Bryant's Buck

After helping good friend Robert Wise with his coues buck, now it was Bryant's turn.  Like Robert, Bryant had pretty much always been a mule deer hunter, but this would be Bryant's fourth coues deer hunt, and he had plans of topping Roberts 103" buck.

Deer after deer were glassed up with lots of does and smaller bucks and on the evening of the second day, a decent buck was glassed up.  The bunch watched the buck until dark, but Bryant decided to pass in hopes of finding something a little better in the coming days.  On the morning of the third day, Bryant glassed up the same buck as he was trying to chase some does around in the brush.  Bryant still decided to hold out, but tried with no luck to get another buddy to shoot the buck.

More and more deer were found every day, and late on the fourth morning, Bryant finally glassed up a group of five bucks feeding high up on a hillside, and one looked good enough for a closer look.  Tomorrow would be the last day of the hunt, and all he had was the morning of the last day to hunt before he had to head to California, so Bryant and a friend with an unfilled tag jumped on the side by side and headed around to a location that the two would begin their hike.  Meanwhile, Robert stayed where he was and kept an eye on the feeding bucks.

After a 45 minute hike, the two found themselves across a drainage from the bucks.  Immediately Bryant Glassed up two bucks as they worked across a open hillside toward a saddle.  Neither of the two bucks were what Bryant was looking for so they continued to search for the rest of the deer.  Quite a bit of time had gone by, and the pair was thinking the rest of the deer must have gotten out of the country without them seeing them, when Bryant finally glassed up the left ear and left antler of a bedded buck.  Bryant decided this buck was a shooter and set up for the 275 yard shot.

When the gun went off, the buck came rolling out of his bed and a smaller buck jumped up and began looking around nervously.




Bryant had his coues buck, but he would never the end from Robert for not topping his buck.