It’s early in the morning, and my father and I are out hunting, trying to get a buck since season closes in only a few days. Coming to a gate, 2 trucks were parked and one more came up behind us, so my dad quickly determined it no use here. Turning around and coming around the corner we had just went through moments before, dad glassed deer on the hillside about 900 yards away, and a decent buck. We drive farther to another gate whose road wraps around and gets within 400 yards of that hillside. We throw our packs and gear on, and start up. We find a large switch back and realized we’d save a mile if we cut up the hillside instead. We reach the road once more, and as we turn the last corner we have a nice view of the hillside.
We get close as we can without the trees blocking our view. Dad adjusts his rifles scope turret for the left side of the hillside where there’s a snowy patch, which was farther out, about 550 yards. Suddenly dad quickly whispers, “Get your pack off… you’re using my gun.” He spotted a huge buck, a bit to the right of the snowy patch. I get set up and steady, and fire. Poof, a dirt cloud just above its back. As our hearts take a plunge, we realized in the excitement of this buck, we had forgotten to readjust the turret. In hindsight, this was likely a 180ish inch Muley. The buck quickly takes a 180, and disappears into the wooded draw. We decided to wait a few minutes to see if another pops out. The decent buck dad had spotted earlier shows itself once more, but we wait a little longer. Just a little later and a second buck, close to the size of the last, steps out, and renews our excitement. It’s going through trees, and is going to come out on the right side of them, where there were some does and a little forky. I get setup on the spot where he’ll come out. Then, to the left of the group of trees, a doe trots away to the left, as if a buck may be trying to get friendly with her, so I reposition my sights on that side. “Wait, no there he is,” dad exclaims in a quiet manner, as I see the buck on the right side. I quickly reposition, aim and fire. This time, the buck jumped, and ran a small ways to where the trees blocked him. As we waited a couple minutes, we noticed a raven flying over near the buck, and the does acting strange, and then all of them trotted away to the left, not followed by the big buck. With anticipation high, we start hiking up, and cut up again to the road and follow it around to right below the buck. There he was, laying against an uprooted stump. With relief and the joy of success, we took the pictures, and proceed to process and pack this muley out.