| Through the years I have
learned the importance of pre-season scouting and to get up earlier than most other people
so you can be the first one to those special places. How many times have you heard this
line? I was just sneaking up to the meadow, field or creek bottom, and was almost there
when "boom" someone else harvests that nice bull or buck you were after. Anyway,
that first year I was lucky enough to harvest a calf elk. As the years went by we started
getting more animals under our belts. It wasn’t that important to just harvest an
animal but to look for a few respectable ones. A trophy mule deer was the one animal I had
been unable to collect. All the guys I hunt with had taken 27-30 inch bucks in the high
160-190 class. So in 1997 I decided it was time to put back in for a limited quota area
that held some good bucks and told myself if you get this area only a good 27 inch
four-point would get shot. Well, in July I found out
that I had drawn - so the task at hand was set to find a good buck. Only one problem; I
work for the federal government as a wild land firefighter, and that doesn’t leave me
a lot of time to scout. But by the end of October I was able to find a few bucks that met
the requirement.
Opening day finally came around. We went with a good friend
and great mule deer hunter Shawn Christenson (who himself has taken three bucks 27-30
inches in this area) to a special place, a creek bottom with very little water and six to
10 foot tall sage filling 85 percent of the creek. This was the place where the big bucks
most of my friends harvested had come from.
We sat and glassed for a while and it didn’t take long
to find a buck in the rut. Bucks were starting to chase the does just enough that they
were moving. We estimated one buck at 28 inches and in the 170 class. Shawn told me that I
should go after him but for some reason I told him "no" it was only the first
hours of the first day and we still had 14 days and nine hours left. He thought I was
crazy but we left and spent the next 14 days and seven hours looking for one bigger. We
managed to find only one and I would have had him if it hadn’t been for five guys
running out in front of us through the sagebrush scaring everything off for miles. Oh
well, better luck next year or whenever I would be graced with a good license again.
The next four years I put in for the special place only to
get my money back. It’s not like I’m not lucky, I’ve had two sheep licenses
of which one was used on a 7 1/2 year old ram that scored in the 160s, a moose license in
the hardest area in the state to draw and several elk permits in areas pretty hard to
draw. So I guess you can say that luck was indeed on my side!
July 2000 finally came around and I received the news that
I had drawn a license for the special place. I called Shawn to tell him of my luck and
found out that he had drawn too. Another good friend of mine Gordon Deromedi and his
daughter had also drawn out. Four of us out of 100 would be hunting out there. So for the
next four months we all spent our fair share of the time scouting, telling each other of
bucks we were seeing and where we found a good water source. By the end of October, we all
had at least one good buck we could go after. When we heard the story of a big buck
another hunter had seen, one they say would go 36-37 inches, the hunt was on to find him.
We looked in every crack and crevice with no luck.
We were seeing some of the same bucks we planned on
hunting, which was good, but still we wanted to get one good look at the big guy. The day
before the season I was looking for bucks early in the morning and came across the guy who
had seen the big buck. He told me that as I pulled up the big boy had just laid down.
Wanting to see him I stayed there for about 1 1/2 hours but never saw sight of him. It was
close to an area that I had permission to hunt so I decided maybe that would be a good
spot to be in the morning. If someone happened to jump the big guy, maybe he would come in
my direction.
Back home I took a nap around 3 p.m., and Gordon called and
asked if I would be going back out one last time. I said "yes". So we loaded up
and headed back out to find one of the good bucks to go after in the morning. Low and
behold right at dark we saw a real good buck over 30 plus inches with good forks front and
back. We figured he would be close to the 190s, about where the big guy was. The stage was
set. This was where we would be coming in the morning.
The morning started at 4:30 a.m.: a little breakfast, load
the truck and out of town by 5:00. It was about an hour or so later that I met up with
Gordon and his daughter Kristen who was on her first deer hunt. We chatted a little and
then took off walking through the dark and 10 foot tall sage. We reached a place where we
could glass the field we had seen the buck in right at dark and some trails leading out
into the sage.
We sat there for about 45 minutes glassing and looking for
deer but the only game we managed to see were two deer about a mile off and they turned
out to be does. So it was time to put plan two into action. We would use the
15-mile-an-hour wind to our advantage and move into it slowly walking through the high
sage in hopes of finding one of the big guys bedded down out of the weather.
We started walking parallel to each other coming back
together every now and then to talk about what we had seen or how we should work the next
patch. After we had done this a few times we got back together and talked about how it
didn’t seem like there was much sign and the lack of deer we were seeing.
Did they know it was hunting season or had our pre-season
pressure scared them off? Slowly moving through the brush, we saw a doe, and then another,
a small four point in the 18-inch class, and then another doe. They stood for about three
seconds and then took off. I whistled at Gordon and pointed so he would know that there
were deer in front of us. I took off after them to make sure there wasn’t something I
had missed. But the brush was so thick I couldn’t find them. Boy was this going to be
fun getting to look at a deer for all of one second before they would disappear into
eternal hiding.
About 50 yards later we came back together and I relayed
what I had seen. We then broke and started waling at a slow stealth mode looking for
anything that might resemble a deer. About 50 yards from our last meeting I ran into a
huge wall of brush that I couldn’t walk through. I started to skirt around it, and as
I cleared the brush off to my right I saw something white with a black....YES, it was a
deer. In one fluid motion the rifle ( a 300 Ultra Mag) came to my shoulder, the
cross-hairs centering directly on his nose as I pulled down about three inches to where I
figured his neck or the start of his chest was, hoping that what I thought I had seen was
a horn sticking out about four inches past his left ear. "BOOM", the rifle went
off and then silence.
 He
was standing only 70 yards away, had I missed? Was it a horn? Did it have another to match
if it was truly a horn that I had seen? That was what I didn’t know. If the other
horn matched, he was a nice deer, I slowly walked forward 20 yards, 40 yards, 60 yards
nothing! I was sure that he should be right there. Had I missed? There was a slight twitch
of the brush in front of me.
As I walked forward and got my first look at him lying
there, disbelief came over me. It was him, the big boy! A few people had seen him but were
unable to find him. I had shot him! I screamed for Gordon and Kristen to come over. He
stuck out his hand like a true hunter and friend and congratulated me. In return I said
"thanks" and then we took to admiring him.
He was everything people had said about him. Wide, heavy,
good forks, and even a few sticker points here and there that added to his phenomenal
rack. Back to the truck I went to get the pack and camera. After a whole roll of film, we
got to work on caping him and taking care of the meat. I told Gordon that I would be right
back to help them look for or get anything they had gotten out.
Well she did it. Gordon called and said to meet them at the
house around 9:30 and Kristen would show us her deer. He was a beauty, a 27-inch three
point. We were all happy for her and congratulated her on a job well done. Guess
we’ll have to watch out for her, she just might beat us all!  |
