Redd's Colorado Mule Deer

By Blaine Redd

Blaine Redd with his Colorado Mule deer

I wanted to hunt Mule deer in one of Colorado’s premium units without using any preference points so I decided to check into purchasing a landowner tag. To encourage healthy wildlife populations on private land Colorado’s Division of Wildlife issues transferable landowner tags, which farmers and ranchers can sell to sportsmen for a profit.
In many cases ranchers now want wildlife to use their land and make some improvements to benefit deer and elk herds. Due to the migratory nature of big game animals, even those of us who hunt on public land benefit from the increased wildlife populations. This program has increased the hunting quality for everyone.
It turns out that landowner tags in Colorado aren’t always that easy to find. The state of Colorado refuses to publish a list or give out names of those landowners who draw these tags. In order to find these tags on your own it takes a lot of footwork and calling around. I called the guys at Carter’s Hunter Services, they spend a lot of time each year helping landowners apply for tags and when the landowner draws are complete they work to find landowners who drew tags. If they don’t have what you want continue to try and locate the tags you want. Garth Carter went over what tags they had in stock and I was able to pick one up.
When I left for the October hunt in Colorado I didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t have time to scout the unit so we went in blind without any idea of where to go. After studying the maps and driving the roads we found the unit boundaries, the Forest Service access, and then went hunting.
The first day was tough at best so after studying the maps we decided on a new area to try the following day. We started seeing deer and it looked like it might snow—things were looking up. That night it snowed in the high country, which would sure help the hunt. We woke up with high expectations and made a plan to hike to a high spot and do a lot of glassing. We saw a lot of small deer and by about 11 am our hopes were diminishing. It started to snow again and we knew that it would continue to help our chances so we decided to persevere.
We sat under a pine in a saddle and did some more glassing. A short time later we saw more deer about 1,000 yards off and then I happened to spot one moving in the trees and noticed it was a good sized buck. We figured it would be close to 30", so we crept back into the trees and tried to pick a spot out above the buck to which we could move to without being detected. It was a little cold, but I got a quick adrenaline rush, which helped out a lot. We successfully maneuvered to the spot above the buck and stopped to glass the buck. A short time later I spotted the deer about 150 yards below us in his bed. He was looking down the hill and wasn’t aware of our presence.
I carefully looked him over and decided he was definitely a shooter. I belly crawled out to a clearing in the brush, took careful aim and then shot. The deer jumped up and I realized I had missed. Luckily he didn’t know where we were, so we stayed still long enough to take a finishing shot that ended a fun, exciting, and lucky hunt. It’s great to be able to get a tag with real trophy potential and feel like you are helping wildlife. It’s rare that government agencies and landowners successfully work together; it’s really nice to see a Colorado’s landowner tag program working so well.