Mule Deer

Gene from Wisconsin shot this fine-looking mule deer. We had an encounter with the buck earlier that day but bumped him. The buck and several other deer moved to about 2 miles away and bedded down in some wide open terrain. The deer was in a spot that was unapproachable! I decided the only thing to do was wait for the deer to return to the food source we bumped them out of earlier in the hunt.

When we arrived at the destination the deer were already headed towards our location. It was a real cool experience to watch 30 head of deer come our way. It was the does and little bucks at first. Then came the bigger bucks. We watched the come from a mile out. At one spot the deer would be skyline on the horizon. Sure enough the biggest deer came last. We watched all the deer migrate towards us and the last one was our shooter buck!

After waiting for all of the deer to get in a low spot we made our move. We crawled up to where the deer were headed. As I peeked over I could see deer everywhere. Some were to close and then I caught a glimpse of the big one. By the time Gene got set up the deer was out of sight. We could only wait for the deer to feed up to a failed wheat crop that the deer were devouring. I felt like we looked pretty stupid laying down in a wide open field but it might work.

As we lay there on our butts in a foot of snow it was somehow fun. Even though it was -5 degrees this was going to happen. Some does fed to within in 60 yards of us but didn’t really notice or care. Now some bucks fed in to about 80 yards. I told the boys to be still even though we all were freezing. Her comes the big one! Gene and I discuss what one to shoot out of 6 bucks. I get him on the shoot sticks but we still stay low as many deer are close. Finally after forever, the big buck was clear of all other deer. Time to shoot Gene! Shoot him now! He’s the one right in the middle as I point! Gene makes it happen. Smiles and cold hands.