and enjoyed each others company, the way it should be, but Alan never had an opportunity to kill a blacktail while hunting with me. For that matter, not any deer. Maybe it wasn't meant to be. I stayed a day or two more and Alan went home, so he could go back to school and work. He had some problem with the pickle en-route home, I can't remember what it was.....GRIZZ

More stories soon!