By  Roger Sanger and Steve Helsley

Even before the movie “Bucket List” came out with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson planning their last “I have to do before I die list” as they suffered from terminal cancer, the idea of dream hunts have been in the minds of all of us. For reasons not fully understood, many of us never get around to doing that “bucket list” hunt.  Money, distance, time, where to go, whom to go with, when to go, etc. all can be impediments.

Ken Harding is known to many of us as a retired Portland area school administrator married to a beautiful Welsh girl and who organizes trips annually to Wales for driven birds and who loves to find English guns to bring back to America for friends. Ken’s US “playground” is the eastern part of Oregon known for its large ranches offering the grand slam in wingshooting of pheasant, chukar, hun, and valley quail. Many of us have been his guests on some of the ranches he can access in his home state.  (See Shooting Sportsman Magazine (SSM) Nov/Dec 2008 “Eastern Oregon Odyssey by your authors).

Late last year Ken was at a Pheasant Forever meeting where he meet David Ford who was the new General Manager of Ruggs Ranch, a 80,000 plus acre ranch near Heppner, Oregon. Ruggs has had previous owners who have built a respectable Orvis endorsed bird hunting operation complete with wild and supplemented birds, knowledgeable guides, pointing bird dogs, beautifully appointed western lodge, and outstanding cuisine. Under new ownership and management, Ruggs has become “the” place to go for horseback and horse drawn wagon hunting behind pointing dogs in the rolling high desert plains and valleys of Eastern Oregon. Knowing that your two writers do assignments for Shooting Sportsman Magazine, Ken suggested we contact David Ford to introduce him to the magazine.

Now we already had been a filling our “bucket list” with hunting trip ideas – one of which was wingshooting from horseback or horse drawn wagons behind pointing dogs.  Steve immediately called Dave to get him in contact with Ralph Stuart, Editor in Chief of Shooting Sportsman Magazine.  After discussing a marketing plan with SSM, Ralph wanted to have us experience first hand what exactly Ruggs Ranch offers for wingshooting from horse or horse drawn wagons. So we did exactly that. An article should appear shortly in SSM but we wanted to preview our trip to Ruggs Ranch for the CSXSS members. (See the Ruggs Ranch ad in the March/April SSM page 7)

We arrived on a Tuesday afternoon to check in at the lodge. Transportation can be arranged by the lodge from Pendleton, Oregon or Pasco, Washington airports if you don’t wish to drive up from California.  Steve had driven up from California while Ken and Roger from Portland. After a night at the lodge, we were off on Wed morning with our duffels and guns loaded on to ranch crew cabs pulling horse trailers.  At a remote part of the ranch we were out of the crew cabs and introduced to our horses – quarter horses from the ranch herd with tons of experience. After some horse etiquette, we were immediately up on the horses and heading out to the high plains with pack horses, wranglers, guides, and pointing dogs.  Still within sight of the ranch vehicles, the pointing dogs “locked up” and it was time for dismounting the horses, taking the side by sides from the scabbard, handing the reins over to a wrangler, and following the guide to where the dogs had cornered some birds. After we were in place for the flush, the dogs did just that and up sprang a covey of Huns.  After retrieving the birds, the horses were brought up to us for remounting and it was off to find the next covey of huns or chukars. After a pack lunch in the field, it was off for more hunting. This continued until we were in sight of our camp for the first night.

The camp was beside a creek and there were two large “elk style” canvas wall tents –one complete with cots, mattresses, wood floor, carpet, gas lanterns and wood stove and another complete for eating and socializing. Outside the tents were Dutch oven cooking fires, BBQ fires, and a social fire ring. While the wranglers tended the horses and the guides tended the cooking, we were treated to regaling each other of the days hunting for chukar and Huns. Using this set up as a base camp we hunted the next two days on horse back. Chukar and Huns in the draws and pheasant and quail in the creek bottoms.  One afternoon, Dave even set up his version of driven pheasants (Pheasants Under Fire) and they were as challenging as any we have seen in the UK.

We spent two nights in the camp – Wed and Thurs. One day hunting into camp. One day hunting around the camp. And, one day hunting out of the camp back to the road.  We were back at the lodge Friday night and then on Saturday we hunted around the lodge without horses.  It was then check out time with packaged birds in late afternoon.

Although we didn’t experience the horse drawn wagon hunt, we were told that if someone did not want to be on horseback they could hunt from a horse drawn wagon.  The hunt and camp can handle a group of up to eight shooters with some on horses and some on the wagon with trading off happening on subsequent days if a person didn’t care to be on horse back all three days as we were.

We did this hunt in February but the ideal time is usually late fall. If the CSXSS is interested with enough members, the ranch can custom make a program for a small group of either four or eight shooters. Look for a more complete article to follow in SSM soon. If you wish more information, please don’t hesitate to contact David Ford at 541-676-5390 or 541-561-3507 or www.RuggsRanchHunting.com. Tell Dave you are CSXSS member.

As our Governor used to say in his Terminator movies  “I’ll Be Back!” Call either Roger (831-594-6512) or Steve (916-933-3538) for more discussion.