Hi folks,

My wife got big old mulie buck this year and I had to share it. She had spotted a buck tending a doe from our bedroom window. A quick run down the road got the wind right and she slipped into hunting mode. 20 minutes later, she caught this guy in his bed at 40yds. A Mexican stand off followed. She shot him once when he finally stood to leave. That is the entrance wound just in front of the hind leg.





I got back from town with the girls in time to take more pictures and clean the buck with a little help and while giving some anatomy pointers (You're right sweetie, the heart isn't actually heart shaped. Now hold that leg steady and keep your sister out of the intestines).





Loading was harder than usual. He was the biggest deer I've ever cleaned by a noticeable margin. The back of the vehicle he is in is ~52" wide.



A few thoughts.

Kyla is both very proud and very relieved that she got this deer. He was huge and old enough to be regressing. He wasn't the deer she saw from the window. That was happening 100 yds upwind of him. He apparently wasn't even rutting and completely lacked the usual rutting smell. Valerius Geist is a hunter conservationist who is also a retired world class wildlife biologist. His book Mule Deer Country explains in a few lines the likely reasons for this buck's size and behavior. Maybe because he is a hunter too, I find that Geist has a knack for explaining a lot of the animal behaviors that catch our eye in the field.

Ky is relieved because he is the second biggest deer she saw this year. Our place is the usual home for the 2nd biggest deer in the area. However, the biggest deer does show up once in a while, especially early in the rut. The biggest deer right now is one we have been trying to get for the last 4 years. He's old now, and going backwards in the antler department. We know this because Ky made a painful blunder on him a few days earlier. Me, with a doe tag in my pocket could have taken him the next day on the neighbour's place. Ky, with her landowner's tag, couldn't even follow up on the sighting. With her buck in the salt, she doesn't actually mind that she missed out on the big guy again.

Merry Christmas folks,
Dean

Wow, he is an old-timer...congrats to all!

Dean,

Very nice! So when are you both going to Africa?

Mark

Beautiful old buck, congratulations to the Mrs.

You do grow big ones in Alberta. Congratulations to the hunter on her successful hunt!

Mark,

When our 3 yr old is big enough to handle Namibia.


Ky was telling me today that maybe she should start writing for the gun rags. She missed a chance at the big guy 3 seasons ago for a couple of reasons. The biggest one was that she had never seen a buck that big before and hesitated a second to make sure it actually was a deer. The second reason was that she wasn't sure her .257 Rob could handle a raking shot. She bought a pre-64 M70 in 30-06 specifically for the type of shot she had to take on the old guy, one that had to penetrate the buck almost end to end. I'm definitely second fiddle in our house this year.

Fortunately, things are looking good for next year when it is my turn for a buck tag. We have had a late breeding doe for the last couple of years that has boy friends into January (Her fawns may still have spots in the fall, but both have survived so far.). Ky went snow shoeing out back before Christmas and bumped a good 4x4 buck out of the same bush the old guy had bedded in.

Enjoy the holidays,
Dean

Congrats on that grand old buck! Not being in rut, he ought to be even better on the dinner table!

Nice old deer.

quote:

Originally posted by joester:
Congrats on that grand old buck! Not being in rut, he ought to be even better on the dinner table!

Yeah, he does taste good! He also wasn't as heavy as I'd guessed. Working back from the carcass weight, the butcher and I figure he would have been a bit over 325 lbs live weight.

Dean

Grand Old Bugger.
Congrats on him.
Those like him are the best trophies, unique...cool looking
Hell, I'd take him in heartbeat