It had been a long year in the field…particularly when it comes to desert muleys. In Arizona, your one OTC archery deer tag gives you opportunities in three different seasons. There’s the cherished January season which typically gives you the chance to hunt some hard-core rutting bucks (mule deer or coues, depending on the area). If that doesn’t pan out for you, you can get back out there in late August to chase velvet bucks in the desert or the high country (it’s a hot hunt, but a great time to get out after a long summer off-season). And if that one doesn’t work out, many units open up again in the middle of December through the end of the year to give you one last chance to harvest “any antlered deer.”
Cold winter mornings in the backcountry desert…what could be better?
In January 2020, an illness tore through my family, cutting my planned hunts to almost nothing. I got out for one day with a deer and a javelina tag, made a bad shot on a javelina that got away, and that was it for my season. The summer season I opted to put all my efforts into breaking my bear curse, and the hottest/driest summer on record in a long time changed all their behavior and had me go home empty-handed. In November, I played guide to my wife and son who had rifle deer tags, and while we had some opportunities and several shots were taken, we hit nothing but dirt on that hunt. So finally at the very end of the year, I still had my archery deer tag burning a hole in my bino harness, and managed to find just a morning or an evening here or there to get out and chase some bucks.
So finally…the story
If you’d rather watch the story unfold, check out this film of the adventure.
I had two evenings left to get out to the family farm and chase some bucks…schedules being what they are, that was gonna be it for my 2020 hunting efforts. Sightings and sign had been drying up a little bit in December, so my hopes were certainly lower than they had been earlier in the year when deer seemed to be swarming the property. But that first night I posted up in between two fields that still had some fresh tracks heading into them. If I saw something, I was gonna have to try and close the distance somehow (a nearly impossible feat on totally flat agricultural land), but at least it would give me a chance to try and see where they were coming in from.
I watched a group of does and fawns feed for close to an hour, but there wasn’t a horn to be had in the bunch. With about a half hour of light left, I caught movement from the other side of the field. I threw up the spotter to get a good look and I saw a spike, followed by a fork, and a good ways behind them a real nice buck with big deep forks. Since they were on the far edge of the property and I was pretty sure they were gonna hug the fence line where they could have a quick escape if needed, I decided to bomb out into the desert and literally run in a big loop to come around and try to catch them still in the field. As I approached the final drainage that I needed to cut through to get a visual on the field the deer were in, I flushed roughly one-kajillion quail out of the thick brush. I’m not sure if that’s exactly what did it, but by the time I crept up to the edge of the property, the bucks were nowhere to be found.
But, now that I had seen them enter from that corner of the property, it gave me a plan for my final night of the year. The next day I walked in to exactly where I saw those bucks enter, picked a spot downwind of their theoretical path, and tucked myself as far back into some thick brush as I could possibly get. Then I waited. By 3:45, the does and fawns were already entering the opposite side of the field. I took that as a good sign that the patterns of the previous night might actually repeat themselves tonight.
I saw those bucks appear at about 5:30 the night before, so I didn’t even have an arrow knocked or my bow in my hand at first. I told myself I’d get all set up about 4:30, because I didn’t want my hand frozen to my bow for nearly 3 hours. So naturally, I heard some hoofs hit about 4:00, and there was suddenly a spike in the field in front of me. I started the cameras, picked up my bow, knocked an arrow, and ranged him…86 yards. My max range is 70, so I sat there perfectly still willing him to make a turn and close the distance just a little more. Unfortunately, he stayed on his path towards those does, gradually getting farther from me.
That’s when I picked up more movement in the brush behind him…here came a decent sized forky. He walked behind a large bush, so instinctively I stood up from my little stool and came to full draw. He popped out on the other side of the bush and I started to settle my pins on him. I realized I had forgotten my typical process of pre-ranging all the landmarks so I could accurately guess distance if I didn’t have time to range a buck. In that split-second, I decided he looked about 70 yards away, so I started to float that pin on him. He made a couple steps into the field, then paused to take his first bite. That’s when I let the arrow fly. I watched the arrow fly and the deer do what deer often do…he dropped way down to jump out of the way…and the arrow sailed well over his back.
He’s no giant, but I would have been happy to take him home with me!
In the aftermath, I ranged the path he took into the field, and that deer was somewhere between 55 and 60 yards. Between his jumping and my massive over-estimation, there was no way I was gonna hit that buck. But, the night was still young and the plan seemed to be working. All that was left to do was stay alert and hope more bucks would make their way along that path.
I watched the sun dip below the horizon, and admired the does and fawns some 3-400 yards away from me leisurely feeding out in the field without a care in the world. I looked at the pins on my sight and decided I had five minutes left before the glow would be gone and it would be too dark to shoot. Mere moments after that thought, I heard breathing directly behind the brush I was sitting in front of. I sat up straight, hooked-in my release, and watched. Sure enough, the head of a very nice buck popped out less than 30 yards to my left. He looked at me for a second, decided I was nothing, and took a couple steps out. I raised my bow just a bit to prepare to draw, and he stopped and looked again. I froze. After another staring contest, he was at ease again, put his head down, and took another couple steps. Once his head was behind the spindliest tumbleweed, I drew my bow. His eye still caught that movement and he whipped his head up to stare at me.
At this point, his body was obscured behind that tumbleweed and I didn’t feel good about trying to send an arrow through the brush. I waited…and waited…sure he was gonna turn tail and run. But after a few moments, he once again put his head back down and continued walking towards the field. After a couple steps, his body was clear of the brush, I settled my top pin on him, and let it fly. I heard that unmistakeable thud of the arrow impact, and the deer tore off at a dead sprint into the field. Because the light was fading, the farther he got, the harder it was to see him. But in the faintest glow in that field, I swore that I saw his back legs give out and him pile up.
I gave myself a few minutes to calm down. I called my wife to share the good news (and warn her it was now going to be a late night), and then called my father-in-law to come help me find and process him. To give the buck a little extra time, I walked all the way back to where I had parked my truck and drove down the farm road to roughly where I shot him. After following a very easy to track blood-trail for maybe 200 yards through the field (thanks, Vantage Point Archery), I caught the reflection of deer eyes in my headlamp. He was MUCH bigger than I realized when I shot, he was stone dead, and my long hunting slump had finally and officially come to a close.
It ended up being a late night out at the farm, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
The point?
The point (besides the fact that successful hunting stories are almost always the most fun to tell) is that every time you’re in the field is a chance to learn something that can ultimately bring you success. All the time I’ve spent playing the spot-and-stalk game in the backcountry has taught me so much about mule deer behavior, and given me ample practice playing the wind. The first evening of this hunt where they ghosted me showed me what the bucks were doing, so I could make an educated plan for the next night and hope they’d run the same play. My buddy is a big believer in using a bit of camo face paint to further break up your human outline, and I decided to give it a whirl on this final night, Hail-Mary hunt. I had a number of staring contests with a couple different bucks, and I’m convinced the paint helped because they stuck around way longer than deer typically do in that situation.
I’m saying that I know it’s easy to get discouraged out there, but consider the lessons learned as your win for any particular hunt. I had some early success in my hunting career and then entered a slump that ended up lasting over three years. The “this will never happen…what are you even doing out here” voices can get pretty loud in your head. If you happen to be in a similar spot, let me encourage you that it will eventually happen if you keep at it. Were it not for the lessons and experience I gained over the previous three years, I’m positive I wouldn’t have connected on that buck. No excursion into the field is ever a waste of time as long as you learn something while you’re out there.