you know one of the things you have to do before you can patter in a good mule
deer is fine one we're down here in southern Wyoming where I hunt
occasionally I think every year I come down here and we're looking for a good
quality mule deer that we can pattern you know we come up on these little
bucks right here neither one of these Bucks are of interest to us they're kind
of in the 150-160 class hey if I were archery hunting know these these are
really good trophy mule deer for for a bow hunter but of course we're looking
for something a little better but this is about the 15th of October 10th of
October sometime around there and these Bucks are hard horned they've rubbed all
the velvet off they're kind of just waiting for the rut to come on
so they're only out just a little bit in the morning and then they come out just
before dark in the evening they got all the winter fat on them they're just
sitting around kind of waiting for the rut to come on it's actually it's a kind
of a tough time to hunt a trophy mule deer because your window I've seen this
these Bucks are just very short a little in the morning a little in the evening
and that's just about it so when it comes to trophy mule deer hunting when
you're hunting in October you're gonna spend a lot of time looking at dusk and
dawn we do find two big mule deer just over across this flat on the other side
of this Ridge over here feeding and one of them looks pretty good
actually he looks like he's got oh I don't know several points on the side
I'm gonna save just looking at him right here he's got over five points on each
side and he's about 28 inches wide the other one is just a four-point now why
are they in here now let me tell you a little secret here at this time we've
had a pretty hard frost so all the green vegetation has basically turned brown
but you know Brooke brush takes a lot harder frost to turn it and what these
Bucks are doing over here while they're in here is they like that buck brush
because it's still a little green and they're over there eating it where
everything else is brown this time of year that buck brush is still green and
this is just as the sun's going down those Bucks have come up out of that
Creek bottom and over there feeding so rusty who works for the Eastman's
Journal and I decide to ease over there and see if we can't get a better look at
these two bucks it's getting dark on its pretty quick we get over there and one
of them looks like I said a lot better than the in fact I think he even has
maybe 7/8 on a side but it gets too dark on us you know the next morning finds us
in a different spot we're gonna kind of keep that buck in mind but we're gonna
look for some other deer and see if we can't find a little one a little better
look this buck here he's laying right in that Quaker patch and you can barely see
him you got to look real close when you're looking for mule deer this time of
year because they'll be laying underneath timber or underneath a patch
or whatever that evening we're back there looking for those two big bucks
and out of the Quaker patch just below where we saw those two bucks here comes
a 27 inch three point look at this buck you know it's the Sun has gone down and
it's starting to get dusk right now and this book has just come out of that
Quaker patch and his feeding along here this time of year like I said you only
have about a half-hour of light that you can hunt that those Bucks will come out
in and like being in October like this sometimes it gets difficult pattering a
buck but you got to have patience and so we're looking for those two Bucks we saw
last night now rusty looks around this corner there's a little pocket in here
and this pocket runs for all I don't know six seven hundred yards up here and
it's pretty open he says Mike look what I see up here I
throw my glasses up on a look across there and right smack-dab in the middle
that pocket six hundred yards away right in the open here's this buck now there's
a one in the top of the screen there he's about a 160 buck the one I'm
talking about is the one in the bottom of your screen right there the second
second buck the lower one he's got his head down right now feed him we run back
and of course Rusty gets the spotting scope up and we start looking at this
buck this could be a possible shooter just a minute here he'll raise up and
you can get a better look at him guy who's doing the filming he's got a 24
power lens so he can he can look probably better than we can look at this
buck he looks pretty good when he turns here ah there he is he's got real nice
back forks his mainframe looks to be about 27 wide Rusty's got that 60 power
like he's looking at the buck and he seems to think that he might have a
cheater to on a side but you know what that buck is done he's got himself six
hundred yards out there in the open and trying to figure out how we can stock
that buck before it gets dark on us is gonna be a problem
you don't want to get out there and shoot a buck and wound him and then it
gets dark you can't find him so we're sitting here discussing hoping perhaps
maybe he'll move closer to us or closer to our direction so we can get a stalk
