2022

 

It was a stunning morning on the open plains!    Walking up to this patriarch was a blessing and a long time coming.  The beauty of great genetics, excellent nutrition, and smart biologists with the health and populations of micro-managed deer hunting units at the forefront of game laws.   Colorado has the deer population in mind;  Montana has the politics and swagger of the good ol' boys in Helena making law.   The differences are stark and obvious.   Mule deer in Montana like this are rare.   Leave it to the state agencies to muck things up.  Thank the men and women of the enforcement divisions for maintaining what is left of the resource and in my mind, doing their very best.  

Here is the walk-up to this beauty. It was a tough few seconds and a lot of decisions had to be made to get this buck downed.  His doe group had circled back and come up over that small rise in the picture.  I hit the deck on my belly and could see his antlers coming up behind them.  Took a nano-second to make the decision to try to get him down.   The doe group sailed off with him in pursuit.  I had to swing from my prone belly position to a sitting position with my knee as a rest in a slight wind.  He was behind the small hill and I could only see his withers, the top of his body.   I dropped him on the 4th shot on the run.   I have killed dozens of deer on the run and attribute that skill to having killed so many canines on the Fort Berthold Reservation as a young teenager.  I don't look at antlers after the decision to shoot is made.  My only concern is how that scope needs to be steadied to where that bullet needs to enter the animal for a clean kill.