by PNWild
Regardless of the outcome, each hunt was a special memory.
I was recently asked what my most memorable hunt was, and to tell you the truth there is no way I could pick only one. Each hunt that I have ever been on has been special regardless if I harvested an animal or not. From carrying a bb gun at the age of five with my dad when he took me duck hunting for the first time, to taking my young children deer hunting with me at the age of thirty-five and every hunt in between. They have all been special in one way or another.
Getting Started as a Young Child
The hunting memories all started when my dad asked me if I wanted to go duck hunting while I was watching cartoons and eating cereal. I believe I was five years old at the time, and I was more than ready to kill (so I thought) some ducks with my bb gun. We drove down to a field where my uncles had just shot a duck out of a ditch but the bird dove under water and it was never recovered. Not sure if it was the same day or not, but I also remember walking the dike with thousands of snow geese flying overhead and taking a shot, and my dad telling me that I hit a goose. From that moment I was hooked. I even collected a handful of spent shotgun shells and put them in my toy box because I liked the smell of gun powder.
In my youth it was all about waterfowl hunting. We eventually got a jet sled, gave it a camo paint job and used it to hunt sloughs and rivers, as well as fish and crab out of. This eventually led to my interest in big game hunting. I had a friend that was really into it, and he invited me on my first deer hunt in western Washington when I was in the eighth or ninth grade. No tags were notched on that hunt but I got to experience what it’s like to sleep in the woods, the process of spotting and stalking deer, and canned chili dinners under the light of a Coleman propane lantern.
Purchasing My First Deer Tag
For my sixteenth birthday my dad got me a .300 Weatherby Magnum rifle, but it wasn’t until I was twenty years old that I actually bought a deer tag and took it hunting. My cousin Jimmy and I rode a four-wheeler up into the hills of Arlington Washington and hunted black-tailed deer, just a few miles from his house at the time. I happened to be on strike from my job that fall, so it allowed me plenty of time to hunt. We were both able to notch our tags on a couple of decent bucks, and after harvesting my first buck I immediately knew that I wanted to do this for the rest of my life.
Frightened by the First Black Bear
A couple of my friends were archery hunters, and I finally decided to pick up a bow for myself and give it a try. I bought a used Bowtech 101st Airborne and in September of 2011 it was the first time I had an archery tag in my pocket. A spike black-tailed buck presented a broadside shot within ten yards and I let an arrow fly, successfully harvesting my first animal with a bow. The following year, Jeff and myself made a day trip to eastern Washington in search of black bears. We both ended up emptying our rifles into a small bear at sixty yards away. Having never bear hunted or been that close to one, I think we were both a little frightened and just wanted it dead.
The following year Jeff and I made our way back to the east side of the state to chase bears and mule deer. It was Labor Day weekend and we had three days to hunt. Back then, most of our hunting consisted of driving around forest service roads and glassing from our trucks. Although we weren’t the backcountry hunters that we are today, we were still able to find some success on the last day of our hunt. I arrowed my first mule deer three-point buck and Jeff shot a decent chocolate color phased black bear, not far from where I killed my buck. These critters were in no way going to make the record books, but a double up on the last day is something to celebrate.
Harvesting My First Mule Deer
That buck that I killed was my first mule deer, and the next season I was fortunate enough to harvest another one, this time using a rifle during the modern firearm season in Washington. Jeff’s family and I spent an entire week having a traditional deer camp that consisted of a big wall tent with a wood stove, homemade meals, and hanging around a camp fire each night. On day seven of that hunt, a buck slipped up and fed into an opening just 135 yards from where I was glassing. Uncle Jimmy (RIP) helped me field dress the buck, and nobody knew it’d be his last year at deer camp.
In 2015 I decided to pursuit black-tail deer on the west side of the state with my buddy James. I remember it being a very wet morning, and it just happened to be Halloween. We had parked behind a locked gate and hiked down a logging road three to four miles, and then posted up on a clear-cut to glass. While scanning the edge of the timber on the other side of the cut, I picked up the face of a buck staring at me while the rain came down. My adrenaline spiked but I was able to remain calm enough to get a good rest on a nearby stump and put this buck down with one shot. I deboned the deer with an old buck knife and packed the whole load into my North Face backpack. The trek back to the truck was miserable, but that’s what made it memorable.
The First Elk Tag
Jeff happened to draw a quality elk tag in Washington the very next year, and that’s when Zack came into the picture and we started Pacific North Wild. For the last eight years the three of us have been documenting all of our hunts with a camera and putting them on our YouTube and social channels. I never thought that our love for hunting would have led to us being a part of the outdoor industry, but I am sure glad it has. Because if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. For me, it all started when my dad took me duck hunting for the first time with a bb gun. If we want to preserve hunting and our way of life, I cannot stress the importance of introducing it to a child or anyone that’s willing to learn about it. Because hunting truly is conservation. See you on the mountain.
