First Love

It was a cold, dark, rainy, windy day....which means there is no other place I'd rather be than blacktail hunting.

After hours and hours in the stand, the scouting, trail camera monitoring, tree stand hanging, effort finally paid off and Chad Montgomery caught all the action on camera. I hammered this big dude at about 12 yards, he went 50, dying on the run. We have three years of trail camera photos of this beast. And, in three years, we've only seen him during the daylight one time, in 2007. This year we caught him on one of our three cameras one time on Nov. 5th, then nothing until I shot him on the 27th. He was a ghost. Since the 21st, the opener, the only decent buck I had a chance at was a borderline P&Y 3x3 on opening day, which I passed.

It was sweet to finally catch up with the buck we've always called simply, "Big Fork". Big, old mature blacktail, and amazingly, just as I guessed, it looks like he will make Pope & Young as a straight two point. Not that it matters to me...I love his uniqueness....he looked 3 feet tall coming down the trail dogging that doe. I love me some blacktail hunting. Keep hunting hard. Thanks to Chad's support and dedication, we've now teamed up and captured big blacktail bow kills on film three years in a row. Cam

Cameron R. Hanes
www.cameronhanes.com

Location: Blacktail Heaven Oregon