Our 2018 Columbia blacktail deer season was one of the best I can recall, but not for reasons many hunters would think. This deer hunting season was about time in the woods with family.

The past 18 years of traveling the world, hunting for a living, has been wonderful for me, but it’s not been without sacrifices. Going on over 50 hunts a year was sometimes common, and though it was thrilling and I wouldn’t trade it for the world, being in the field over 250 days a year made it hard to be away from home. During those fall seasons I can count on one hand the number of days I would be home, usually filming a blacktail TV show. This fall was different. I liked being home, and I liked hunting without TV cameras.

We invested in a Weyerhaeuser permit near our home, in the McKenzie Unit of western Oregon. We hunted the same exact land my family had hunted since the 1950s. Our youngest son, Kazden, had never been on this land, and I hadn’t set foot there since the late 1970s. My dad, Jerry Haugen, grew up hunting this area, and over the decades our family took many record class Columbia blacktails from here. Dad hadn’t hunted this place since the 1980s, as restrictions prevented public access.

We saw deer, lots of deer, this season. We were on to a monster buck, and it was a rush targeting him for the last six days of the Columbia blacktail deer season, daylight to dark. From the first time I saw him through the 15x binoculars, I knew I wanted him or nothing. I went without filling a tag, but held out hopes until the final moments of the last evening of the season. Kazden, now a junior in high school, and I were actually hunting that evening, the last day of Oregon’s extended youth weekend for general season blacktails; a great program. We hiked into the canyon where we’d last seen the buck. During the last two days we rattled, called, and used all the tricks I’ve learned over my more than 40 years of hunting these elusive deer. I obviously have more to learn, as the buck is still alive. On that final evening I even resorted to putting Kaz’ on a stand, and I zigzagged through thick reprod’ the buck called home, hoping to kick him out. It didn’t work. But we know where to start next year’s hunt.

Tiffany also had a blacktail buck tag, as well as a doe/spike tag she drew. Unfortunately, she got a severe case of food poisoning during the final week of the season and only got out the last morning, but it was enough. Settling in the shooting sticks amid high winds and driving rain, Tiffany made a perfect shot on a spike using a .260 Nosler, filling one of her two tags. This was the first deer we’d taken using Leupold’s new VX-Freedom 3-9×40 CDS scope. This piece of technology is nothing short of spectacular, and worth checking out if you’re looking for an efficient scope that can help take your shot accuracy to the next level, without breaking the bank.

One morning Dad filled his tag on a forked-horn blacktail. I wasn’t with him, unfortunately, but he made a perfect shot on the buck standing 289 yards away. He also packed out the entire deer by himself. Dad is 77 years old, and he’s taken many record class blacktails over the years. He was as excited over this buck as I’ve seen him with some of the big ones hanging on his wall. His feelings captured the true meaning of what hunting is all about, and that’s why I love and respect this man so much.

But it was the stories Dad shared with Kazden that really made this season one I’ll never forget. Kazden saw where I sat on a stump at the age of four(in 1968), cork gun in hand, and had my picture taken. My mom used to be a great painter, and she painted a picture of that moment, which hangs in our hallway, today.

Dad also shared many stories of bucks he’d killed over the years, and many of those hunts I remembered being on with him, before I was old enough to hunt. I also recall many of these big bucks coming into our garage. On the trips I couldn’t go on, I sat on the couch in our living room, staring out the window for hours, enthusiastically awaiting Dad’s return. There were no cell phones back then, and anticipation levels ran high as I waited for family members to come home from the hunt. If they backed into the driveway, rather than coming in front-first, I knew there were deer to skin.

Both of my grandfathers also took some giant Columbia blacktails from this public land over the years. When we drove by a small stand of trees, Dad had me stop, abruptly. “Kazden, see those trees on that hillside?” Dad asked. “That’s where your grandpa Lupon passed away.” It put a lump in my throat and resonated in Kazden’s heart as to how deep the desire to hunt Columbia blacktails truly runs in the Haugen family, as with many families in our area. I’d not seen this place since 1976, and it gave me goosebumps. The last photo I have with my grandpa, Gus Lupon, was standing in our garage with a couple bucks hanging from the rafters. I was two years old. Grandpa went peacefully shortly after that, suffering a massive heart attack at the young age of 49, on the stump from which he’d taken some big bucks over the years. He was doing what he loved, hunting black-tailed deer.

On our drive off the mountain that last evening of the season, Kaz’ and I crested the hills, heading down into the McKenzie River Valley, going West. At that moment so many childhood memories flashed before me, as the city lights of Springfield came into view. There were many times over the years I remember coming out of the hills at dark when I was a kid, only to be in awe of all the lights that made up my hometown. I’ve written a bit about those feelings in many of my blacktail deer articles in various magazines over the last 20 years; but it had been decades since I’d actually seen them. Today, there are more lights than I remember. For several minutes Kaz’ and I sat, glassing in the dark, trying to recognize places in the twinkling town below.

The city has changed. The woods have changed. There aren’t the number of blacktail deer there used to be, but they’re out there, you just have to work harder than in the good ol’ days. But that’s what makes hunting Columbia black-tailed deer so special, so challenging, so addicting.

As Oregon’s blacktail deer season came to a close, and my thoughts confirmed over and over again that consistently attaining a trophy class blacktail deer is the most challenging big game hunt I’ve experienced in North America, I was happier than I’d been in years. Being on the road for so many seasons was tough in so many ways. Personally, it was such a joy to be back home during this blacktail deer season, hunting with Dad, Kazden and Tiffany, and trying to fill their tags. We were minutes from our home, hunting together. It’s what originally hooked me on deer hunting when I was barely old enough to walk in the woods. In the 1960s it was about hunting as a family, having fun in the woods, enjoying nature and all that made up the joy of the hunt; if the bucks came, great, and they usually did. This year felt that same way. I loved that feeling, and I hope we all get to experience it again next season, and the season after, together.