My buddy, Justin, and I were talking one night before the deadline for Arizona deer. We were joking about putting in together for an area that holds very few deer because of a couple awesome sheds we had stumbled on during shed season. That joke turned into a reality when AZGFD posted that we had been drawn. The work began with running trail cams and glassing every chance we had.
It was now early August, and we were seeing bucks. The unit offers very few glassing opportunities on the north side, which we were determined to hunt because of the sheds we had picked up. The bucks were only 3/4 fully grown out and had a lot of finishing touches to put on, but we were starting to have a good feeling about this hunt.
Arizona over-the-counter deer hunts had started, and Justin called me in excitement saying he had just found a bachelor herd of 12 bucks. He told me that this bachelor herd had three solid 4-point bucks in it that were no brainers. Twelve bucks together in this unit is just unheard of for the number of deer in this area that we wanted to hunt.
September came in a hurry, and screaming bull elk made it hard to go out and look for deer. After we wrapped up the elk hunts, we were in full swing again to find bucks whose sheds had kept me daydreaming for months now. No trace, no tracks, no deer. Several attempts after work and weekends were spent in attempts of finding these ghost bucks. The nerves set in, and I started making phone calls to good buddies who had hunted this unit time and time again. All phone calls lead to the same topic, there are hardly any deer on that side and we should go hunt the west side of the unit. Justin and I almost gave in when right before the hunt we found a couple bucks further north than where we had been. It was back on!
The day before the hunt, I took my wife out to set up camp and we went scouting for the afternoon. We turned up three bucks right at dusk that were on the verge of being shooters. I watched them bed down and drove back to camp praying things would pan out in the morning. Justin and his wife, Jayme, both had tags. Their opening morning plan was leading them back to the spot where he had seen the group of 12 bucks and had trail camera pictures of a couple solid deer. That night as we all prepared for the next morning, we could feel the anticipation and excitement like a live wire running through camp.
Finally, it was opening morning! My wife and I set out before dawn, and just as the sun was starting to peak over the ridgeline, I glassed up the same three bucks from the night before. The plan was in place. My wife was going to be my spotter, and I had told her to radio me if they moved as I was going to get a closer look at them. I made an hour-long stalk and followed them into a tiny cut with very few cedar trees in it where they bedded back down. With it only being opening morning, I felt like I needed to see what else was out there. I felt comfortable leaving these bucks knowing that I had left them undisturbed and bedded down so I could come back later. My wife had to return to work, so I was hunting solo until Justin was able to tag his wife out.
It was the evening of day two when my phone rang. It was Justin saying, “Bro, I just shot one of the three 4-points that was in the bachelor herd of 12.” Justin said his wife had just gone home to shower and she was going to be pissed. After congratulating my good friend whom I hadn’t been able to hunt with in years, I gathered my things and headed his way with the flashlights. When I reached him, he showed me a four-inch piece of bone that had blown out of his buck. This deer wasn’t going to be far. Three hours later and zero blood, we were confused and headed back to camp. Justin spent half the next day tracking that buck where we had left off. The buck had shed zero blood and almost made a full circle to where Justin had shot him when Justin lost the track in the canyon’s solid rock surface.
The next few hikes in the coming days were rough without spotting any bucks. We were hoping things were about to change. It was now the morning of day five, and I felt more ambitious than ever before. After a half-day hike with seeing zero animals, that ambition went away quickly. I called Justin and told him to meet me at a canyon where we had seen some velvet bucks in the summer. He got there shortly after I had arrived, and when I looked down, there was an almost worn out horseshoe. I simply joked that it was a lucky horseshoe. I picked it up and put it in my pack as I needed all the luck I could get. I said I was going to get one on this hike. Low and behold, 30 minutes down the canyon two bucks jumped up and Justin said to get on them. Justin looked through his binoculars and said to hammer that deer. The buck stopped broadside halfway up the other side, and I made an easy 163- yard poke with my Browning 6.5 Creedmore rifle to stop him only a few yards from where he had been standing.
When we got over to the gorgeous 4x4 buck, all the miles logged, harsh weather conditions, countless hours of scouting, checking cameras, and glassing truly made the moment that much better. It was my best buck to date, and I couldn’t have been happier.
The next two days had a lot of miles logged with only seeing a few bucks that were not worth shooting. Justin was determined to kill a good buck. On the evening of day seven, we were both drained and he sarcastically mentioned we should go home for a day and take a break if we were not successful on this hike. I was thinking that sounded like a great idea.
Twenty minutes into the hike where he had seen the bachelor herd of 12 bucks there was a big-framed deer standing in his bed on the opposite side of the canyon staring at us. Justin quickly made the decision to shoot. Using my trusty Browning 6.5 Creedmore rifle, the buck dang near dropped in his tracks. We high fived and looked back over to the opposite side to see a dandy of a 4x4 standing up behind Justin’s dead buck. He had a little doubt hoping he didn’t just screw up. After walking over to Justin’s buck and seeing the crazy amount of character the 6x5 buck had, we both knew that we could never kill another buck this awesome again.
We got the buck out of the canyon and back to camp. It was full of energy and laughs that night. We taped both bucks, with one scoring 171" and the awesome, unique buck, which we had named “Sloth” off of The Goonies, scoring 157". We were both extremely happy with the outcome of this hunt. It was one of those hunts that made us hunt hard and put a lot of time and miles in but had a great outcome for us both. We will always appreciate this hunt and are grateful for the great deer we got to harvest out of a tough unit. We already cannot wait to do it again on another hunt in the future.
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