Mule Deer Hunt '09

A friend of mine, Rob, and I wanted to go hunting Mule deer on November 11th which was also Veteran’s Day, so we both had the day off. He is new to the area and wanted to see some of the fine deer country that NE Montana has to offer. He had already filled his tag with a nice Mule deer buck a few weeks ago, but wanted to tag along and help me anyway. I picked him up around 7 am, as we thought we wouldn’t have a ton of competition where we were headed. I have hunted an area the last few years that hasn’t been overly pressured by hunters and I have seen some nice bucks in the area as a result during scouting trips. I had packed a big lunch to take with us along with a thermos of strong coffee for the long day ahead of us, and we headed for our hunting spot.

On the drive we passed some areas that are usually overrun with hunters as they are not far from town and the land owners will usually let anyone in that will respect their land. We were passing one of the last private ranches in the area before we would enter public access BLM lands. We slowed at a cattle guard and 200 yards away was a great buck with about 20 does feeding on a hay stack, when we slowed down further all the deer became spooked and ran down to some cover a ½ mile away that had some water and tall Cottonwood trees. We drove up the road a ways and stopped and glassed this buck, as I was stunned to see a buck of this magnitude in this location, as it is known to have great pressure just over the fence from where the buck was on BLM land. I was pretty sure that I knew who the land owners were so we watched the buck a little more to see if he would settle down in a pattern and go back to feeding or lay down. We watched the deer a little more, they seemed to be happy to be feeding in a big area that had two reservoirs with no cover for hunters or predators to sneak up on them. I went to talk to the land owners and they confirmed that that piece of land indeed was theirs and that we were free to hunt it. What great news!! Usually my luck would be that buck was on some ground that was closed to any hunting. The only problem was, like I said, the deer had settled down and were feeding on some land that was completely in accessible without being spotted for 600 yards any direction. I was about to recommend that we skip this buck and head for our intended destination when the deer started to feed for a big coulee that was still on the same ranch. We watched these deer for another half hour until they bedded down and then we took off for the coulee formulating a plan as we went. We left the pickup behind and two dogs immediately started following us!! Dogs are not great companions when you are trying to sneak up on deer. We had to walk back and try to loose the dogs back at the ranch house.

Once we got rid of the dogs we continued on to within about a half mile of the deer and were stuck with the terrain and 20 sets of eyes on the lookout. So, we back tracked a little bit and made a big circle down through the creek bottom and slowly crested a couple small ridges that were between us and the deer. After a mile sneak we were starting to see ears and horns sticking above the next ridge. We were doing so good and had the perfect wind for doing a stock on these deer. Crawling on our knees thru the cactus and sagebrush was the only way for us to close the next 200 yards for me to hopefully get a shot when the buck stood up. After we had gone another 150 yards, one of the does stood up and looked straight at us. I thought we were busted dead in our tracks. I still couldn’t see that buck as he was still bedded down. We laid completely still until the doe decided we were a mirage or something and she fed off down the hill out of our view. After that scare we decided that this was as far as we could go, if I got on my knees I could see that top foot of the buck’s rack, I was thinking that if he stood up I would have a pretty good neck shot or right behind the neck in the shoulder to anchor him down. We laid there for about an hour as different does would get up and feed for a while and then lay back down out of view. As we laid there out in the middle of this flat open field, we could see vehicles going by on the county road. No vehicles ever stopped, but if they had, they would have had a clear view of the story unfolding out on the prairie.

When finally the buck stood up I was turned around on my knees to try to relieve myself!! I got back to my gun as slowly as I could and got a good steady rest, but I could only see the buck’s head and Rob had ranged him at 150 yards. There was no way to take a shot, so we let them settle down again, and tried to hatch another plan to get closer. It was decided that I would crawl ahead another 50 yards into the next coulee and try to get in a better position. Rob, being in a good spotting position, would stay behind and give me hand signals on the buck’s whereabouts. I took off for the next coulee and I could see some does were getting antsy, but they were focused on Rob instead of me. I got to just the underside of the top of the next ridge with the just on the other side, but all I could see were does. I looked back at Rob through my binoculars and he was trying to tell me to hurry up and get on top of the ridge to get a shot at the buck before they took off. I went a liitle higher up the ridge and could finally see the buck was standing up looking back towards Rob. I hurried a few extra yards to the top and the buck was just getting ready to turn and run, when I shot him, he went down and rolled into the bottom of the next coulee. Without Rob along I don’t think I would have been able to harvest this animal, as he was able to guide me in the last few yards, where I wouldn’t have been able to see by myself. That was a great hunt and a great stalk, where I didn’t think I would be hunting that day. We had a short drag to where we could could pick the deer up along a road. We headed for town and ate our lunch and drank our coffee while trying to remove cactus thorns from elbows and knees.