A Four Year Hunt

Tristate

Long Time Member
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Well folks I thought I would share a great mule deer story. Four years ago in our standard 15 day muley season one of the hunters shared a picture with me of a very large framed typical muley buck. He told me where he had seen it and said he was unsure of its age. My brothers and I ran into the buck later in the week and assessed that he was an awesome buck that needed another year at least.

The next summer while scouting antelope I ran into the buck. He was in velvet but almost finished out in growth. There was a problem. While his right side was beautiful and gigantic, he had severely damaged his left g-2 so that it had grown like a club facing outward. At the very end of the gun season we found him hard antlered on the next to the last day. My bother considered killing him anyway. He was giant and unique although he wouldn't score well. I talked him out of it. He went home that year without a deer.

The next year after I was done antelope guiding we found him in archery season. He was better than the year before but had severely damaged his right g-3. My brother, who had passed on him the year before passed on him again. We saw the deer again in the gun season when my little brother came to hunt. Although he had the almost non-existent g-3 his frame was enormous and my little brother seriously thought about killing him. Eventually he passed also and was awarded with a giant deer the next evening.

That brings us to this year. I stopped to scout Texas antelope after guiding some New Mexico antelope hunts. One morning I swung by a valley that this big muley buck is known to frequent in the summer. There he was. In velvet and all alone. I got his picture and spent the next month analyzing it.
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He looked awesome. Sure his left g-4 was weak. But he was old. Giant bodied and one of the largest framed typical mule deer I had ever seen. I told my brother we needed to focus on this buck. I really believe he would just go down hill from here. My brother agreed and we started to make a plan to get him in the archery season. I promised my brother the buck was his if he wanted it. After all if he hadn't have passed him a couple of years before and gone home empty handed the deer never would have gotten to this point.

Antelope season and archery season open the same day this year in Texas. I wrapped up quickly with my antelope hunters and my brother and I switched to muley mode immediately. The first morning of our hunt we couldn't find him. then while moving to one of my glassing spots we actually drove right up on him in the buggy. He didn't seem too scared when he ran off but we both knew it was just going to get harder from here on out.

On day two we weren't having much luck turning him up again. Honestly the wind had shifted out of the south west and that is about the worst direction to hunt this area he had been living in. About 10:30 I found him. He was in an area about one mile south from where we had stepped on him the day before. The area he was bedded didn't look like a normal muley hiding spot and he was really twitchy and nervous. I almost wonder if we had spooked him into that area that morning.

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I watched him quite awhile. After about an hour he got to his feet and snuck down into a gully below him. I thought he would bed in right there. It was a really good all day spot for a big muley buck. We suited up and made our plan. Right before we started our stalk I saw a little forky pop out of the gulley just below us. I didn't think much of it and we waited for him to leave the area before starting our stalk.

Well we snuck into a position of above the cut and we couldn't find him. We shifted here and there slowly trying to locate the buck. No luck. He wasn't there. We discussed our options and decided to take up the tracks. Right off I found where he had grouped with 2 small bucks. They had walked down the middle of the wash right under our original position. One of them must have been the little forky I had seen. The gully forked and it took me a little while to sort out that the big buck was still walking with the two youngsters and they had headed up the west fork. After a little ways I could tell the youngsters were climbing out the top of the gully and the big deer was still heading west. We actually followed the tracks of the little bucks to climb out of the gully. When we were out of the gully my brother asked me what I thought. I can't remember what I was telling him but I had my binos up and I was scanning the hill on the other side of the gully when I realized there was a giant muley fork in the shadow of a mesquite. We went to our bellies. We were close. So close we were lucky he had not seen us and run. We went back in the gully and started an approach up his hill towards him. At 38 yards we couldn't get any closer. We waited maybe 10 minutes and a thermal swirled and he blew up out of his bed. Right were he stopped a tall yuca stood between my brother and the buck. Brad let the arrow fly and it barely clipped a yuca spine and flew wild left. The buck hauled butt north and disappeared.

We backed out the rest of the day to let things cool down. The next morning we were glassing and I actually found the buck pretty quick. He was back in his normal favorite spot. We planned a stalk and made our move. We were within range in no time flat but I could tell the setup was less than optimal. It looked like the buck would be in a low spot with brush blocking the spot when he finally stood.
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I got greedy and tried to push our luck and get just 5 more yards to the east which would give us better odds of a shot. The buck heard us and was gone in a flash. Just a really bad decision on my part.

The next day I actually found the deer again. He was one drainage over from the blown stalk the day before all by himself.
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I know it isn't the greatest pic but I am sharing it anyway. Soon I watched him go bed. It was a good spot I thought he would stay in for most of the day. We suited up and made our move. Pretty soon we were set 36 yards away from a sleeping giant. We waited about 30 minutes and he stood. When he stood he was facing straight at us. My brother wasn't comfortable with the shot so we just sat still. He slowly turned left and my brother let it fly. The buck was setting his left foot right when the arrow left and was descending into another dirt cut. The arrow struck him in the back. He fell on his face but scrambled quickly to his feet. His back hips weren't working well but they quickly started functioning better and he started trotting off. We watched him trot, walk, stop, and trot again until he was out of sight. It was heart breaking. I wasn't sure what to do. I wasn't even sure it was a lethal hit. The arrow was still in his back and he was gone. We snuck all the way over to the last valley we had watched him descend into. I hoped to be able to glass him up from there. We sat there for hours waiting for a glimpse of him and hypothesizing on the different places he may be or want to be. We never saw him again that day.

That night I called a couple of my friends that were archery hunting on the same place. I asked for their help and they said they would help after their morning hunt concluded. They had been on a nice buck for a couple of days too. We figured we would glass in the morning for him and when they were done with their morning hunt we would start trying to track him and then split up and start combing the canyons for him.

The next morning my brother and I headed out and started glassing. After glassing the first valley which is the last place we had seen him disappear, my brother suggested we look north. I was against the plan. I explained a fence was between us and there. I explained I knew he couldn't go under the fence and I really felt his back was to injured for him to be able to jump it. After awhile I gave in and decided we would go check it anyway. I wasn't all that thrilled about this strategy but I just gave in and we headed farther north. We hadn't gone far when my brother looked back into a draw and told me he could see a big buck. I picked up my glasses and looked. It was him! Laying there 500 yards away looking right at us. It was him and he was alive. I couldn't believe our luck. We got lower and he calmed down. I sent a text to my hunting buddy that we had found him and we might need a spotter in case he ran on us when we tried putting him down. He said he was gutting a big ol' deer himself but said he would be over soon to help. A couple of hours later he arrived. Our deer in that time and moved out of sight into a better shade area. I sat my friend up and described the scenario. He's a really sharp deer hunter and he was on board real quick. My brother and I went in. At 20 yards I located the tips of the bucks enormous g-2s down in a cut. At 13 yards he jumped up and my brother stuck him clean in the ribs. This time it was ever in under a minute. My buddy walked to us. He said, "That's way better than watching the super bowl"! We were all really excited and very thankful for such a good ending.

In the end I wanted to share the last picture I took of this buck alive. He was laying there watching his very last sunrise. There's a little bit of magic in it I'll never forget.

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Best of luck to all you muley hunters. I hope you have many sunrises to come.
 
Good read Tri. Congratulations to you and your brother. I wouldn't trade your taxidermy job for a job in photography if I were you. :) J/K
 

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