on him right now he's just so so far out there in that open that I know that if
we step out there and try to ease up on him he's gonna see us you know we
watched that buck for over a half hour until it got so dark we couldn't see him
again he moved off even further away so our chances of stalking him just
disappeared you know I really want to take a better look at that buck I saw
the first day so we left this buck and went back to that other one the next day
and started patterning him a week later Wendell and rusty had a friend come in
to hunt and you know what they did they sit down and pattern in this buck they
hunted him for three days and finally got the opportunity where the buck made
a mistake and the hunter was able to take him now look at this buck he's 33
inches wide he's got a little dropper off his brow hang there
he's 5 and 3/4 around the bases and he scores 210 non-typical a real nice buck
of a lifetime you know the next morning finds me setting up at a Quaker patch
where I can look across there and hopes that buck I saw the first day will come
come back to these Quaker patch to bed you know he's still over there eating on
that buck brush that's about Oh a mile away from where we're set up and even at
that distance if you look across the area he looks pretty good right there
just a good big trophy mule deer when you know we want a better look at him it
looks like he's about 27 inches wide and looks like he's all antler over there
you know we're watching that buck and all of a sudden a cow and a bull moose
come running down that hill towards him and it spooked him now watch these Bucks
they throw their heads up they'll look and they tore down that hill and come
running right store towards us towards that Quaker patch you know that Quaker
patches the security to these Bucks and here they come right now and they say
let's get out of here Boing Boing Boing they run down and they run right across
here and they get behind a little knob here and you know they wait I'll bet you
eight minutes it got pretty dramatic here suddenly they broke in here they
come they come right up on top of the hill and that buck turns and looks right
at me he can see me for some reason there he is he looks right at me now I
got an instant to decide whether I want to take the buck he's not really very
wide and when he turns here he he must have seven eight points on a side but
he's not really very tall or heavy see this I'm gonna hold off on him maybe
next year he'll become a great big good heavy mule deer but he is still a nice
buck look at him Boing Boing hidden right for the Quaker patch you know we
never saw that buck again after he saw that we were hunting him he shut right
down we never saw him again in our hunting adventures there at Wendell's
place he just disappeared you know that next morning we're set up
this buck and here he comes this is this is like at 7:00 in the morning he's
coming up out of his feeding area heading for his bedding area and this is
a good mule deer he's 27 inches wide he's got over five inch bases a real
nice heavy mule deer I get set up right here by a Quaker he sees me move but I
just stand still and he goes right back to walking now this gets exciting here
he comes closer and closer and closer doesn't
know I'm there he does look around cuz he thinks something's wrong but can't
quite figure it out yet he keeps coming this is a big mature mule deer nice big
bodied nice heavy rack comes closer and closer
closer and closer and closer I think you get what's that guy okay he's got to
move the camera look at this he's got to move the camera to get a better angle on
the buck I hope the buck doesn't seem or the jig is gonna be up you can see me
there right there resting my gun against that Quaker he
doesn't see us suddenly looks up and he must see my red hat right here I I don't
know why he stopped there we're not moving but he says wow I guess things
are okay so he keeps coming and coming and coming
finally guy has to move again and when he does the Bucks sees him
now this is gonna get real exciting here he's only 150 yards away from me
right here wait he sees guy moved the camera guy moved the camera and when he
sees guy when he turns broadside I know the jig's up he knows that something's
wrong then
it's just grabbing
there he is turnin
I throw another shell in and I hit him on the run and he just collapses right
behind this Quaker tree we had them perfect right there in that Grove and
here they come and he he saw me move when I creeped out
there and he stopped me look night he froze and he then he started walking
some more and then when guy had to move the camera that's when they stopped he
goes lowball and he spun around broadside said I'm taking it well let's
go take a look at it yep
wow what a nice heavy buck Wow great good eye guards got a cheater on both
sides great deer so this is you know all the 10th of October and it's really been
been great here we were able to pattern these bucks and we saw a lot of good
mule deer and this is just a really good mule deer he's heavy got real nice tangs
seventeen and a half inch g2s his g4s are eleven inches long and he's
five inches at the base and that just comes from good quality habitat doesn't
exactly yep