This is going to be a more condensed write up than some of my last hunts but did want to share the story:

My last couple of travel hunts have taken place outside the U.S. While I thoroughly enjoyed them, as well as getting to visit other cultures, I wanted my next hunt to be a little closer to home and not so reliant on air travel.

I really missed hunting mule deer the last several years, so when an opportunity came available for a 6 day fall hunt, I took it.

Preparation for the trip was pretty standard; make sure your gear and equipment are tight, you are in shape physically and mentally and after that, you should be ready to rock. Back in July, after a beach vacation, I noticed I was a little doughier than what was acceptable to me, so I cut out all the sugar and started limiting my calories and really got back into prime shape. The area I was hunting in offers not only the opportunity for a shot at some distance but a high probability.....this area is comprised mostly of open, steep country with few trees and little cover. So, I ended up spending much more time behind the rifle than I usually do before a hunt. A week or so before the hunt, I experienced a scope malfunction that eliminated any trust in the unit; it was promptly replaced and re-zero'd with the new scope. Time was limited and after then initial zero, I only got to exercise with it one time before the hunt and I didn't shoot great, so confidence wasn't extremely high with my rig going into the hunt. Still, I had few options and even less time, so I cased it up along with the rest of my gear, loaded the truck and headed north. God was with us on the trip and we dodged some major storms that would have surely impeded our travel. The trip was long but thankfully uneventful. We pull into base camp, unload and get ready to hunt the next day.


The following day we wake up around 4:30am, grab a quick bite and head out....our outfitter has a captain friend who had spotted a large buck on several occasions as he was navigating the river. This area is accessible via a 7-8 hr. horseback ride, but a 30 min ferry had been arraigned for us for the day. Plan of action was to glass from the river bank and make a stalk if we spotted the deer. We meet at the landing and take off, a short while later we beach the boat, climb out and start glassing. Day breaks and we immediately see several deer; does and small bucks. At about 7:30 am we spot a bruiser of a buck WAAAAYYYY up on top of the ridge sky lined about 1500 yards away. We set up the spotter and see this buck is Tall, Heavy and Wide. He has great front forks, but to our surprise he is not split on his G-2's. He is a hell of a buck, just not one to burn 3 hours walking to, so we keep looking. A small herd of elk grazing along the riverbank keeps us entertained in between deer sightings.

At around 7:30, we decided to move. My guide Micah, conferred with the Captain and they agreed that someone should check a drainage that is not far from our initial landing but impossible to see from the river. We pull up to the bank and as I start grabbing my pack, was informed that "we are just taking a quick stroll, just bring your rifle". So I bail off the boat with just my rifle and my bino's and follow Micah and his dog up the trail (you know it's just a stroll when you bring the dog) with plans to meet back up in an hour at the landing. We start off down the trail that parallels a creek going away from the river. We spot one small 3x3, around 75 turkeys and one spruce grouse, but additional mule deer were not seen. About 45 min later we reach a point where if we go further we will A. not make it back in time, or B. get in an area that even if we did see something, it would be unreachable on foot, so we turn around and start making our way back. We start having a discussion about overlooking deer, how well they can hide, etc. when shortly after Micah spots a deer about half way up the adjacent ridge. We take a quick look and can make out a small 3x3, a decent 4x4 and a handful of does. Glassing over the area he sees a wide buck coming in from the right ( he has 16x bino's and can judge a deer from that distance, which is approx. 1000 yards) and after switching bino's we agree we need to get closer to this buck for a better look. We shuck our jackets and take off up the ridge face.

After a few hundred yards in I'm starting to struggle a little bit. This ridge is about at a 45 degree or better angle and covered in loose rock, short grass and cactus. We stop every 50 or 75 yards to take a better assessment of the buck and to give me a breather. Around the 600 yard mark, we make the call to continue pursuing him....we know his forks are not super great (This is a trophy rut hunt and on this trip, I'm looking for the big boy, as I've killed some decent desert mule deer but nothing great) but he is wide and looks like he has good mass. We keep going and I'm dying, I'm breathing heavy, my legs are locking up and every step is a chore. Now I can walk some miles here on flat country or even rolling terrain, but this is something I have not experienced before. We get to the 400 yard mark and we re-assess....at this point I'm gonna try and kill this deer out of principle regardless of what he looks like, just because I had to partake in this death march. Shot distance is starting to be considered so I elected to use the terrain to sneak just a little bit closer, Micah, the dog and me move from rock pile to rock pile to close the distance another 75 yards. At 320 yards, we set up behind a rock face and look at the scenario. The two other bucks have vanished ( during one of our stops we saw the two other bucks get into a fight and then the victor headed in the direction of the big buck, so I assume he ran them both off before joining the does) and the does are starting to notice our party of 3 (the black dog probably more than anything) and are starting to slowly move from right to left. They cross a ravine and this allows us to move forward to another rock pile, but that's as far as our game of hopscotch is gonna be able to go. We range it at 215 yards. I drop the bipod legs, throw in my ear plugs and get settled in behind the scope. I am breathing heavy and since they are fairly calm and in wide open country, I take a few minutes to get my breathing down. I crawl back behind the scope right as the buck beds down. We take another minute and discuss the buck....he is not huge, but certainly a shooter and although bigger deer do exist in the unit, its highly possible that I won't see a better one. Add to the fact that the boat ferry is pretty much a one time thing and we won't be able to get back in this area more than likely, further tips the scales to go ahead and shoot this buck.

