Hey guys,

Awesome pics JD, happy birthday.

Sounds like the elk rut has been pretty slow everywhere. The guys i've talked to said it's been real quiet around here, probably the warm weather we had last week.

I shot my mulie on sunday He's not the toad I was searching for but he's another non-typical and we all know I have a soft spot for those .

I had been glassing two or three promising groups of bucks all summer and fall. In the end I came up with three or four bucks that I would be happy with. Two were big clean 180ish typicals. and the other was a knarly old fart of a non-typical. I spent all bow season (or at least when I wasn't distracted by whitetails) trying to get the smaller of the two typicals because he was accessable and I had permission. I actually had him at 60yds the morning I shot my whitetail but it didn't pan out. After returning from a few weeks of field work in time for opening day of rifle last wednesday, I finally got a hold of the landowner whose field the bigger typical and the old fart were hanging out in. Of course, I saw the big typ on opening morning (two hours before I got permission) just as happy as can be out in the wide open grain field only to return that night and find no trace of him. I know he wasn't shot but for the next four days I went back morning and night hoping to catch a glimpse of him during shooting light. Patience having never been a strengh of mine, by Sunday morning I was getting antsy. For my morning plan I had settled on checking the grain field at first light for large deer shaped objects and then sneaking around to the south side of the section to see If I could catch him coming off an another alfalfa field to the south. I got to the field about ten minutes before first light and spotted a large dark critter shaped mass feeding through the field about 500yds out. I figured I better have a closer look so I worked my way along the edge of bush towards a slight rise that would give me a 100 yard look at the buck. By legal light I could tell it was not the big typical and the the sinking feeling in my gut was replaced by contempt for what appeared to be the 4th largest buck I had seen over the summer, a super tall, thin, poor forked typical with 15 inch main beams. I had seen this deer every morning of my hunt and getting tired of being tricked into wasting precious time on dawn sneaks only to again confirn that he was not what I was looking for. This time, however, I stayed and decided to watch him for a bit until it got lighter. As the sun slowly rose, I realized that he was not the spindly buck I mistook him for but the heavy old fart (who shares some of the same characteristics in the pre-dawn light) I had seen earlier in bow season. Freshly out of velvet the old buck casually made his way back towards the bush. I watched, hummed, hawed and after one last look at his better than average brows, shot him at 120yds. He dropped in his tracks and it dawned on me, I had to drag him out[:@] . The landowner had insisted that no vehicles were allowed on his land. So, after an hour or so of swearing I had him loaded and on the way home.

He grosses 164, A little less than I thought but I am happy. There's something about non-typicals that I just can't resist.

Good luck guys, sorry I didn't post sooner but I wanted to take the time to tell the story.