Gordon Blossom of Thorp bagged this buck north of Colville in the Aladdin unit last week – his 70th since he took his first deer at age 14, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department reports.

A disabled Master Hunter who also hunts antlerless elk to help alleviate agricultural damage in Kittitas County, Gordon could be Washington’s oldest active hunter at age 97.

“My wife's grandfather, a Washington State Master Hunter, and as far as I know Washington’s oldest hunter, had success today," Lee Davis of the Kittitas Field & Stream Club wrote on Oct. 17.

"Gordon has had a lot of success over the last few years with elk as well. I have watched him hunt and he takes hunter ethics seriously and is in the Master Hunter Program for the correct reasons. As an example: We have witnessed him NOT SHOOT an elk in a depredation area (Ellensburg 3911) when he could legally but did not because he stated "the elk were leaving and heading back into the area we want them".  Many others would have shot simply because they could.

"We congratulate Gordon on a long and successful lifetime of hunting and thank him for the highly ethical example he sets for young hunters," WDFW officials said in a post on the agency's Facebook Page.