The 2001 hunting season started the same as every other year; applying in April and waiting until June to find out if you were successful or not. This year I was pleased to find out that I had drawn the best area in southern Nevada for trophy mule deer. My hunting partner Kyle and brother-in-law John also drew the same unit.

As it seems with every deer tag that I have drawn, the season came in with a full moon, high temperatures and little cool weather in the forecast. This usually means that the deer are going to bed for the day within an hour of sunrise and not come out again until near dark. After 10 days of hunting in good deer areas, I had nothing to show for my efforts. I had seen a number of bucks but not the right one to fill my tag. My brother-in-law John harvested his first mule deer with a nice 22-inch four-by-three. Kyle was persistent enough to fill his tag with a 27-inch three point.

Finally during the last week of the hunt the weather changed and it gave us some scattered showers and cooler temperatures. A conversation with Kyle set the stage for my final hunt. Kyle suggested we hunt some burned areas in the Clover Mountains while I thought we should go back to the Delamar Mountains where he harvested his deer. He thought we could cover more ground by using the 4-wheeler but I thought it would be easier to just take my truck. We compromised by agreeing on the Clovers and driving to selected spots to glass from the truck. Any other combination would have completely changed the events that were to unfold the next morning.

Maybe the rain and cooler temperatures kept him out longer than normal or maybe it was just blind luck, but there he was. I wish that I could say that we had scouted this buck the whole summer, spent endless hours learning his hiding spots and his favorite feeding areas, and had miles of video of him or had spotted him miles away and spent the rest of the day stalking him, but I can't.