I was sitting around work discussing good places to mule deer hunt in Colorado and telling my boss that I would sure like to find a good place to take my 15-year-old son, Zach, to get him his first buck. He mentioned how many nice mule deer he had been seeing in the hunting area close to his cabin this past summer and if I could get him the tag, the cabin was ours for the season. That sounded perfect to me, so after doing some more research, I decided to give it a try. The only trouble was that Zach really didn’t have enough points to draw the coveted area, at least that’s what the Colorado DOW statistics were telling me.
With really no chance of drawing that tag, we were completely blown away when the results popped up on the computer in the late spring saying he was successful. If we only knew then that this was where the real hunter's luck was just beginning. I had done pretty well the year before by getting a 6-point bull elk and a decent mule deer with my bow. I decided that this was his year and I would focus all my attention on trying to find him at least a nice mule deer buck, something he would be proud of. Although for him, pretty much any buck with horns could be on his hit list, depending on how things went. The work began with the gathering information and combing over maps, research on the internet, and listening to different people about their experiences in the area.
Mid-summer began with the scouting trips into a lot of new country that we really had not set foot in before and there were a lot of hits and misses. It seemed like the elk and bighorn sheep were plentiful but mule deer were scarce, causing me to second guess the whole decision on this area. As the the year wore on and I talked to some of the locals, the pieces started falling into place and a plan was beginning to materialize.
The season was finally upon us and the weather was looking nice, so Zach, my father-in-law, Ernest, and I headed up to the cabin. The plan was to spend the night and then head out in the early morning opening day before dawn by UTV and ATV. We were to work our way up to the top of the ridge towards a deep canyon that had several water sources and plenty of food and cover that looked like a good place to start.
As we worked our way up the ridge in the dark, it became obvious that not only were there quite a few other hunters, but there also seemed to be quite few deer around. The decision was made to sit and wait several minutes for the hillside to become lighter, just in case the bucks were further down than originally thought. After a few minutes of waiting, we to began see better and it was legal shooting light, so we headed out again only to slam on the brakes because of what I thought were horns. We couldn’t believe our luck with just a couple of minutes of shooting light on opening day. There, about 200 yards out, was a nice 4x4 buck. With the gun out of the case, Zach set up on shooting sticks on uneven terrain. The buck was slowly moving away, and a steady rest was not easy obtain. Just when we thought we had him set up properly, he squeezed off a shot and the buck took off running, heading for the private property with no sign of a hit. After following the buck's tracks a half-mile or so with no blood or any sign of him slowing down, it became obvious that it was a clean miss. Zach was devastated, and I couldn’t believe it either. After all the summer practice, we had our chance and blew it. No one in the group had faith that we could find a buck as good as that one was again on this hunt. So much for hunter's luck. Ours seemed to have turned from good to bad.
Off we went, heading back up the ridge towards the canyon on the other side where I thought would be a great place to start over, looking for another buck. As we reached the top of the ridge, we ran into another hunter who told us he was looking for a really big buck that he had seen in the area previously. As we spoke, he told us that he seen a smaller buck hanging with some does just down the road near a waterhole that I had seen before when I was scouting.
We said our goodbyes and headed down the road towards the waterhole to see if we could get a closer look at the smaller buck. As we got close, I decided to stop and glass the hillside above the waterhole. Just as I brought the binoculars up to my eyes, I caught movement coming through the sagebrush. This time, I could see it was a nice buck. I told Zach to get his gun and get set up. This time, he had a good rest. The buck walked slowly into the opening and stopped. Zach was steady, focused, and definitely not going to mess this up, and by God, he didn’t. The gun went off, and the buck went down.
We stood there, looking at each other in disbelief. Zach was so excited he couldn’t hardly contain himself. We grabbed our stuff, and as we walked slowly towards the buck laying on the ground in the little opening, there wasn’t any ground shrinkage. He was actually getting bigger as we walked. When we got to the buck, our mouths just kind of fell open because this just wasn’t any 4x4 mule deer, but the old monarch of the mountain, a 5x6 monster! Here, laying on the ground at our feet, was what grown men and women spend countless hours and dollars searching for their whole lives. My 15-year-old son had taken him as his first buck on a $10 tag. Our hunter's luck had turned very good again. In fact, it had completely gone through the roof this time with one of the most magnificent hunting days and magnificent bucks that any of us could remember in our lives. This is a hunt Zach will be telling his grandkids about many years from now as he looks at that big buck up on the wall.
Login