This was my second time hunting Colorado but first time drawing a mule deer tag. This was a full self-guided hunt on public land. My buddy, Brian Rush, and I drove from Pennsylvania to Colorado and arrived a couple days early to do some scouting. We scouted a couple new places I had e-scouted but ended up hunting the same place I had hunted previously.
We hiked in on opening morning to be in our spot we had picked before daybreak. Right at daybreak, we spotted three bulls (we both had elk tags as well). They were out of range and right on the edge of private land, so we decided to watch them to see if they came off private onto the public land. While watching them, I had glassed some smaller mule deer bucks and does. Then, at 10:30 a.m., I spotted a big buck in thick brush. I kept him in my spotter and never took my eye off him. After watching him for a while, he ended up bedding for 20 minutes. I had my gun set up, ready to go beside the spotter for when he stood up. I only had one small hole I would have a shot at him in when he stood up.
Finally, the buck stood up and stepped right into the hole I needed him to and stopped. At 12:08 p.m., I was able to take the shot at 676 yards and dropped him. I got the whole thing on video through a digiscope setup on my spotting scope.
We packed up and started hiking toward him. We got to him an hour and a half later. My excitement was through the roof!! We spent the rest of the day packing him out. This was my biggest buck and such an awesome experience. Unfortunately, that was the only tag we were able to fill. We just couldn’t glass up anything worth pursuing after that, but it was still a great hunt.
I forgot to mention that it was my birthday when I killed the buck. I also forgot to mention that my daughter, Huntleigh, had picked which bullet I was going to use to shoot my buck, so that must have been my lucky one.
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