Three trips and never had been in range of a decent Muley, yet I still decided to get a deer tag during my 2009 elk bow hunt. I figured statistically I had a good chance to see a decent Mule deer being that I hadn’t seen squat in the previous 3 years! This year proved that I made a good choice. On the morning of our third day hunting we were working our way down a draw, following a herd of elk when we spotted a good Muley feeding in the open sage. We quickly got the camera out, and ranged him at 53 yards. I was pumped!
The only problem was that he was facing us and I had no shot, there was also the problem of us standing in the wide open with no cover and as soon as he picked his head up he spotted us. We froze, but when he finally turned broadside his vitals were obscured by a tree branch. Slowly i inched down the hill for a clear shot. No dice, the buck bounded off and I was a little disappointed. I was so close I thought for sure I wont get another chance like that. I was wrong. We continued to chase elk that morning, weathered a short rain shower in the afternoon and continued to glass after the rain.
Around 6PM I spotted a buck about 3/4 of a mile away coming out of some timber to feed in the sage. We pulled out the spotting scope and confirmed that he was the same buck that we ran into that morning and he was actually in a stalkable situation. I wasted no time, I hurried down the trail, around the mountain and up the other side. I had my buddy Erick filming and spotting for me from afar and we were communicating via walkie-talkies.
The buck was feeding in some open sage with timber to the South of him and a rock spine to the North, with the wind in my face I crept up the rock spine and peeked over to see the buck feeding with his head down, broadside. I pulled out my range finder-53 yards…I took a deep breath, nocked and arrow, aimed and let fly. My Easton axis tipped with a 4 blade slick trick sliced completely through the deer. He ran about 30 yards and stood there. As I eased down the rock spine for a follow up shot a doe spooked the buck, he slowly walked into the timber and I knew he was about to fall over soon but I decided to be safe and return in the morning.
After a night of difficult sleep I found him on the trail where I had last spotted him. I was relieved and very excited. We gross scored him at 152 1/8 and he netted over 147″ which exceeds the Pope and Young minimum of 145″! Although I was happy the buck scored Pope and Young, that is not the reason that this hunt was successful. If the buck scored 144 I would have been just as excited, not to mention I was on an elk hunt and the deer was a bonus in itself.
Mike
