With valid White River deer tags in our pocket and only a couple days to hunt my friend Jeremy Henricks and myself decided it was time to do the “Working mans” hunting schedule this past weekend and ventured off to The Dalles to try and fill our two deer tags.

The weather was warm and we didn’t see the BIG bucks that I know are in the area. Friday morning we passed on a couple smaller bucks hoping to come across Mr. Big. After a slow afternoon and only two days left to hunt we decided it was time to start filling tags with a personal 3-pt. or better requirement. We stuck to our plan and managed to hammer a couple after some hard work.

The way I personally like to hunt is “Run and Gun,” cover ground, glass, cover ground and glass some more. Anytime we would see a doe, we would immediately begin looking for a buck. They were really starting to follow the does around fairly close, so we knew it wouldn’t be long before something with antlers appeared.

Steep, rugged terrain at times and not exactly the coolest of temperatures created a tough hunt, but sometimes you have to pound it out with only a limited time to try and fill a tag. We covered a lot of ground in a short time and my feet are paying the price for it right now. Very tender and blistered heels.

Jeremy’s buck went down on Friday evening, a decent 3-point. It was a little windy as we crept along high ridges and watched the oak covered creek bottoms in search of a shooter buck. Soon one doe appeared, then two more and following behind was this buck. One shot and from 60 yards and the buck was down for good.

I took this small 4 point yesterday morning as I worked my way through the tops of the breaks. Good thing too, it was the only deer I saw while hunting yesterday. I cruised through a couple areas looking for any sign of a shooter buck. I peeked over break peering down into the creek bottom and saw this guy staring at me only 80 yards away. With a single shot my tags was filled. The creek bottom below me was filled with turkeys gobbling as I was gutting out my deer on the steep hillside - made me begin to think of spring already. Not to bad for a quick weekend hunt