Even though California has the biggest population and some of the biggest cities in the country, 97 percent of its land is rural. And about 24 percent of it is protected as public wilderness.

Haugen devoted three seasons to bowhunting this Columbia blacktail, the biggest bodied buck he’s taken. He laid eyes on it one time, moments before darkness fell on this Thanksgiving day. Darkness ...

A hill towered over the land, and at its peak a lone oak loomed like a sentry. The tree provided an escape from the punishing sun, and the hill gave us a vantage of the grounds below where blacktail ...

Darkness consumed the Douglas fir forest in Oregon’s Cascade Range. Unloading the rifle, I headed for the truck. It was pouring rain and windy. Perfect blacktail deer hunting conditions, but the ...