Some buddies of mine had mule deer tags on a big ranch in the mountains of West Texas. They asked me to go with them for the week to spot game, take pictures and hang out. It took me about 7 seconds to say yes. I knew I wouldn't be behind the trigger but won't ever turn down an opportunity to chase a cool animal in some tough country. We were looking for a couple of big mature bucks and ended up seeing quite a few.
If you've never done this... I equate it to really high level hide and go seek. The deer move a lot in the morning and before dark but for the majority of the day they are hunkered up somewhere and just almost impossible to spot. Having the sun in the right spot is vitally important. If you're trying to spot deer looking into the sun ... it's not gonna happen very often. Good optics, a good vantage point and some luck are must haves to make this thing work.
We ended up seeing a ton of deer. Some near, some far ... but always hidden. This little guy was the first buck we spotted. He wasn't anything special but it was good to know we could find some.
This next buck looked good at first but after some studying we decided he was young and had a good future so we didn't bother him. We just left him sitting in the shade. He was skylined just perfectly so it worked out good for the photographer.
I didn't get pictures of every deer we saw... but this one was pretty cool. We drove out on a point to check a canyon below. Your first inclination is to look way out way far away from you and see what's out there and that's exactly what I did. It took a minute or so before I realized this guy was sitting about 30 yards from me. He's up and alert in this picture so he's easy to spot but initially he had his head down and was near impossible to see, despite being so close.
It seemed like in the early morning light, the hills were crawling with deer. We were seeing so may we got picky and left all these guys alone.
Sometimes we'd get into flatter country... and the deer were still there ... and still hard to spot. This buck was with a doe and her ear twitch gave him away.
We finally got on the board after a couple of days of hunting hard. This old warhorse was hanging out in some greasewood and we spotted him and got a shot. Heavy, old and cool, he was what we had been hunting for. I need to do a little research and find out what causes those acorns on the antlers because he had them on just about every tine. I love bucks with character like that.
We had one more tag to fill so we kept at it. Deer weren't the only things we saw.
We hunted for a couple more days and saw a bunch more deer. We made moves on a few and were unable to get the job done. It's almost like these deer live their whole lives avoiding predators.
This isn't the best picture in the world but there's a buck in there. I know he's there because we sat for 2.5 hours waiting on him to get up ... only to realize he was only 5.5 and got a pass. Frustrating? Very. Tough to walk away from ? Yes. The right decision ? Hopefully.
I had to leave with one morning hunt remaining and of course that's when the next deer got shot. I don't have a picture to post but he was a good one. An 8.5 year old donkey with a good set of antlers, exactly what we were holding out for.
A week of good scenery, good deer and good people made it awful tough to come back to the real world.
