2017 Mule Deer Hunt Day 5 Hunt Day

I had a lot of time to think through things with my no-shot mulie as I fell asleep and woke up.  The exact numbers don't matter, but if I had taken the shot, I probably had equal probability of making a clean hit, making a recoverable but ugly hit, making a clean miss, and making a wounding miss where the deer was never recovered - the worst possible situation.  While I am a bit disappointed, I made the right decision and I still have a few days to hunt.  'nuff said on this topic.

After a great breakfast of eggs and some turn over things, we hit the road early to look for deer.  The first couple hours of the day went pretty well.  There were a couple good whitetails sneaking through the woods that Bill was interested in, but he wasn't able to get into position quick enough with his limited mobility.

Then things slowed down.  Things slowed wwwwaaaayyyy down.  The hundreds of deer we were routinely seeing seemed to just vaporize.  Still, the country we were hunting in is absolutely gorgeous.

I almost got bored during the latter half of the morning, and spent some time thinking about how incredible it was to hunt here.  I was now starting to see deer that I would never in a million years pass up on and thinking, "Nice, but kind of small."

I know I'll reenter reality as I get back home, but that is still several days away.  For now, "Nice, but kind of small."

These pictures are by no means the largest that were passed up - they just happen to be situations where I was able to easily snap a few pictures.

We went back to the lodge for lunch.  Bill had made a joke about not going back out since the end of the morning was slow, but there was no way I wouldn't go out.  Even if it is slow, deer don't hang out in the lodge (although they almost do).  Also, if everything had gone into hiding, they might be anxious to get back out.

And the deer were back out.  We saw several more herds of deer and many more decent bucks.  As we turned onto one of the ranch roads, We saw several deer ahead.  Jim stops the truck and looks through the binoculars, "He's a shooter Bill!"  The deer was heading right for a fence to jump in front of us.
Once across the fence, he ran into the woods.  Jim pulled up a bit more.  I said, "There he is, there he is!"  Jim got into position as the deer turned around, confused by the truck in his domain. 
Jim's gun barked.  Friggin muzzle brake - it was LOUD.

All three of us got out after a couple minutes to look for the deer.  It was slow going at first with Bill's very limited mobility.  Jim and I went ahead.  Jim found a good blood trail as I paralelled him a little lower on the hill.  We found the deer about 75 yards away. 
Bill made his way to the deer.  He was happy.  To be honest, it felt kind of good helping someone like him remain in the field hunting.  The deer was a gorgeous 10-point buck.  Good mass.  Good Height.  Symetrical with a few extra mini points near the brow tines to give it character.

We took some pictures before field dressing the deer and heading back to the lodge.  Even after all our noise making of pictures, gutting, etc., there was still a couple deer less than 100 yards from the truck as we left.  Jim caped it since Bill was going to take it home for the taxidermy.

The guys from Conecticut had gone antelope hunting and had come back with two good pronghorns, one male, one female.  The other group spent most of the day looking for the previous day's deer.  Sadly, it was not recovered.