colorado mule deer

The weather felt perfect too. Clear skies. Temps in the forties at night and seventies during the day. Perfect for this Texas boy anyway.

Through Outdoor Buddies, I got my voucher for a deer tag from the CO Division of Wildlife just in time to make the hunt. And as soon as we got into town, we went to redeem it for the actual tag I’d use. Anyway, Tim and Mike met us at the motel afterwards to scoop me up to go scout for some deer. I rode with Mike to a farm owned by Rocky Neely while Tim went to a different place with two of the other hunters that were also in town for the hunt. My dad and another friend of ours, Ed, followed behind to a piece of property roughly twenty miles NW of Cortez toward Dove Creek.

The country sure looked like mule deer heaven to me: dark green alfalfa fields everywhere broken up by thick sage draws and drainages and all kinds of cover where big mule deer bucks could live an easy life. Before we even arrived, Mike stopped the truck because a herd of mule deer was pouring out of a little thicket onto a center pivot alfalfa field that we could hunt the next day. There were three nice bucks with them, one was really good, we noticed as we glassed from the road 1000 yards away. He was a beautiful 4 point (western count) buck that looked about 24-25 inches wide. He would be a shooter for sure. 'This was going to be too easy' I thought. We'd be coming back here the next morning...

Two days later, my hunt that started out so promising was beginning to look pretty bleak. The bucks we'd seen at Rocky's on Friday had been daily no-shows since then, and we'd set up my double bull pop-up blind on the best hay patch we had left to hunt yesterday afternoon, only to see two small bucks all evening. Things were not looking good at all. But losing faith wasn't going to be an option. I'd come too far and been on too many hunts for it to be.

This is what hunting big deer is supposed to be like, and I think this is what most hunters love about it. It's not easy to take a big mature buck. And that's what I'd come to do. A wise old deer hunter once told me, “if you shoot little bucks, you’ll never shoot a big one.” And he was right on! It requires patience and perserverance and skill, and then on top of all that, a little luck. I'd learned a long time ago that the good ones never "fall all over you," no matter how easy it seems at first.After another uneventful morning came and went. Tim met us at the motel after work for our last afternoon of my Colorado hunt. He and Mike had been working hard to try and get me a deer and they were going to see it to the end. What more could a hunter ask for?

On day three, we planned to hang close to that one large hayfield where we'd sat the day before, staying in the truck and staying mobile. That way we could check another place nearby that we had access to and maybe see more deer in the process. Tim got in with us while Mike left to scout some other places. If he found anything, he'd call.

An hour and a half later, we drove back over to the big hayfield as the sun dipped below the horizon. When we got to the far end near the sage draw, we saw a small herd of does near the road. "There's a buck," Tim called out at the same time as my dad did. Actually, there were five, all in a bunch around the third turnrow more than 600 yds away. So there we were, stuck sitting there glassing because we couldn't drive any closer, and it'd be too dark to shoot in twenty minutes. There was one big mature buck in the group. "What if I pulled you closer to that buck? Do you think you can shoot him?" Tim asked suddenly. "If we're gonna try, we better do it now," I replied. So out of the truck we bailed. Dad gathered up my shooting straps and bipod and Tim grapped hold of my chair (rickshaw style) and took off down the edge of the field. When we were 50 yds away, dad's hunting buddy Ed who stayed at the truck gave me a thumbs up so I knew the bucks hadn't noticed us. We were still in play!

I noticed Tim started to breathe heavily after 200 yds of steady pulling. He paused to catch his breath and check the deer. They were still there. The sage brush was just high enough to hide our approach, and the ground was soft enough to muffle out footsteps. It was locking in and all three of us were getting more excited with every yard we got closer. The next time we stopped, we were in range. Dad put my chest strap on and dropped the legs on my bipod while Tim ranged the bucks. "310 yds. Can you make that?" he whispered. Tim turned me around and we eased up to the next little crease in the brush. Dad placed the bipod down where I needed it and since one of the legs wouldn't hold, he knelt there holding it in place while I got my rifle up to shoot. "Which one is he Tim?" I pressed as I tried to locate the big boy in the group. I couldn't tell because it was pretty dark out there by then. "He's the one out to left by himself," Tim answered.