in december during the rut for trophy california mule deer
with our good friend fred trueblood from southern california
fred was really lucky this year he also drew trophy antelope hunt in central wyoming
and fred's hopes are high he's never killed a big antelope in wyoming and this might be his year
he's acting like he's heading somewhere huh yeah first one short but heavy yeah
that's what that's what i saw at first big prong on him though boy he does huh yeah
yeah he might be broken off huh yes these are nothing in here worth going after a couple decent
ones but nothing nothing too outstanding i think let's go find some antelope that are workable all
right after combing the area for a big antelope we finally found a buck that might have some promise
we spotted about uh 20 antelope down below us uh off this little hill here we're gonna
crawl up there and take a peek off and see if we can find a good buck
we didn't see one from a distance but uh there's maybe 20 antelope in this group and
so we're going to sneak up here and see if we can snake one out of here let's go matt
there they are they're just down below us
so we're going to crawl up and just peek off the end here see if we can find a buck in this group
okay matt we got a buck that's most most of them are standing this this buck is laying down
above the cut bank this is a pretty good antelope mat this is as good a one as we've seen right now
he's laying down but they're milling around a little bit so we need to do this pretty quick
after a few minutes the buck gets up to check on his does
before fred can even get set up for the shot
okay there he is
shot over him
guy and matt and i have been chasing antelope for four days here in central wyoming and today's my
last day and i was very fortunate to take this uh take this great wyoming antelope been a little uh
dry this summer in central wyoming so the horn growth isn't quite as much this is one of the
nicer antelope we've seen he's a little short in the digger but he's got nice hooks in that and
we've had a great time uh antelope hunting is uh is just one of the
funnest friends and family hunts that you can do and and uh we always enjoy it
come out every couple of years when i can draw out here in central wyoming and uh and the
boys and i get after these antelope spin fun it's a fine animal and i'm happy to have him
so we're going to bounce out to california and check out fred's mule deer hunt
yeah we got here a little early so uh we probably have uh 90 minutes of daylight so we scrambled and
and dressed in the in this in the clothes that's on the top of the bag and we're going to sneak
up to a place called division creek where we saw some pretty good bucks before and uh
grew up here last week doing a little scouting and see if we can catch a big boy out this evening
we're looking at a pretty good buck down here he's not you know not a first day buck
4-3 he's four kind of shallow on his g2s but he's squared up real nice nice looking dude
joining fred on his mule deer hunt are some of his longtime hunting buddies
these guys have been hunting in this area since they were merely kids and it doesn't take long
for them to begin turning up bucks this buck here the more we look at him the better he looks
big squared up he's a little he's a little wider than what i thought in the beginning he's probably
26 or so but he is uh as the film shows he's uh pretty active making new bucks
if somebody doesn't take him we might come back and take another look at this boy a couple days
early the next morning the guys continue their search for a big buck
although there's no shortage of deer fred has been waiting for a very long time to draw this tag and
he's being very selective he's just a little crabby in we've got some more looking to do
we're trying to find the deer in here so we're going to go up on this
cinder cone that's in front of us so we can look down into these little
swales and these little draws and then see if we can find another big buck in here but if
we get up high and look down into it and then we can also look up into these other benches
well as the plans always seem to evolve you you get halfway into a plan and then you
then you change it we split up and we were going to go up high on the cinder cone and look
in the back country and daryl went a little lower and saw two bucks and another buck that
we didn't get a good look at and so we changed our plan and now we're gonna go go lower where
most of the deer we've been seeing most of the deer so the trek is on let's go kill a big one
these are the deer we spotted earlier this morning from up on top we decided to get a
closer look at them a couple of them a little bit better than we thought they were it's funny
how they can just hide out here in this stuff but they're fairly dull so we got
pretty darn close this one here you got up close was 18 yards and stepped it off there
fred is a resident of southern california and has been applying for this tag for almost
20 years now let's catch back up with fred as he searches the sagebrush for a big california deer
we're right back in this uh little canyon where we saw one of the big bucks yesterday and
we can't seem to find him this morning but he's with does and the does will stay down and so
he's in here somewhere and uh if we don't see these deer then there's a little saddle behind us
and we're gonna go up in that saddle where we can look at both these valleys
and we'll find them in here somewhere
there's a big flat rock about 50 yards in front of us
he's on the other side if you look right over the top of that he's kind of looking this way
he's a three something's wrong with his left side
we just need to find his older brother well for a fleeting second hmm i thought we found him
this big heavy horn deer but he's broken and he's just not
as big as the other one but they could be brothers not the same the same symmetry yeah
well we're uh here in eastern sierra nevada hunting big mule deer
and i'm really lucky to have two of my long time hunting partners we've been hunting maybe
i don't know 40 some years together darrell coe and jim reiner you can see the snow behind us
it just hasn't uh isn't enough to push the deer down so we're hunting the deer that are
already down and we're doing this today because they have to leave tomorrow and uh
if we don't take a nice mule deer here in the next couple hours maybe we'll do it tomorrow
fred's buddies had to cut out a bit early on the hunt leaving fred in the sagebrush
to go it alone searching for a big mule deer with the rut still in full swing fred begins
turning up the same bucks over and over again and with the lack of snow in the area
fred's prospects of finding a true desert monster are starting to fade fast
we saw this little uh actually it's a pretty good three point in these trees a couple days ago so
we got a pretty good look at him today and and we got a you know committee of friends who have
uh looked at this deer so we're not gonna get a little closer and if we like him we're gonna take him
we knew this little forked horn was to the south of the deer that we want
i'm a little afraid to be moving through this through the trees because it's noisy and so
uh maybe it will just ease up a little bit and then wait for him to come to us
heavy horn 3 that's not what we came here for but without snow i don't know
if we're going to find much better of a deer we're gonna talk ourselves into the cinnamon
let's do it
yeah go ahead go ahead yeah
he's a three-point but he's about the heaviest three-point that we've seen
and he kept walking back and forth and staying behind this bush we couldn't shoot him and so
we rolled his feet in the air and uh i guess matt will go down there and take a look at him
we're wrapping up this hunt in uh eastern sierras with this great heavy horn three-point matt
and i put a fun stalk on and we had to uh work through uh about six or seven does up on top who
were more curious about us than afraid and so that took us a little while to
get to them but that was fun and i've had a lot of great friends up here helping and
and we've had a we've had a really good time and so this uh fun heavy three-point uh ends a great
hunt here in the eastern sierras and remember fair chase is the only way to hunt and take
trophy big game we hope you enjoyed the show we'll see you next week right here on eastman hunting tv