zcilahim

The mule deer on the wall is probably the least exciting of them all. The year I got him I was also drawn for moose. I told my wife I was only going to shoot a big deer if the opportunity presented itself as we would have a lot of meat with the moose tag. I put my tag on him 5 yrs ago and back then I didn’t do a ton of pre-work. We have always had big deer in our area but I never had a ton of time to do a lot of scouting. We just know the areas that typically hold the deer. So opening day comes and me and my hunting buddy hit the road and I tell him we are looking for a nice mature deer. We get out to where we planned to start the day. It’s early and we stop to switch seats I get my gear out and ready to go. We decide we would do some driving and glassing in the morning just to see what was moving around. We start driving and get to our first spot to glass and he’s standing in a small opening with a doe about 300-400 yds away. He was standing perfectly broad side not paying muck attention to us and I tell my buddy well he’s a decent buck but I think we can do better. Right as the words leave my mouth he turns his head and all we see is junk everywhere and I say never mind we are going to put a plan in place. He saunters into a bush with his doe and we walk to the far side of the bush and start working our way back. I’m on the outside as I was the only one with a tag and he’s in the middle of the bush. We are 75% through the bush and approaching where we think he should be. Then all of the sudden one, two, three, four, five does come out in a line. My heart is starting to race but he doesn’t come out with them. Then I hear my buddy say here he comes. I get ready he comes busting out on the side of a small hill and all I can see is the top half of his back. It’s hard to believe how animals understand the contours of the land. I shoot and miss shoot again and miss and then on the third attempt I connected. We were both super excited and happy it all worked out. He has 19 scoreable points and grossed just over 198.