Outfitter Report: A Buck in Hand is Worth Several in the Cholla Patches

2010 Mexico Mule Deer Hunt
by David Pereda

“I think we might have messed up. I can’t get rid of these butterflies I got in my stomach thinking about that buck.” “Really? You think we should have shot him?” It was now dark on the first day of my client’s Mexico Mule Deer hunt and our conversation kept drifting back to the big buck we had passed up at 100 yards 5 minutes into the hunt that morning. The buck looked awesome as he chased off the pesky satellite bucks that surrounded his herd of does. You could see the steam blasting out of his nose in the cold morning air as he lip curled his does and trotted his defiance at the smaller bucks. He was in full rut in the wide open and completely oblivious to our presence a mere 100 yards away.

Upon seeing him through my Swarovski’s my gut told me “shooter”. The buck was only a 3×4 but had incredible length on all his tines and his 4 point antler on his right side looked like it might go close to 200 inches typical if doubled. However, it was only 5 minutes into the hunt and we were still in sight of the ranch house. We hadn’t gone hardly anywhere and this was only the first group of deer we had seen. I didn’t want to end the mule deer hunt this early without even having covered any of the ranch. With the rut in full swing who knows what kind of buck would be waiting for us further down the road so we let him go and kept hunting.

We spotted over 60 deer the rest of that day and saw several good bucks. One buck in particular was lacking a little in the length department but had an extremely wide and heavy frame that we estimated to be over 34 inches wide. This buck only offered us a very brief opportunity through some thick ocotillos and then vanished into the heavy undergrowth. Par for the course when hunting giant bucks in Mexico. They always seem to be just one hop away from the nastiest cover around.

Upon returning to the ranch house that night my mind kept wandering back to the buck we had seen that morning. I kept scoring him over and over in my mind and knew he would still score at least 180 B&C even as a 3×4. After hearing the weather report that night we really started thinking about him. It was supposed to rain non stop for the next 7 days along with winds of over 40 miles an hour. Just the kind of weather to effectively ruin this deer hunt. The weather was supposed to come in the next evening so we all came to the conclusion that if we saw the buck tomorrow we were going to shoot.

We headed out the next morning with high hopes but of course now that we were looking for him the buck was nowhere to be found. We again saw over 50 deer throughout the day but no shots at any big bucks. With the sun going down we headed back to ranch house and lo and behold there he was. The big 3×4 had left his does and was with a couple of smaller bucks in almost the exact same spot we had seen him the day before. Lynn got set up and made a great shot that hammered the buck down right in his tracks. Walking up to the buck we got the pleasant surprise of ground shrinkage in reverse. The buck was much better than we originally thought and we got him just in the nick of time as well. The rain and wind set in that night and made it impossible to continue hunting. We even had to wait for a quick break in the weather the next morning just to photograph the buck. The buck had managed to break off about 8 inches of his right main beam sometime during the night but still managed to score 182 B&C as a 3×4. His intact right antler doubled would go over 200 B&C typical. The brute was also wider than we originally thought and his outside spread ended up being exactly 30 inches wide. A true trophy buck in anyone’s book. As we loaded the buck up in the truck I couldn’t help but think of the old saying “never pass up on the first day that which is a trophy on the last”. I guess sometimes you just get lucky…… on a mule deer hunt you need to take it any time you can.

Would you like to go on this mule deer hunt ?