Hey guys I don't post much but have enjoyed reading every ones stories from the last 5 years and thought I should share an exceptional hunt I was able to share with my Brother.
We have been hunting the Prairie WMU's for the last 12 years and have been lucky enough to have my dad harvest a good 5x5 whitetail, I harvested a very nice prairie buck that scored 148" and my dad got a 170's muley buck on his draw 5 years ago. My brother on the other hand has had a tough time filling his general whitetail tag with an animal with horns and up to this year had not harvested a buck of either species, no lack of time spent in the bush or hunting skill so one could understand why he had been taking less and less time off to hunt while watching the trophy wall fill up with racks from Dad and myself. He ended up taking almost 3 years off during his wedding and the 2 years that followed but with a lot of calls and pushing we convinced him to start bow hunting which got him making more time for the bush and family bonding/hunting (same thing).
This year we ended up both getting our mule deer draws in our area which we had waited 4 yrs for, I told him this would be our year to spend time together and get a big boy as the area is known to produce a couple 180' class deer every year. I sourced out permission on three different lease holders and scouted the area the last 2 years while working the area, only saw one really good 3x3 and a 160-170 mule buck on the way home from bow hunting a different property.
We spent our first 2 days of muley hunting Nov. 8-9. The first day was less than exciting, we walked a section of bush in the morning 3 miles long against the river near the start of the coulees without seeing a single animal, that doesn't mean they weren't there of course but it was still disappointing to not see any flags or muleys bounding away in the distance. We decided that the river basin was not the area the hunt and headed for another piece of land that had a fairly long coulee heading through it, sat from 10:30-2 glassing consistently and again was disappointed to not have a single animal visible within 2 miles. Sat the rest of the day back where we saw a large number of buck tracks crossing the road into the property by the river and ended up seeing a small 3x3 that meandered off. The second day would be different, we headed up to the big coulee first thing in the morning and upon entering the property i saw a large black spot about 1200 yards ahead of us across the coulee, as i glassed the spot i commented to my brother it must be a moose as it was far too large to be a deer, then i saw something to my left moving across the field towards the fenceline of the property we were hunting about 500 yards away, i immediately said to my brother "look theres an elk over there" and once the binos were on him i realized with a fevered pitch "OH MY GOD ITS A MULEY BUCK!". This deer had a massive body and was wide and tall but I couldn't make out the number of tines. We darted out of the truck and grabbed the guns to see if he would come across the fence close enough for a shot but once we exited the truck he trotted with a little more speed and entered the property right at the coulee and was out of view. We made a plan to head him off three hills down and headed on our trek, we came over the last hill and realized he had been chasing a group of 6 does and was much farther ahead of us then expected. We tried to creep close enough for a shot but he kept us at 600 yards consistently and headed out of the property after a couple mile walk and stalk. We were immediately happier with our spot of choice for first light and headed back to the truck grinning about the heart pumping experience. We then headed up to another peice of property that i knew was great Moose area but had a nice open area to glass so we drove in to the fence line and had a peek, nothing there but upon leaving were approached by a local in his C10 chevy. Asked us if we were the city folks he had dropped off in town earlier as they had left theyre bag in his truck and asked where we were hunting almost seemed like he was hinting to see if we had sourced permmision. Once we had let him know whos land we were allowed on he immediately asked if we knew how to get to the big coulee...i said what big coulee? Ended up finding out that we could cross his property to what was basically an observation deck over a 1000 yrd wide coulee on the property that was only accessible by foot and a 5 mile hike...which means a 5 mile drag lol. This spot was unbelievable, as we came to the observation deck we could see a group of muleys being pushed by a group of hunters that were about 2 miles north of us on another property and immediately stopped short of coming over the fence into the coulee to chase them. There was one buck in the group and they decided to hit a smaller hidden coulee behind a large cliff and bed down. We couldn't make out the buck as he had bedded into some buck brush so my brother made a long winded walk and stalk to get within 200 yards of the herd which he then decided the buck was too small to tag out on this early on albeit an easy shot...but a terrible 1000 yard drag to the bottom of a 200 foot tall coulee which would need to be scaled as well. So with that we headed back to the first property and set up 300 yards apart on the coulee wall. I had a really neat spot where i could see about 400 yards to the north up the coulee and had a perfect view of a small west coulee that dumped into the main one about 80 yards to my left. I had found a good set of sheds from a big 3x3 muley that i planned to drag home so i gave my third shot ever at rattling, gave three good battles ober 45 minutes and left things alone. I had envisioned what it would be like to have a deer walk into the entrance of the smaller coulee which i