I drew a general season rifle mule deer tag in Utah. This is a hunt my family and I enjoy every year. The hunt started on Saturday and went until the next Tuesday. My brother, my dad, and I stayed in our trailer, and we went a few days early to scout for a buck.
Soon, it was opening morning. We had seen a few decent bucks that I’d be interested in shooting, so I was very excited. Opening morning was slow with dealing with a ton of people until my dad, Shane, spotted a group of seven bucks. I was with my cousin on top of the ridge when he told us about the bucks, so we ran down to the bottom to get a closer look. I decided that I wanted to shoot a decent 4-point in the group. As I got set up on the buck, another hunter came up the bottom of the canyon and spooked the bucks over the ridge. They never came back over. The evening hunt was slow with just seeing smaller bucks.
On Sunday morning, I wanted to go back to the same spot, hoping the bucks were there again. After glassing for a couple hours with no deer, my dad and my little brother decided to go back to the truck. I wanted to stay there and glass some more. About 15 minutes after they left, I spotted a buck. Something had spooked it up into the canyon. I hurried and hiked to the other side of the canyon to try to cut it off. When I came over the ridge, I saw the buck at 50 yards. He took off running, and I got one shot off before he ran into the trees. My family heard me shoot and came to see what had happened. We had my cousin walk down in the trees to see if the buck was in there. The buck came running out on the other side of the canyon, and I shot him on the run. When we got to him, we realized it was the buck from opening morning.
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