2011 General Mule Deer...

Imagine a deer hunt like this...  Sitting on a vantage point looking at a handful great bucks as soon as theres enough light in the morning to make anything out.  A day or two later, setting up on a huge typical buck and wondering in your head "its early in the hunt, should I hold out?"  After passing the huge typical a monster non-typical comes out that evening just before dark and leaves you unable to get much sleep that night wondering  if he will still be there in the morning.  Looking at buck after buck, just waiting for the magical 200" buck to pop up, day after day.  Some days you lose track of all the big mature bucks you looked over before the sun set behind the ridge...

This was not one of those deer hunts...

P.T. had a handful of bucks located during the summer months of 2011.  At times there were up to seven bucks hanging out together, with no sign of anyone else for miles.  P.T. watched the bucks grow all year until, that is, the middle of September.  That is about the time the bucks decided to disappear!!  No big deal right?  After all, that's how mule deer hunting usually goes when the bucks begin to get hard horned.  Problem is, P.T. knew where the bucks went, and their new location was going to be very difficult to hunt.  With thick cedars that left him with a vantage of less than about 30 yards, gravel covered ground making it impossible to stand still without sounding like a herd of elephants, and the hoards of deer hunters that decided to stake claim to this particular piece of ground made things a little tougher than usual.

Finally, P.T. glassed up a handful of bucks from a high spot overlooking the bucks new home.  They just happened to be in one of the four or five small openings he was hoping to catch them in, but they all slipped into the thick brush before P.T. could size them up and decide exactly what they were sporting on top of their heads.

Days of hard glassing and creeping through the thick patches finally found P.T. on the side of a steep hill with a good buck within rifle range.  As luck would have it, the buck only gave quick glimpses of bits and pieces of himself through the thick cedars as he fed below.  As the light finally failed, P.T. slid and stumbled back to the base of the hill, to the truck, and back to camp... Again!

Heading back to the glassing area P.T. was in the prior evening, he made a few stops to glass the country below him, hoping the buck would reappear... and he did.  This time, P.T. was able to get a good look at the buck.  It didn't take long to realize this was a mature buck, and a shooter.  A mad dash to get set up finally put the buck in the crosshairs, and one shot was all it took.

This time after P.T. slid and stumbled down to the base of the hill, he had a dead buck waiting at the bottom.  At 29" wide, this 3X3 was a great ending to what proved across Northern Arizona to be a slower than average year for the general mule deer hunters.

Maybe next time we can get a smile out of P.T.