he unforgettable thrill of the hunt
By Jon Rombach
For The Chieftain
B
eing so close that you feel something
happening through vibrations in your
body can be exhilarating. It can also
be terrifying. Or it could be hard on your
hearing, if the vibrations you’re feeling are
coming from speakers on a concert stage
you’re standing too close to. What?
I remember the irst time I felt big rocks
tumbling along the bottom of the Wallowa
River, pushed along by high water. I felt the
impacts through my legs, standing on the
bank. Got my attention, I’ll tell you that.
A lightning strike way too close to a truck
I was driving on the Dug Bar Road once
lit up the daylight even brighter and raised
every arm hair inside the truck. Our eyes
were so wide none of us could blink for the
better part of two days. I can’t say that we
felt any vibration from that lightning bolt,
but it’s the same principle. Close enough
quarters to register a physical response
makes an experience dificult or dang near
impossible to forget.
Avid is probably the best description for
where I was at on elk hunting a few years
back. Hadn’t been successful yet, but was
dedicated to changing that. Then I became
downright addicted to bow-hunting for elk,
and it was all about feeling vibrations.
Mike Baird had taken me on as a hunt-
ing partner, and this was a major improve-
ment over my previous approach of trying to
teach myself. As the wise man Mitch Hed-
berg once said, “I taught myself how to play
GOOD
VIBRATIONS
By Jon Rombach
guitar, which was a bad decision because I
didn’t know how to play it.”
Ditto for my elk hunting self-help efforts.
I read articles, watched videos, asked for ad-
vice and tried to apply it all but just ended up
with lots of hiking, scanning through binoc-
ulars and inspecting old dried-up piles of elk
poop, wondering where everybody went.
Fast forward. Out with Mike Baird, we
heard a bugle from way off. Mike found a
route for us to sneak in downwind, set me
up close to the edge of brush and timber and
dropped back to do some calling. It worked.
Boy, did it work. I could hear the bull com-
ing, snapping branches as he closed the gap.
My heart rate shot up to the range that will
blow a pressure cuff right off your arm. My
brain panicked and told my arms and legs to
start trembling. They were already shaking,
so when trembling was added it turned into
really quiet break dancing.
I’d survived buck fever a few times be-
fore. Almost had a nervous breakdown
watching a steelhead leave a wake as it
closed in on my swinging ly. But this sen-
sation of the dam breaking on my adrenaline
reservoir while the bull marched my way
was beyond buck fever and into elk mania.
Then this happened: the bull pulled up
short of breaking through the thick brush.
There was a pause. Then he let loose and
screamed a bugle aimed right through me.
And I do mean through me. I could feel it. I
try not to get real fancy with italics or capital
letters when putting things on paper, but I’m
telling you I could feel his vocalization in
my breadbasket, vibrating through my chest
cavity. I could FEEL his scream as it rat-
tled and bounced off my short ribs and solar
plexus. Never experienced anything like it,
before or since.
This bull never did step beyond the brush.
Never even saw him. He backtracked, ig-
ured something was rotten in Denmark,
gathered his ladies and lit out. But that in-
cident changed me. Being that close. The
bugle strumming the strings of my nerve
endings. Hoo-wee, I was hooked. Wasn’t so
much about backstraps and elk steaks any-
more as regaining that proximity and getting
that close.
This was a general bow season, over-the-
counter tag. I do put in for premium hunts,
try to be smart about gathering points and
take a lyer on elk hunt rafles and all that.
But I do like that you can buy the ho-hum
general bow tag in Wallowa County, go out
and ind a bull to yell at you close enough
to have it rattle your insides. Don’t get me
wrong — as soon as I can afford it, I’ll be up
in the mountains with an outitter/guide and
not have to worry about how far the pack
out might be. Meantime, though, these Wal-
lowas do hold the magic for a do-it-yourself
elk hunter to go out and get rattled. In a good
way.
Record year for Oregon big game rales, auctions
Wallowa County Chieftain
The Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife’s 2016 auctions
and rafles for Oregon big game
hunting tags grossed a record
$755,963, of which $537,816 will
go to the Access and Habitat Pro-
gram and $218,147 to big game
research and management.
Winners of the special tags
enjoy an extended season and ex-
panded hunt area.
The auction of 13 special big
game tags grossed $517,000 and
included the irst auction for an
Oregon Rocky Mountain Goat
30 | Experience the Wallowas
tag, which sold for $30,000. Sev-
eral of the statewide deer and elk
auction tags sold for new records,
including a statewide elk tag that
sold for $49,000 during the Ore-
gon Hunters Association banquet.
The governor’s combination deer/
elk tag broke the previous record
(by $2,000) and sold for $70,000
this year.
Rafle winners were drawn
at the Oregon Hunters Associa-
tion state convention on May 21
in Canyonville, Ore. A total of
95,343 rafle tickets were sold,
grossing $238,964.
The sportsman/conservation
groups that sponsored the auc-
tions at fundraising banquets of
their organizations in the past few
months will keep 10 percent of
the auction proceeds ($51,700).
Those groups include local, state
and/or national chapters of the
Wild Sheep Foundation, Mule
Deer Foundation, Oregon Hunters
Association, Rocky Mountain Elk
Foundation, Safari Club Interna-
tional, National Wild Turkey Fed-
eration and Oregon Foundation
for North American Wild Sheep.
The A&H Program funds
hunter access to private lands
and wildlife habitat improve-
ment projects in the state. Pro-
ceeds from the pronghorn, big-
horn sheep, and Rocky Mountain
goat rafles and auctions fund the
research and management of these
species, including ODFW’s big-
horn sheep and goat transplants
which are putting these species
back into their native habitat
across Oregon.
For more information on Or-
egon’s Auction and Rafle Big
Game Tags visit www.Oregon-
RafleHunts.com.