| Mule Deer Heaven By Rocky Ferraro It all started quite a while ago as I was telling my hunting partner Don One day. I read a great article in Outdoor Life Magazine back in the sixties. I still remember the article of a boy and his family up in the Trinity Alps hunting for deer on horse back. I remember how he saw a herd of deer while walking his horse, dropped the rains, slid the rifle out of his saddle holster, tried to aim and almost took his shot but the deer had in the mean time run around the bend and out of sight. This and the story about the boy hunting mountain goat with a bow up in a tree right at the timber line has stuck in my memory all these years. This year I took another chance and entered the big game license drawing for Montana. I was so captivated by the bountiful beauty of Montana’s wild life and forests last time I was there I just had to return. The people are friendly and hospitable. The weather has never been too severe the times I’ve visited and in fact the weather has been down right wonderful most of the time. I’m sure they get there share of ice and cold temps but I have really not seen these yet. I got lucky again and got drawn for a Sportsmen’s combo tag. This tag is good for deer, elk, small game, upland game except turkey and fishing just about anywhere in the state. I also applied for some special area hunts which if you are not chosen you get points which accumulate and make it easier to get drawn for that special area next year. This year I was drawn for a mule deer tag in an area where they only let 100 hunters hunt for mule deer. White tail can be taken either sex; elk are brow tine bulls only until after Nov. 9th then they are either sex as well. The regulations are easy to understand after you read them through several times. I like the Montana’s hunting regulations because once you are drawn for a general deer or elk tag you can roam just about the entire state to hunt. We hunted for 3 days before we keyed in on where the mule deer were. Every morning Don would take me to his favorite spots and we would sit in 20 degree weather for about 5 hours waiting for that muley to walk by. On opening day we saw a huge 5x or maybe 6x monster white tail buck walk within 25 yards of us. I could not shoot a white tail with the tag I had and Don did not have a chance to aim his gun before the deer took off. I also saw many white tail does that morning which I could have taken if I did not have the special mule deer tag. Later that day we hiked through an area and jumped 3 elk but 2 were cows and one was a young spike which we did not have tags for. We could only shoot brow tine bulls this time of year with our tags. The next day we sat the early morning in another area but did not see any deer. We also hiked the afternoon but did not see anything. The third day we walked the morning in another area we saw a cow elk in the morning and a doe white tail later that morning. Don and I decided to go fishing in the afternoon. Don caught a couple of nice fat 20 inch rainbows and I caught a smaller one. It was a nice afternoon break; the weather was warm. The lake was pristine and the trout were jumping. That evening we drove up to an area we had been hunting during the early hours. You need to envision that going to these areas there are private ranches along the way we did not have access to and on these ranches we were seeing herds of mule deer, some were trophies and there were trophy white tails there as well, just grazing and sticking their tongues at us; they knew they were safe. This evening I saw a nice group of mule deer as we were driving in our hunting area. Don said “Getem!” I jumped out of the truck, jacked a shell into my 270wsm and slowly crept up on a monster muley. His main beams were huge and wide. His fronts were almost as large and equally wide. He was the monarch of the forest, which to this date still haunts me. The way he carried himself was so majestic. As I crept up he knew something was up and he walked behind a tree. I stood their, my heart pumping the adrenaline through my veins, waiting for him to walk out; this huge buck in my scopes cross hairs. Slowly his head came out, he was close, but then he stopped. Time just stood still while he slowly moved an inch or two forward. I took aim and thought this would be it, take a head shot and get him I said to myself, he is the buck of a life time!! I took the shot, Bang! It was off to the right and into the tree as saw dust went flying, with a white poof. I took a few more shots but he was on his way into the next county. I took the final shot as he waved so long to me and I flubbed that shot too. I was shaking like a leaf. Don and I just stood their and looked at each other. Don said “I though that deer was ours”. Well he also said “That’s hunting” and did not give me a hard time. He knew this would be my first deer and told me I had just experienced buck fever. “Well now you got that out of your system and yes there are big mule deer here we just need to find them”. We went back to the TNT ranch and had our evening meal. Needless to say I still had a ton of adrenaline pumping through my veins. How I was going to get to sleep that night was beyond me. The next day we went and sat the morning in another location but did not see anything. We decided to fish the afternoon again. Again we caught some nice rainbow trout. We went back to the area we had seen the mule deer the evening before. We saw a heard of about 10 does and I put a stalk on them trying to find a buck that was near by with no luck. We went further and found more mule deer that evening but they were either does or does with a spike. I could have taken the mule deer spike with my tag as long as the spike was approximately 4 inches. The next morning we sat at the same spot we had sat opening day. We saw lots of white tail does, I even grunted to some and had fun with them watching their reactions. I was trying to call in the monster white tail buck we saw opening day which never materialized. We went back to the truck and had lunch. Then Don said lets take a drive before we call it an afternoon. As we were driving the back country I spotted a mule deer feeding. At first I did not see the antlers but I was impressed by its size. He was about 75 yards away from us. Don said “yeha he’s got horns, take your time! He’s a good one” so I got out of the truck, sighted him in my crosshairs and slowly squeezed the trigger. At the same time I heard the boom of the rifle he was down. One shot in the area behind the shoulder and he did not move. I had felled my first deer and again the adrenaline rush was on. I walked up to him slowly incase I needed to make another shot but he was dead when I got there. Don showed me what to do as far as cleaning him. We put him on the rack behind the truck after he was cleaned and off we went to show Alice back at the TNT Ranch. Once we got back to the ranch we decided to bring him over to the meat processor not too far from the ranch. He would have it ready in a couple of days cut and freezer wrapped for my trip back to California. |
| Mule Deer Heaven |
| Foster City Rod and Gun Club |
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