Muley Hunting

This was the year.

I drew my long-awaited mule deer buck tag in our choice unit in the badlands.

Many hillside glassing sits have turned to conversations of “when we have our muley tags” and lots of hypothetical decisions have been made on whether we would take the deer before us with our tag.

Scott drew his last year and we stumbled into a very nice buck on a familiar piece of public land on opening day.

One of those bucks that’s an easy decision, even with the 2.5-mile pack out required.

Despite my highly competitive nature, I didn’t need to shoot a buck bigger than my husband’s.

What I did want, was the conviction he had in that decision.

When we saw that deer in the binoculars, there was no questioning whether that was the one to stick his tag on, and that’s what worried me.

I didn’t want to leave this tag unfilled, I didn’t need the next state record, but I wanted to do this long-awaited hunt justice.

We lined up grandparents for the first two weekends and the company of our good hunting buddy, Jason, for opening weekend.

By 6 a.m. on Friday, we were headed west, camper in tow and spirits high after a Dickinson coffee stop.

We dropped the camper at a campground due to the travel restrictions in place and headed to our stomping grounds.

The first stop is always a check-in with a local rancher who lets us try to fill our fall turkey tags on his land.

We chatted about the weather, wildfires and how he knew there was some EHD again because his dog was getting fat and bringing back deer legs.

We parted ways with permission granted.

Of course this was never the focus of our trips, but I’m too big a fan of wild turkey meat to pass up an opportunity to secure Thanksgiving dinner.

I quickly realized I didn’t necessarily enjoy calling the shots, but since my tag was the focus, it was on me.

I decided against the long hike to Scott’s spot for the first evening, preferring to give it an entire day.

We instead headed to an equally promising piece we’ve bowhunted frequently, a spot where my brother also arrowed a nice muley buck.

It was a beautiful evening, and the impressive overlook allowed us to see for miles.

Unfortunately, in all those miles, all we saw was one small buck on private land and a handful of hunters headed various directions on the landscape.

As the sun set, we made our way back down the slope in the dark.

For some reason, I entered this deer season with so much more confidence and grace than any one prior.

Maybe it was the freezer at home full of moose meat, the familiarity with this place, the two guys I had beside me, or just my commitment to the tag.

But I seemed so at ease knowing things would work out how they were supposed to.

Back at camp, we devoured moose sloppy joes and talked turkey tales from last spring before calling it a night.

We awoke to a chilly morning, but it didn’t have the bite that tells me it was below freezing.

And as my eyes adjusted, I realized I could faintly see northern lights, which I took as a good sign, right?

We were headed to Scott’s spot, but we thought we found a slightly better way in.

But, even this way still required ascending and descending a pretty steep, high, butte with not much room to wiggle.

We stopped to say this is one of those things we probably wouldn’t show our parents we’re doing.

We settled in on the point to start glassing.

There is a private crop field deer like to feed in before they often cross the road and work their way into a narrow ravine that eventually splits into two and meanders its way onto the public land where we sat.

We were hoping to catch deer headed back up the draws and into the incredibly steep country behind us to bed for the day.

We saw a few does as it started to get light, then a small buck, then a bigger buck that we struggled to get a great look at.

A half hour or so later, the larger buck emerged, still on private, but instead of heading toward us, he headed the way we came from, assumingly he would have eventually ended up on public.

But he was moving at a good clip, so we had to act fast, but for some reason, I just didn’t feel like he was the one.

We let him head over the butte, and that was that.

As the morning went on, we decided to work back into the cliffs behind us and as we were trying to figure out the best way up, we saw the unmistakable shape of a bighorn sheep looking down on us, a sure sign you’re in rough country.