THREE IZEE SIBLINGS ARE ON THE HUNT
MENTORED BY THEIR MOM AND DAD, CINCH, RANEY AND MONEL ANDERSON ENJOY RIFLE HUNTING AS A FAMILY
Story by Angel Carpenter
Blue Mountain Eagle
T
Raney Anderson of Izee poses with her blond black bear, harvested in the Milton-Freewater area.
he kids each had their start
at age 9 through the
Oregon Department of
Fish
and
Wildlife
mentored youth program,
supervised, one at a time,
by their parents.
MT Anderson said his
son and daughters have
had a lot of shooting
practice on their ranch
property in rural Izee.
“It’s something where we
don’t have to camp. We walk
out our back door, and the
hunting is pretty good,” he
said. “They’ve been shooting
since they were in diapers, like
most Grant County kids.”
Cinch, 15, harvested his
first bear on their property last
fall.
He and his dad saw the bear
feeding in a draw one night,
and after several short hikes
over the course of a week, they
finally caught up to it. Cinch
made the shot from 355 yards.
He also killed a large mountain lion on the property in
early August this year.
“I like hunting with my family,” Cinch said. “It’s
something I really enjoy. It’s fun for me, just being outside
and sitting with the family. Everything is fun about it.”
He said he likes the challenge of glassing the animal,
then the test of seeing if they are good enough to harvest
them, mainly with a long-range rifle for a clean kill.
“I like eating the meat also,” Cinch said.
Now, he’s planning his fall deer and elk hunt.
Raney, 12, hunted her first bear last spring in Milton-
Freewater.
She said everything she knows about hunting she’s
learned from her dad and grandpa.
“I hunt with them all the time,” she said. “They’re there
to help me whenever I need it.”
There were an abundance of bears in the West Blues
Unit, where they hunted with permission on a private ranch.
They saw 50 to 60 black bears in different color phases,
black, blond, cinnamon or brown.
“I wanted a blond one,”
Raney said.
They searched up until the
last day of the bear hunt.
“It was kind of chaotic,” she
said. “We were looking for a lot
of different bears, and we were
running out of time.”
Raney said they spooked
one bear they were tracking, so
they went after another.
“We were down to about 20
minutes left of daylight,” she
said. “I was really happy. I
didn’t want to go home without
a bear.”
Her dad packed it out of the
canyon for her.
MT said bears harvested in spring are leaner, and taste
better, than those in the fall, and they recently enjoyed meat
from Raney’s bear for dinner.
Monel, 9, has been mentored by her mom, Cori.
She shot her first elk last winter on the ranch, earning
bragging rights by shooting it at a distance of 301 yards.
“She’d glassed before, but that was her first,” MT said.
“It was neat for the whole family.”
“I like hunting with
my family. It’s something
I really enjoy. It’s fun for
me, just being outside
and sitting with the
family. Everything is fun
about it.”
Monel Anderson with the cow elk she shot at her family’s property in Izee.
12 • GRANT COUNTY HUNTING JOURNAL 2017
Cinch Anderson with a cougar he shot on his family’s property in Izee.
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GRANT COUNTY HUNTING JOURNAL 2017 • 13