could see and out through the passage into the main area with myself doing a couple mock knee rest shots to prepare as it was a steep slope i had parked myself on. After 2 hours of sitting after the rattles i was just starting to believe we were going to get skunked this trip, so i decided to glass the area once more and caught a bit of movement at the entrance of the smaller coulee before it disappeared out of view, i immediately shuffled along the coulee wall and get a better view of the smaller coulee, with that i waited for the animal to appear at the base of the coulee and was happily surprised to see a small 4 point buck making his was exactly where i had envisioned, i could see he was only a crab claw 4 but i made the decision that if he chose to go south instead of north I would take him. He came to the head of the north south trail and with what felt like half an hour finally turned my way. I laid back on the hill to break up my silhouette and waited for him to appear to my left. Again what felt like an hour past with my heart racing in anticipation of his arrival into my shooting lane, i peeked over the hill and there he was meandering towards the opening, i put my crosshairs over the spot i could see and as his antlers came into view i could see he was as wide his ears aimed for the vitals and it was all over, boom went the 300WSM, he made two good strokes and slowed down about 20 yards away and tipped over like a fainting goat. I let out a big yell and did a couple fist pumps, my brother texted over to me asking if it was me that shot and i texted back "Muley Buck Down!. We met at the truck and made our way as close as we could to where he dropped and walked the 200 yards to him. I was happy to see there was no shrinkage and surprised at how big of a body he had, i ended up after he was field dressed, skinned, head removed, lower legs removed and no tenderloins to take 190 lbs to the butcher, i have to say it was the worst drag and lift into the truck we have done but easily one of the shortest drags weve done! I probably could have been more patient but after not seeing much the day earlier less the 2 yrs of scouting, and having my plan work out to a T this buck was my buck and we were happy to be heading home with meat and a set of horns for the wall and give my brother a chance at shooting a larger deer for once than me with his tag. This is my biggest mule deer to date at 23.5" wide and scored just shy of 140.
Then came the long wait, my wife is very pregnant and we are out of my house so it can be fully renovated before the baby comes meaning alot of time at the house and not much time to tag along for another 2 day trip with my bro. We had planned a trip out on the weekend of the 15th but i couldnt make it so my dad took the trip with my brother and they ended up getting told by a couple of locals they had seen alot of good bucks on the colony, they took the whole morning scouring the landscape with just a couple small bucks glassed. They then headed to the familiar white tail area to see if they could fill our buddies whitetail tag and ended up with a doe to take home. At this point we both could not get out the next week leaving the final weekend for my brother to fill his draw and it was looking bleaker and bleaker as i realized i could not go with him, and on the thursday before he was supposed to head out for his last day the 29th his hunting partner got scared of taking the day off due to lay offs which left him to his own designs and with the drag we experienced before and the almost impossible dead lift into the truck i knew i had to force the issue with the wife and at 9pm the night before "gained permission" of another kind
to head out with my bro for one last shot at filling his tag. We got out to the property we first saw the big and wide buck and immediately again saw a smaller 4x4 heading the same way before into the coulee, it looked like he was heading our way so we waited to see if he would pop up at the top of hill and present a shot or after 20 minutes we would head to the exit of the coulee to head him off. As we glassed waiting we failed to notice another truck had pulled into the property and was about to pass us on the only road (we were 100 yards tops inside the fence from the road). I rolled down the window and waived for him to stop, i explained we had seen a buck and most likely had a herd of muleys at the start of the coulee and would appreciate them letting us do so without them heading down the road they were heading which would spook the deer, the guys explained they were looking for mule doe and asked if we saw any. I told them its not my property so they could do what they want but I stated again that most likely there were some does in the coulee but we had the mule buck draw and would like a chance to get the buck due to the long draw wait. They then asked if they could drive the road again and i offered that i again would prefer they not spook the herd and that they could head down the access road to the right that goes to the end of the property and that if they stayed down in the field they wouldnt spook the animals, they agreed saying they didnt want to spoil our hunt. I cant tell them where they can or cant hunt and i thought that was fair. Well we watched as they headed down the road, then instead of heading to the right they ended up going over top of the hills until we saw them stop abruptly and get out to glass what was of course the herd we had told them about. We drove up another 200 yards to the right and got out to walk and stalk, as we came over the first hill we could see lifted truck zagging over the top of all the hills and stopping on the top of the highest to glass the herd again which now was running off of the property and over the fence this is when we realized mr. wide and tall was in the group!
