PERSISTANCE PAYS OFF

by Brad Rauch

It was a clear alpine morning. After a 3 hour horseback ride and a 2 mile hike, my guide was positioning me for an easy 100 yard shot as soon as the 200 class Muley buck moved from behind the bushy pine tree below us. As he cleared the tree, a shot rang out and hit the buck in the mid section. Only problem was, it wasnt my bullet. Another hunter had located the same buck and from a totally different angle, made his kill shot. We had no idea that any one else was miles from this remote location 10,000 feet above sea level. We were on U. S. Forest service land and he had as much right to this deer as I had, but that did not help ease my disappointment.

This was my first and maybe my only guided hunt for Mule Deer. I had saved and planned for my Wyoming Mule deer hunt for a long time and was so excited to have a chance at a really great trophy. The next 5 days were some of the most grueling and frustrating times I had ever spent hunting. Blisters, soaking wet, freezing cold, bruised and sore, we covered lots of miles and spent hours with a spotting scope trying to find another monster buck. I did connect on a heavy horned 3 x 3 on the last day of my hunt and saw some of the most beautiful country in the world. But the near miss on that September morning would push me even harder the next three seasons to find another great buck.

Living in Northwestern Montana affords lots of opportunity for hunting. I have had some great success with Elk, Bear, Whitetail deer and Antelope. However, for the past 10 years my passion has been Mule deer hunting. I have hunted a large portion of our state searching public and private lands for a trophy Muley in addition to the guided hunt in Wyoming.

Each of the past three seasons I have shot a decent buck, each one a bit bigger than the last. So this past season I really felt good about the possibilities of finding a buck that may qualify for the wall.

I made my plan for crossing the Continental Divide the second week of season and hunting my favorite spot on private and adjacent forest service land. I took several days off work and the first evening I spent about an hour spotting deer and trying to make a plan for the next morning. After looking over several nice deer, the ranch owner, and I spotted a very nice buck bedded down in a secluded hidey hole. After gazing through the spotting scope and seeing the width, height, and number of points, I began to get excited and with little more than an hour of daylight left, I decided to put a stalk on him. I had told myself a thousand times this whole off season that I was not going to shoot the first buck I saw. And now I found myself preparing to break my promise!

I had to work my way into him very carefully, because there was private land between the buck and myself and I had to work my way around this to avoid trespassing. There would be no way to stay concealed during a portion of the stalk and I figured if he made me, I would just back off and try him the next morning. The closer I got to him the more I was convincing myself that this buck was a shooter!

I very carefully worked my way through about a 100 yards of open country to get in position for a possible shot. If I made it to a small fir tree without being spotted I would be within 300 yards of the bedded buck.

Before I could finish my sneak, about 10 does and smaller bucks bolted about 100 yards from me and ran directly towards the buck! Startled, he jumped up and bounded into the woods!

I was pretty sure the game was over, when I noticed through my binoculars that he was standing broadside to me! He had let all the other deer run past him and he took a different route. His head was down and he had blended in nicely in a large brushy tree. The only problem was he forgot to cover his vital area. He gave me about an 18 x 18 view of his heart and lung area.

I took a good rest on the ground and touched off my .270. The deer disappeared from view, but I was not confident he had gone down. I watched all the escape routes as I walked off the 258 yards to where he had been hiding.

When I made it to where he had stood, he was crumpled up and had never known what hit him. In awe I looked over this beautiful animal. He was about 280 pounds with huge hooves and a non typical rack with 6 points on the right and 8 points on the left. He had two nice kickers and lots of mass. I was very excited to finally harvest a buck that met my expectations.

As I stood there admiring one of Gods awesome creatures, with Darkness swallowing the last glow of daylight, I thought back to that frustrating morning in Wyoming and realized how that experience had really made this moment of success that much sweeter. As all hunters know, the buck that makes it to the wall, is representative of all the persistence it takes to achieve the goal.

• Brads buck gross scores at 279 . 27 wide.
• Rifle: Parker Hale .270. 150 grain Remmington
• Optics: Meade Montanan 7×42 binoculars