I get set up on this rock outcropping as good as I can. I'm not super comfortable, there is grass blowing in front of the scope and I'm standing on a rock slightly bigger than both my boots, so I have no room to adjust further. At this point, I'm gassed out...I have zero adrenaline left and am thinking/acting with a clear mind, which is very different than navigating the usual adrenaline dump I get before making a shot. I think at this point we have been on this deer for close to 2 hours. I snuggle up behind the rifle again and get him in the scope. He is standing on a rock, quartering towards me but not at an extreme angle. I put the crosshairs on the point of the shoulder and squeeze off, at the shot the rifle recoils and I lose sight of him.....I hear the impact of the bullet hitting and Micah yells out "you dumped him". I did not feel great about the shot, I felt as though I moved at the last split second and the shot hit farther back that I intended. I rack another shell and get on him, he is starting to kick and he falls off the rock and starts to slide downhills. I stay on him for several minutes and after sliding down about 15-20 feet he comes to a rest. At this point an entirely different set of emotions hits, one of both satisfaction of the completion of a extremely physical hunt and the questioning and doubt of "did I shoot to early? should I have held out for a bigger deer?,etc. We rest for several minutes and then start on our way over to the deer, which includes crossing another ravine and takes approx. 20 min to cover the 200 yards. Micah beats me to the buck and I arrive shortly later.

Lots of emotions, second guesses and what if's but I don't think I could have killed a prettier deer and definitely not in a prettier setting. We took pics, caped him out and broke him down right there on the mountain. Every minute that passed, he seemed to grow and continued to get bigger as the time went on. Everyone loves to hear and experience the last minute, last hour Hail Mary stories, but sometimes that Hail Mary comes in the first few hours on the first day. There is a funny second part to the story as we are up here with no packs, no water and no supplies other than my belt knife (we were just going for a stroll remember) I'll tell that chapter at a subsequent time.

Note: Weather turned bad on us the next day and made hunting very difficult. We hunted a few more days and never did catch a glimpse of a buck close to this one. My hunting partner took a respectable 4x4 buck Thursday morning, but as we headed out Friday the weather was turning bad again. It had snowed up in the higher country, theoretically pushing the deer further down, but we failed to see many shooter bucks in the subsequent days. Sometimes you just don't question a gift.



We had spotted the buck from down in the right hand corner along the hardwoods along the creek. Originally we started on foot from the riverbank in the background.

Wow what a great hunting experience and write up! Congrats on a super nice Muley
BTW my legs and back are hurting just from reading about your mountain trekking.

I don't care who you are, that's a bomber of a mule deer. Thanks for sharing.

Great write up and heck of a mule deer. Sorry if I missed it but where were you hunting?

Sounds like an awesome hunting trip. Congrats on the very nice buck.

Great hunt Compadre.

Should have included this in my original comment.

Your hunt epitomizes you tag line. ( For it is not the quarry that we truly seek, but the adventure.)

Congrats on a nice buck.

Wow, that is a great mule deer in some fantastic country!

Very nice! Thanks for the write-up!

Man congrats!

Like how you can see his forks even when he is facing you. Damn I need to bust my [censored] into better shape!

That's quite a trip! Thanks for sharing the story and pics.

I either you didn’t say or I missed it, what part of the world were you in?

Great deer and write up. Thanks for sharing.

Great deer! My legs hurt just looking at that climb

Great write up and excellent buck. The views are amazing in those pictures. Congrats!

Great writeup and a dandy buck. That deer is about as pretty of a buck as I have ever seen. Big congrats

Congrats again on a well earned and rewarding adventure

Looks like Idaho? Along the Salmon River possibly?

Beautiful

Congratulations and what a back drop for that picture. Wow.

Congrats! Very nice buck and great pictures!

Congrats on a great buck and heck of an adventure.

Definitely a beautiful deer(Like damn, it's 2 times bigger then me), and as you said, in a setting that just adds to the whole thing.

Would love to hear more about the “second chapter” too!

Congratulations Nice buck

Beautiful buck. Well done.

Yeah, what state, area? Looks like could be AZ or UT.

Kind of looks like Idaho, but it could be a lot of places.

Was somewhere in one of those states

Fantastic. Great buck. Beautiful country. Great pics. Great write up. Great effort by you.
All I need is some stats on the rack. He looks big enough to brag on so feel free.
Regardless of score, he certainly has a great look.

I haven’t scored him yet. Was going to do it this week.