We crept down the coulee to the north and up the other side to see if they would double back as we watched the road hunters turn around and head out as they had obviously ruined any chance of harvesting the animals (they were easily 750 yrs away at all times and the animals were now not legal to hunt). Awesome...we got within about 700 yards to realize that again the big guy had avoided us and was headed into the great white yonder. Made the 1km trek back to the truck swearing up a down about our luck.
****ed off and a little discouraged we headed up to the moosey area and then decided instead of going back to where we had seen mr. wide and tall we would head to the observation deck to try our luck for a couple hours. We could tell no one had drove it in a bit as we were close to locking up the diff to keep moving through the knee deep snow. We parked about 400 yards from the edge and crept our way to the edge. My brother decided to head to the north side of the coulee and i would head over to the south. As i set up i imediately spotted a group of 8 does hopping south and out of sight, i whistled to my bro notifying him i had seen deer but didnt get any whistle back. I then decided i should head over to his side and sit with him as the bucks would be behind them. As i crested his side i followed his footprints in the snow to his hill where i saw a black spot heading down the middle of the coulee, i glassed it and saw a really nice muley buck headed right to where he should be parked. I laid down immediately to not create a silhouette and waited with fingers crossed for the big boom....minutes went by with nothing. i calmed myself down saying if i get up ill spook him, finally after a small closed eyes nap i wondered what the hell was going on! I army crawled to the crest of the hill and glassed the area to find the buck had bedded down about 600 yards away...nice. I went along the south side of the hill until i finally saw my bro parked on the shear face of the north side. He motioned to me where the buck was and i noted to him i knew where he was, we chatted about a game plan, he had already rattled at him with no success, i brought out my grunt tube and barked three different grunts and bleats which perked his ears but didnt get him up. Then we saw another body heading right to us, it was another 4x4 maybe as wide as his ears but not overly big or massy. I kept grunting which brought him within about 250 and my bro decided then and there that he would pass this guy up and really wanted the bigger deer. as the buck walked away i kept telling him that might have been it and maybe he should have taken that shot as it was getting late and we still had to drag the deer out, but he was driven. Once the other buck got within 300 yards of the bigger buck a couple whitetail does headed into the coulee, this got the big guys attention and he got up and headed straight at the smaller buck, he pushed the small guy out of the coulee and started to slowly make the trek toward the whitetail does. He was following their tracks and that would take him around us at about 700 yards with no chance of a solid shot that would be fair to the animal, my brother had mentioned taking the long way around the north to try and get behind him but i knew we would be behind him the whole way and the wind would be in the bucks favor. So we agreed to body tobagon down the south side which was basically straight down. Once the buck headed into the dried creek bed and couldnt see us we took the leap! it was a bit foolhardy and definitely a young guys move haha and we made the slow stalk and crawl up each small rolling hill glassing to see where he was, we got with 500 yards and he was picking away at some buck brush in the creek bed facing away from us, as he dissapeard into the brush we made once last fast huff to the next hill and army crawled the last 100 yards to put us within 350 yards of the cliff on the other side, he had no choice but to walk in front of us or turn around. Well he wouldnt show himself or come out of the brush and amazingly would blend in so well when you switched from binos to scope we couldnt make him out sometimes. After he had dissapeard for about 15 minutes i pulled up my scope and looked at the shooting lanes, suddenly i saw him heading right for us as he emerged from the creek bed, I whispered to my bro that he was coming out and to get ready, he said i cant see him, when i looked through the scope again he was still heading our way and we had gained enough yardage for a 250yrd shot, just then he turned broadside with a slow walk! I turned to my bro and he was still on his binos trying to pick him out (in his defense it was hard to pick him out from the buck brush behind him) i whisper yelled "get your gun out hes right there!" my bro picked up his gun and i watched through the scope...BOOM! and he went down like a ton of bricks!!!! I jumped up and sprinted to my brother and we did a jumping high five between hoots of #%$@ YEAH
!!! I had never stalked an animal for so long and had a plan work so well it was unbelievable and what an experience to be there for his first Mule Buck and a good one at that. We made the trip back to the truck first as adding another 500 yards to the walk was not in the books. We came back and took some pics and a video and made the huge drag back and up the 200 ft coulee (if you look hard in the top left corner you can see where we moved the truck to at the top of the coulee before making the drag). He ended up scoring just shy of 158 3/8 which in my books is a great muley buck alone if not your first and obviously he has something to brag about and big shoes to fill in another 4 years! He also got his first whitetail buck a little 4x4 which makes this a great season for him and me thinks hell be heading out on a more regular basis and creating more memories just like this one. Thanks for reading i hope you enjoyed the story half as much as i enjoyed living it.
Last Chance at 4yr Muley Draw Success! (Long read be prepared!)
Linear Mode
