We had heard so many stories that going to the Owyhee Mountains was the place to go for deer. There was supposed to be deer running around everywhere and everyone was getting their game without much work. We knew there were areas where the deer were so thick that a special tag was issued for the hunters to get two deer per year. Dale, Don and I decided to give it a try. We would go for just one day as we did not have the foggiest notion of where to go. We were told the best way was to go to Jordan Valley and take the Silver City road up into the Owyhee Mountains. We were also told that deer stay in the willow patches in the creek bottoms and the farm lands along the road.
Sunday morning, we loaded into Dale’s Jeep pickup truck for a two-hour run to Jordan Valley. We found the proper turn off, then headed up through the farm lands. As we went along, we could see large willow patches out in the fields along the creek bottom. This looked just like the places described to us, as having deer in them. Along the way we were watching for signs of deer when we picked out an extra large patch of willows to try. This was a good place to se if deer actually hang out there. The willows have trails through them like little alley ways. They go crisscross in all directions. The willows are too high to see over them, so once inside a patch, all we could see was the trail we are Standing in. There were deer in all the patches and they would come charging down the trails until they would see a hunter, then turn down a different trail out of sight in a flash. I could see I did not want anything to do with this kind of hunting, after the first deer went by at fifteen feet away on the dead run. No one would know where the other hunters were, and someone was about to get shot the way it was. We checked out several patches before deciding to go on up into the hills.
The road was narrow with a turnout, occasionally. There was a good-looking draw with lots of brush in it, so we stopped to hunt it out. We took a couple hours to make a large circle up and back without seeing any deer. This put the time of day at just after noon so we took time out to have lunch. The traffic started picking up with hunters coming out headed for home. We didn’t think much about it at the time, just a few cars going by. At the place where we were parked the road was wide enough to pass easily. On up the road we went to find another place to hunt. The road started to get narrower and the turnouts further apart. We thought someone had rerouted the freeway. Suddenly, the traffic was so thick, we had to find a wide spot and wait for a chance to move a few hundred yards to the next wide spot. Every kind of vehicle that ever ran, was coming down the road, converted buses, trucks of all sizes, cars and everything imaginable. We would wait as much as a half an hour at a time before we could move at all. After about two hours of this, we could see traffic up the road for miles. Nothing to do but the first chance we turned around and went out with the flow. This was our first and last trip to the Owyhee Mountains on a deer hunt. I felt lucky to be getting out of there alive. I have never had a desire to go back again.