Last Christmas Kristi and Adam gave me a hunting trip. They flew me up and back and Adam guides up there so he carried me mule deer hunting on his ranch leases. I left Houston at 6:00 in the morning. I had a layover in Denver and then landed on Steamboat Springs/Hayden airport around 2:00 pm. Adam picked me up at the airport. It about a hour and 15 minute drive back to Meeker where he lives. It was rainy and warm when I left but was clear and cold when I landed around 30 degrees. We didn"t hunt that evening but drove out to the ranch and looked around. There was mule deer already feeding in the lower pasture by the corrals. We piddled around for awhile and headed back to town. We stopped and picked up some food for supper. While we we there the ranch owner, Todd, stopped by and we chatted for awhile, he"s a really nice guy. The next morning we headed out. It was brisk about 8 degrees. I did pretty good hiking until the first climb. It slap dab wore me out. Adam had spotted a small herd and we moved to get in front of them. There wasn"t a really good buck with that group so we let them meander off. Luckily Todd brought us Adams ranger and said there were mule deer across from his Moms place about two miles from us , we took the ranger and then hiked the last half mile. By this time I was really lagging. Never saw anything so headed back home for lunch. Its only about 10 miles to Adams house. That evening we headed back out, Adams friend Katy came along also. We hiked up about halfway up the ridge and set up to glass around. It was about 30 minutes later we saw mule deer moving in the pasture below us. There was one pretty good buck in that group. as we watched planning our next move we saw another buck moving in from far off the pasture. He was a bigger buck. As he came toward the group the first buck headed in his direction. Adam decided we needed to move back down to the corral and then take the truck and get to the other side of the pasture to set up. We did this. We didn"t have a lot of cover to make a stalk. We were able to make it to some reeds along a irrigation ditch. The bucks did not cooperate and come down to us. They were not fighting but ciircling each other and moving away. This meant around 375-400 yard shot. I was using Adams 6.5 Creedmore. 4 shots later he went down. Katy said she thought the second shot hit him. We took the truck and went back to the corral and then took the Ranger around a ranch road. We knew pretty close to where he fell. It only took about 5 minutes and Katy found him. We loaded it up and headed back. It was still good daylight when we got to Adams but we decided to hang him overnight and clean him the next day. Sunday morning we skinned and quarterd the deer. He filled a 120 qt cooler. That evening we head out again. We didn"t even get set up before we saw deer. We started stalking and got within 200-250 yards. 2 shots and Adam had him on the ground. We watched the rest of the herd move away and there was another good buck with them. I went back to get the truck and Adam and Katy headed for the deer. it was only about a mile back to the truck. When I drove back up I did not see anyone but did see and orange vest on the ground. Adam hollered and said there was no deer to be found. The orange vest was where he shot him and there was some blood and then nothing. We divided up and circled and circled . It was just about dusk when Katy once again found the deer. This time he had to be dragged abut 250 yards. We loaded up and went home. Once again we just hung him in the back yard. Monday morning we got up and processed the whole deer. It took us most of the day. I was slap wore out when I went to bed that night. Tuesday morning when I got up about 5 i decided to wash all my clothes. I reached down to pick them up and my back gave out. I crawled around all day hurting. I flew home Wednedsay morning and it was a day from hell. When I got home I was barely able to get out of my truck and get inside. It took almost a month to get over this back episode.
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