Hunters: Michael Mshar and Kyle DeFouw
Story by: Michael Mshar
Species: Mule Deer
Location: New Mexico
Method: Archery
As I sat there at 11,000 feet on the top of a New Mexico mountain, I pondered all the physical issues that I had amassed leading up to this day. I was envisioning all the surgeries and hardships prior to this hunt in great detail, even up to the point of vividly visualizing a big velvet mule deer walking through the burn in front of me. I was jolted back to reality as I caught movement on the hillside to my right. Just like I had envisioned, there was now a large buck making his way across the burn at a mere thirty yards. Talk about getting caught with your eyes closed.
Later, when I had relayed this whole situation about my thoughts to my daughter, she replied, “Oh, you were manifesting.” Hmm, okay. Whatever it was that was going on in my head, I now needed to get ready for a shot.
“No thank you, sir!” Not many days go by in my life where I do not think about those words. I still vividly remember speaking those words to the surgeon who had just entered the hospital room where I lay, recovering from yet another back surgery. It was 2011, and I had just undergone a spinal fusion (L5/S1). The doctor wanted to get me the paperwork to put me on disability. Well, you know what my response was. I soon recovered from that surgery and continued to hunt and fish as much as I could. Unfortunately, in 2020, I found myself back in an operating room having a spinal cord stimulator implanted in my back for what was deemed a failed fusion. Things didn’t go as planned, and I had to have three additional surgeries due to complications. Not only did I have screws and rods in my spine, but I now had a battery pack with wires implanted in it.
Having been a police officer for the past thirty-one years, twenty of those as a game warden, my job had taken its toll on my body. However, the one advantage I believe it gave me was mental toughness. I just didn’t know the word “quit.” So, when it was time to put in for applications for western hunts, I went through my normal process and put in for numerous different states and units. The question of whether I would still be able to physically handle the mountains was always in the back of my mind. The last few years, I have been unsuccessful in drawing much of anything.
As different draws were released, it once again looked like I would be left out. I checked my New Mexico draw and saw that I had been unsuccessful for elk. I had forgotten that I had put in for archery deer—lo and behold, I had drawn.
I was happy to have drawn but wasn’t sure if I would even go. I was dealing with major back pain again and the prospect of having to have a sixth surgery for another spinal fusion. In addition, my wife and I had just made the most difficult decision a parent could face: We have two boys with Down syndrome, and the youngest, nineteen, was becoming too much to handle safely, so we had to make the heart-wrenching decision to put him in a residential care facility. To say I was in a dark place would be entirely accurate. Hunting was the last thing on my mind.
It didn’t take long, though—speaking with my wife and a couple of close friends, I decided that I needed to go. Partly for the peace of mind, but mainly to prove that I could still get up there on the mountain.
I trained as much as my body would allow. Mostly swimming (several miles a week) and hiking. Before I knew it, we were in New Mexico and headed into the backcountry. We had hired a local wrangler to bring most of our gear in, and we would walk in. It wasn’t too far, maybe six or seven miles. Leading up to the hunt, I watched a lot of videos of early-season mule deer archery hunts. Unfortunately, the mountain was much different than what most others were hunting. It was high elevation but almost ninety percent timber and old burns. I quickly decided I would need to hunt these deer more like I would a whitetail, as glassing would be futile.
I spent the first day heading up the slope, about an hour away from my two friends, to make a spike camp. As I left some timber at the top and was walking into an old burn, I began to see a lot of deer sign. Fresh tracks, beds, and droppings were everywhere. It appeared the deer were feeding on a north slope in the burn and then heading uphill into some heavy timber and beetle kill to bed.
I found a small saddle between the burn and the bedding area to set up the next morning. I made a camp above the area and returned to the saddle the following morning. Walking down to my spot, I saw several does that were feeding up out of the burn. Several hours into my sit, I had a good buck sneak in on me from downhill. He saw me before I saw him, and in a few bounds, he was out of range. I was very encouraged to say the least. The evening hunt was uneventful aside from the presence of the same few does.
The following morning found me tucked in against a big, burned tree, intently watching downhill. As I sat there soaking up the beautiful mountain scenery, I could not help but think. Here I was, a guy who had been told that he needed to be on disability and could never hunt the mountains again. Nope, not this guy! It was going to take a lot more than a half dozen back surgeries, some titanium rods, an implanted battery pack, and wires to keep me down.
As I was awakened from the “manifestation”, as my daughter would call it, I immediately saw velvet antlers moving from right to left in the thick vegetation of the burn. I was seated on my knees, so I slowly turned to grab my bow, which was leaning to my left. In doing so, I bumped into a small dead tree, causing it to shake. The buck caught this movement and looked directly at me from about thirty yards. He then turned down the hill and quickly walked away. I quickly stood and frantically dug out my range finder. He stopped after a short distance and turned broadside with his head and rear behind two burned trees. I quickly ranged him, setting my dial on my bow to forty-five yards. His whole body was centered between the two trees as if someone had placed a 3d target there. I drew my Hoyt and settled the pin on him. The release felt good, and I could hear the hit. The buck kicked and headed straight downhill.
Excitement overtook me. I waited as long as I could before walking down to where he’d been standing. I immediately saw blood. But my excitement was short-lived, as I also saw stomach contents. I had hit farther back than I’d desired. My confidence wasn’t completely gone since it was a pass-through and there was a good chance, given the angle, that I’d gotten the liver.
I marked the spot and headed back to my camp to wait for my partners, who were due later that morning. Upon their arrival, we discussed the hit and decided to give him a few more hours to expire. Taking up the track, we had decent blood, and his downhill tracks were relatively easy to follow. After about a hundred yards, we came upon a bed filled with blood. Looking up from the bed, I spotted the dead buck a short distance downhill. Excitement and elation took over as we made our way to him. I was overcome with emotion. I hadn’t realized how massive he was before the shot. There was no ground shrinkage.
After lots of high fives and mountain hugs, we set about getting him processed and the meat bagged up for the trip down. This was where it paid to have real friends. My friends Mark (Mountain Tough) and Kyle (Mountain Fluff), both of whom also had tags, gave up a day of their hunt to help me, knowing that I was going to struggle with my back. Kyle ferried the rest of my equipment back to my camp. Mark took all the meat while I took the head and cape and hiked it seven miles off the mountain to get it into a freezer.
A few days later, Kyle was able to connect on another great buck in the same area as mine. In his forever mountain tough fashion, Mark packed the meat from that one off the mountain as well.
As I sit here the following winter recovering from back surgery number six and another spinal fusion, one thing is certain. I will never quit. “No thank you, sir!”
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