We all think he will go in the mid 170’s

Mid 170s is great and he looks it.
What an all around great experience. Im not sure if Im too old but I sure think about something like that from time to time. I would actually prefer an MLD lease in Texas for big Mulies. I like the season long, every year experience.

Texas is going to become more of a mule deer destination as it’s pretty much the only state where populations are stable.

I’m a member of several mule deer groups on Facebook and if you look at the pics posted of bucks taken from the 50’s until the early 90’s compared to today, the quantity and quality has severely plummeted. Outfitter I hunted with said in the 80’s and 90’s it wasn’t uncommon to see 200” deer in the unit. Now that’s an outlier. Mule deer are suffering across the west and no one really knows why.

2nd chapter:

So the buck is down and we are over to him. As I mentioned previously, we were very ill prepared to actually kill a deer. We have no packs, no water and no gear. I'm the only one with a knife (an old bone handle knife I carry more for nostalgia than actual work). We did grab a radio as we got off the boat, so we radio back to base and bring them up to speed. There is a young buck on the boat so we tell him to grab our packs, a few bottles of water and an approx. location of where we are at. I can't say for sure how long it took him to make it to us, but we had already finished the photo session and started to break down the buck when he arrived some time later.

When he shows up, he has two packs, not three, one of them being a completely full pack that belongs to Micah. So we really only have one pack. We finish breaking the deer down and manage to fit all 4 quarters, back straps and tenders into the empty pack and Gibby gets to haul the deer off the mountain by himself and back to the boat. We hang behind to finish caping the deer off the skull, then capping him off. We roll the cape up and into Micah's pack and attached the rack to the back and start off down the trail.

For guys that have never been in the mountains before, walking downhill is almost as bad as walking uphill, and sometimes worse. Loose rock only complicates matters. I'm usually pretty good in uneven terrain but this is sucking. First ravine I slip and bust my arse, but no real damage done. Get to the next ravine and as I'm going downhill, my feet slip out from under me and I bust my arse again, this time falling on my rifle and sliding donw the hill....right into a cactus. I end up taking my rifle off my back and carrying it by hand down the mountain, now burdened by a dozen or so cactus thorns in my back. We get down to the trail and are making our way back to the boat when we come to a bottleneck with a brushy ledge on one side. As we pass by the brush erupts and a black figure emerges very quickly making oogie boogie sounds. Micah is scared half to death, I'm so tired I really don't react. The boat captain decided to get one over on ol' boy. He didn't think it was funny, we all thought it was hilarious.


Got back onto the boat and they spent the next 20 min digging cactus thorns out of my back

Well done, sir! Congrats!

Heck of a trip, congrats!

Dang! In total, quite the adventure, TX. Thank you for posting your story and your pics!

Some more pics.

Seeing the Gambels quail and more topography pics, leaning either northern AZ or Southern UT. Reveal Trophy, reveal...

Great scenery, nice animal, and good job, Congrats! Thanks for posting, it was a good read.

Awesome! Just awesome!

Great photos thanks for sharing.

How have hunter success numbers/#of harvests changed over the years the mule deer numbers have suffered? How about mountain lion/wolf numbers? Wolf restocking seems to be a hot topic.

Awesome pics!

Good question:

Overall, across the west, tag numbers, season length and hunter success has gone down across the board. Predators (big cats and wolves) certainly don’t help. This particular area the locals are hard on the big cats. Wolves so far are not really an issue.

Winterkill has taken alot of deer in certain years. Sometimes 50% of the herd, which takes years to rebuild.

Elk are also an issue to an extent as mule deer and elk don’t really coexist and elk have been steadily increasing in numbers. Logging or lack of it is playing a role as mule deer prefer open ground to heavy timber. Then there is the CWD topic.

Still, even the experts are somewhat puzzled and can’t put a definitive answer on what exactly is going on with the dwindling numbers.


To circle back to your original questions, western states have gone from being OTC and in some cases able to procure multiple tags a season, to OTC and shorter seasons, to Draw only units and shorter seasons, to in some cases, very limited draw and limited seasons.

There are still areas that hold good numbers of deer and have good quality, but it’s nothing like it was 50 or 60 years ago.

TX, what state Brutha, not the ranch or unit or whatever, just what state??

The state of mind? Well, it was South of Heaven, West of Hell

Man that was a great buck in beautiful vertical country. How was that pack out?

Congrats on a beautiful buck.

4W

Congrats on a hard and well earned trophy. Most people will never even see a mule deer buck like that one, much less kill one. You did well, and thanks for posting those great pics.

Awesome buck and thanks for the pics, great as well.
That is some steep country, pics don't do that justice I'm betting.


Folks have been trying to figure out why mule deer numbers are down for a while now. I will say the vast winterkill we had 2 winters ago really shows just how mother nature can be to blame as well mismanagement.
Cwd has to affect some herds but predators also do as well as poor habitat. Drought really zaps the nutrients from their range and we've had plenty of dry years.
We did see more twin fawns this year on the ranch which was surprising.