Chris FarrisI never anticipated my Wyoming mule deer hunt would turn into a whitetail hunt.
The week before I spent a week in Canada hunting elk and with time limited I flew direct to Wyoming instead of returning home to regroup and organize. The drive from Casper to Kaycee was late at night and long because of extreme fog. I hoped the next morning would be good because of it but had my doubts after seeing so many deer on the highway.
The next morning we headed out to the Powder river where the mule deer come down off the Big Horn mountains to graze early in the morning. I always like to check my zero after flying but we had no time, (this would prove to be a blessing in disguise).
We packed in and got set up on the edge of a draw that looked over some heavy cover that looked like it was being used by the deer to access the fields. We did not see anything for some time and started to second guess our decision, so we started back. I guess our movement revealed a bedded down mule deer buck that was just 100 yards from us in the trees. He was not very tall or heavy but had to be close to 30 inches wide. He just stood there looking right at us. I got in a comfortable shooting position and squeezed one off. He did not even flinch. Steve asked me if it felt good or if I pulled it. I told him it felt good. By this time the deer had turned broadside, so I chambered another round and touched it off with the same result. By the time I could chamber another the buck caught on and began to hop off like muleys do. Steve said take my gun and we'll head him off at the pass. We could not cross the draw so we had to run around the bend of it to cut him off. Confident that we had beat him to where he was going we laid down and began glassing. Immediately we spotted a whitetail doe with a whitetail buck in tow about 125 yards away and all Steve could say was, "man....look at the size of that whitetail!"
The big buck was chasing the doe almost directly away from us going in and out of trees. I lost him for a second and then spotted him again but now he was twice as far as before.
I could here the words of Rick Martin (a rough and tough old outfitter I hunted Coues deer with in Mexico), he was in my head saying, "you can't wish 'em to death and you won't hit 'em if you don't shoot at 'em). So I put the crosshairs between his ribs and hind quarters hoping to intersect his heart on the exit. I squeezed and after what seemed like an eternity you could hear the unmistakable sound of solid bullet contact on soft tissue. Steve watched the whole thing through his binoculars but did not see him go down or run off.
It was the longest hour of my life getting around the ravine and over to where he was last seen. But after only five minutes we located him. A beautiful stand up 14 point with 8 on one side and 6 on the other.
The next day we shot my gun at a standard site in target and it was about three feet high and three feet to the left. This is the first time my rifle has changed zero during a flight and the first time I was not able to check my zero prior to hunting.
Thank goodness Wyoming deer tags are good for both mule deer and whitetail and thank goodness my rifle was way off!
Chris used:
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