Almost 40 years ago, I was working in remote logging camps in Alaska. My buddy, Ed Toribio (who now owns and runs Primo Expeditions out of Ketchikan), would come to camp with the latest hunting magazines. On long, rainy nights, I would read the stories and see pictures of the huge bull elk from the Gila and the monster mulies from the Arizona Strip, Southern Nevada, and Utah. These were far away places, and though I would dream of seeing an elk or deer like that someday, it wasn’t a dream that I took seriously.
Over the years with family and friends, I hunted Alaska for Sitka blacktail, big brown bear on Admiralty Island, and black bear and mountain goats in the Alaska Panhandle. While I was unknowingly living out many other people’s dreams, I never expected I would eventually get to hunt in a place like Nevada, the land of giants.
Moving to British Columbia in the late 90s was followed by 20 years of life with too much time working to experience the great hunting in B.C. During that time, two boys were born in Nevada. The first was Taylor Price in 1993, and the second was Mike Wood in 1997. They both grew up in Southern Nevada with families who loved to hunt and fish. However, their ultimate passion was chasing big desert mule deer. Living in an area that is only 75 miles from the famed “Strip,” they were in the epicenter of some of the best mule deer hunting in the West.
Taylor Price learned early on that hard work and persistence were key when it came to hunting. Trapping and hunting coyotes and bobcats during winter honed his skills, but hunting big mule deer and elk with a bow was what he wanted to do. However, drawing a tag in Nevada isn’t easy. To fill the void, he started guiding and proved to be one of the best at a young age. When he was 19, he was hired to guide the Nevada Governor’s tag holder and has guided that tag for 12 years straight. Taylor is quiet and understated in everything he does, but the bucks his clients have killed over that span of time speak to his abilities at finding and putting big deer on the ground.
When Taylor wasn’t guiding and was lucky enough to finally draw his own tags, he was killing big deer and elk. When I first met him, I was amazed to see the trophies hanging on his wall. In less than 15 years, Taylor has done more than most people could accomplish in a lifetime of hunting, including a bull elk that scored 398" and several mule deer that ranged from 190" to 209". Taylor got a new dog last year, a cocker spaniel that he named “Moose.” When Moose was a puppy, he would almost fit in your shirt pocket. Moose wants to be a hunter too, but he figures it’s better to hold down the couch until Taylor gets home each day.
Mike Wood grew up within 10 miles of Taylor and followed a similar path as a teenager. Mike is an old soul in a young man’s body. If you jump in his truck at 3 a.m. to go hunting, the music of Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash will be blaring. Like Taylor, he can tell you every big buck he has ever seen as you drive down the road, where they were and what they looked like. Mike’s dog is a husky named “Ruger,” and you won’t find a more devoted dog. I always say you can tell a man by his dog. Ruger’s devotion to Mike, as with Moose’s devotion to Taylor, speaks
volumes about the character of their owners.
Two years ago, Mike drew a mule deer tag in unit 24 and spent the next 30 days with his bow chasing one deer. After several blown stalks and nearly stepping on a rattlesnake in his stocking feet, he finally got the job done and killed one of the largest typical deer ever killed with a bow in Nevada at 222". That same year, I met Mike when he and Taylor guided my wife, Susan, on her first deer hunt where they helped her kill a 187" mule deer. Mike had been glassing an area of the unit where no one usually hunted due to the lack of deer and glassed up an awesome buck. Three days later, Susan was able to harvest her first deer, the biggest deer ever killed in our family.
In June of 2023, Mike was scouting and spotted a buck that he immediately knew was special. With a month and a half of growth to go, he knew this was one of the largest deer he had ever seen. As he kept tabs on it over the next month, this buck blew up. The guys looked through photos from 2022 and realized they had hunted this deer a year earlier with Susan. At that time, Taylor thought it was a solid buck that might score in the mid 180s. Now, it was looking like a buck that could go 230"+. As the August 1st opener was fast approaching, Mike, Taylor, Aaron Cheeney, and Joey Vincent went into stealth mode in keeping tabs on this deer. There were two other tag holders who could be hunting this same deer, and they didn’t know if anyone else had spotted it. Meanwhile, they had another buck that looked to be in the 220" class. If someone else ended up hunting Mike’s buck, we had a backup.
Opening morning came, and we loaded up the rigs. There had been heavy rain the previous week, and the ground was saturated in the washes. As we got close to where we would hike in, we wondered if anyone else would be there. We crossed one wash and saw Aaron’s truck spin out in front of us. He made it through, but we ended up getting out of the rut and immediately sank to the floorboards. We quickly grabbed our gear and jumped into Aaron’s truck. Luckily, no one else was at our destination. Now we just had to try to locate our buck.
We got to our glassing knob 30 minutes before daylight, and the wait began. My brother, Michael, went with Mike and some of the others to a higher point on the hill. Taylor, Aaron, and I stayed on the lower knob. As light broke, we started to see deer. Bucks were filtering up the wash, but there was no sign of the big buck. We ended up being pinned down by two smaller bucks, and we feared they were going to bust us and blow things up. Somehow, they got past us without spooking and our wait continued. Finally, 40 minutes into light, Joey Vincent spotted the big buck about a mile away. It was running with a 4 point and two small forked horns, and they were headed our way. Taylor and I dropped off the knob and headed straight at the deer while they continued towards us. We set up on a lower knob, and by the time we were ready, the deer were at 700 yards and closing. At 570 yards they stopped, and the big buck whipped his head up. I thought we were busted. I started to squeeze the trigger when I heard Taylor whisper, “Hold on!” The buck dropped his head, went back to feeding, and then started his march directly at us again. His next stop was at 270 yards, and I squeezed the trigger the moment he stopped. The shot was good, with one more to make sure we had this amazing buck on the ground.
As we walked towards the deer, everyone was at loss for words. Taylor, Mike, Joey, Aaron, and Nick all knew this was a special buck, but no one had any idea how special. The official measurements at 289" gross put this buck at number four all- time non-typical for Nevada. The first call I made was to my dad, whom I have been blessed to always hunt with up until the last few years. As we talked to Dad, Jeff Baird joined us and started skinning the deer. He listened as Michael and I talked to Dad and showed him the buck. Jeff told me later he was near tears listening to us as it was apparent how much family and hunting were an important part of our lives.
Later that morning at Taylor’s place, we sat around admiring this amazing buck. Taylor made the comment, “We will never see a deer this big again in our lives.” I beg to differ. Hunting is about the joy of surprise, and anything is possible. No one ever knows what they might find on a hunt. Many things could have gone wrong, but this time, they all went right.
If you find yourself with a tag in Southern Nevada, look up Taylor and his crew at Price Trophy Hunts. Meeting Moose and Ruger alone is worth it!
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