As we arose the second day of the season it was still snowing, but not nearly as hard. You could actually see about four-to-five hundred yards. We were all excited as we left the rooms that morning and headed to our hunting spot. We got set up well before daylight in the spots we had decided to watch, and sure enough the game was moving like crazy. Right after daylight I looked across a canyon and couldn't believe my eyes. In a small clearing about 900 yards away was the biggest buck I had ever seen. He had come out of the brush and was looking behind him at a couple of hunters that were walking along the ridge. This buck had such an enormous rack that it could be seen without glasses from 900 yards. As I watched the buck stand in the clearing I knew there was no way of getting to him without him seeing me so I just stayed where I was and enjoyed the moment, hoping he would come my way. He didn't and I never saw that buck again, but what a moral booster!

Wayne Baskins with his 28" muley that had six points on each side.  The buck had great mass on his antlers, but his body size was truly massive.  He weighed 380 lbs at the meat locker  That means the buck weighed over 400 lbs on the hoof!

Later that day when we all met down at the trucks Brad asked me if I had seen that huge buck standing above me in the small clearing. I said "See him! He was enough to give a seasoned hunter the true shakes." I have never seen a young man with eyes for finding game like Brad. This boy was at least a mile away from where I was sitting and yet he had spotted this huge buck through his glasses and had been watching him also. We both laughed about the size of that deer and it's something neither of us will ever forget. Later that day we returned to our own little secret spots to hunt until dark. I passed up several small bucks, as did everyone else.

On the third day of the hunt it was bitter cold and still snowing off and on, but this morning would be different. We hadn't been hunting long when Tommy, Brad's father shot a really nice 4x4 that was really tall and had great mass. I saw that buck and I thought to myself, man, I would give anything to kill a buck like that. At about 10 a.m. I can honestly say, for the first time in my life, I froze out. I decided to head back to the truck to warm up so I could get out in the field again. As I started toward the truck I looked on the side of the hill to my right and couldn't believe what I was seeing; standing there in a small spot of sunshine was the biggest buck I had ever had a chance to shoot at. I knelt down on one knee and with the report of the Browning 7 mag he folded. I knew this was a very big deer but had no idea how big until Steve and I approached it. The snow was deep enough that his head was buried and I couldn't get a good look at his antlers. As we began to pull his head out of the snow we started counting points; he was a perfect 6x6 right at 28 inches wide with really great mass, really long eye guards and a body big enough to be a small bull elk. Later that day when I took him to the locker he weighed in at 380 pounds. This deer was huge! The man that owned the locker told me this buck would have easily gone over 400 pounds on the hoof. I know it took four full-grown men to lift him into the pickup.

The next day or two went pretty much the same with cold and a little snow off and on all day long. Brad and the two McCoy brothers decided they wanted to make one last walk down a ridge where Steve Jr. had spotted a nice buck the day before. Tommy, Brad's father, was going to pick them up at the bottom of the hill in the pickup and head back to California as soon as they arrived.

As the boys started down the hill, Brad spotted a couple of other hunters working their way down the ridge toward him and decided to just sit down for a minute and see if they would kick anything up. What he saw next was something seen by very few hunters: a huge 6x5 with a spread wider than anything Brad had seen, with the exception of the dream monster from the first day, sneaking around a bush just below him. He knew this buck was special and I think that for the first time in his life he actually got a case of genuine "buck fever". The buck stopped for a second to look at the other two hunters and Brad's Browning 7 mag broke the silence, he thought the shot was high, but wasn't sure. The buck traveled only a short distance and presented Brad with a second shot, this one connected and the rest is history. The buck was a really heavy 6x5 with a whopping spread of just over 40-inches. Brad had just done something very few hunters will ever do, shoot a buck with a spread of better than 40 inches.

Brad Cupit with his giant 6x5, 40" wide buck that was taken right after a snow storm.  Hunting right after after snow storms can be very productive especially if you are in the field as the clouds break.

If I'm not mistaken we ended up with five nice bucks that year with everyone in the party getting in on the action. Every time I hear someone tell Brad, "You may as well hang it up now, you'll never beat that buck". I just have to laugh, because we both know that neither one of our bucks was the monster we saw the second day standing in that little clearing. Only the Lord knows how big that guy was.