Friday night I got a call from my buddy Chris telling me that USAC needed help at their booth at the expo for Saturday. I was available so I told him I'd be there the next day. On my way in to help at the booth the next day I figured I might as well stop in and put in for a few hunts. I reached in my wallet and had $25. I thought, "What the heck?" I put in for Paunsaugunt and Henry Mountains deer rifle tags, a Henry's bison tag, San Juan early and Pahvant late elk tags and went in to work the booth.
About a week later I was watching TV with my wife and about 1045 PM I got a text from my good friend Blake Eskelsen saying, "You drew a Paunsaugunt tag you lucky sucker!" I thought for sure he had to be giving me crap so I went to the results page on my phone and sure enough....there was my name! I started sending out texts to my brothers and hunting buddies and I couldn't believe it. I had never been to the Paunsaugunt unit in my life. But I had heard all about it from friends in St. George and also in hunting circles. I was so excited but had to get my wife excited as we were due to have our third child less than a month before the hunt. It didn't take her long when everyone she told talked about how cool this was. My wife is a trooper and was on board being supportive almost from the very beginning.
Sleepless nights started almost immediately. It wasn't every night. But those first few nights the excitement was almost too much to handle and I had to just stop thinking about it for a couple weeks because it was just too far out and I was way too excited even from the beginning. After a month or so I started gathering intel from people that had hunted the unit before and had experience down there. I started acquiring maps and studying them. I used satellite imagery to learn a ton about the unit and how it is laid out topographically. I took a few days around a conference I had at Bryce Canyon for work to do a little scouting of the unit. Torrential rainstorms during those days inhibited too much, but I got a little bit of an idea of how the unit was laid out at least. Hours upon hours upon hours of conversations, chats, PM's, map studying, google earth, entering GPS waypoints, shooting at the range, and sleepless nights playing this one out in my mind time and time again, and it was finally getting to game time. Thank you again to everyone that gave me information and helped to shape my hunt. I couldn't have done it without you! This hunt also took on some special meaning for me as I knew it was one that my dad would have loved to be a part of in person. My dad is the only reason I have ever deer hunted in my life. My fondest memories as a child surround around heading to the hills in October with my old man and brothers and chasing deer. I knew my dad was happy I had this opportunity, and probably in some way responsible for me being able to do this. He passed away a little over 3 years ago but I was sure he'd play a big part in this hunt somehow.
The plan was laid that I'd go down a couple days early and hopefully find the deer I wanted to shoot. My two brothers Paul and Travis were committed to helping make this a memorable hunt and were coming down Thursday night to meet me. So 3 AM Thursday morning and I'm on the road as happy as a clown on Christmas, just giddy about the potential of what could come, but trying to temper my expectations some as my reality is that I'm not a very experienced big game hunter. But it was an exercise in futility. I arrived and got camp arranged and headed out on the wheeler to start figuring out how this was going to go down. I was driving to a place I wanted to check out and I saw in one area just a ton of tracks coming through. I saw a side trail taking off towards the cliffs and made a mental note that I wanted to check that out for sure later in the day.
After exploring a little bit for a few hours I set up the trail I wanted to check out. I found a great little valley that the sign showed the deer were using a ton and you could get a pretty good lookout.
I didn't stay here as there was an area I wanted to glass on the west side of the unit, but had a feeling this wouldn't be the last time I saw this area. I went over to the west side and found a nice vantage point and started to glass with the spotting scope and binos.
I didn't see a single deer in a couple hours of glassing here. I knew the deer were there, but it was about 80-85 degrees so I figured the deer were hunkered down somewhere. I thought to myself, "It's 430 and I haven't seen a single deer all day. I'm heading back to my lookout point for the evening." I headed back to the valley I had found that morning and set up to watch if any deer came through. I hiked around this face and set up the scope. I wasn't there 5 minutes and started seeing deer migrating through. I was there for an hour and a half and saw probably 35-40 deer come through. No bucks, but that amount of deer had me encouraged. And all the deer hugged the cliffs I was on and if a good buck came through there it would be a very manageable shot. I headed out just before dark as I wasn't too familiar with the area and wanted to head out in the light. I met up with my brothers and reported the day's findings.
The next day we decided that we would just try and cover a bunch of area and see as much as we could. We put a lot of miles on the wheelers and the truck and saw what the lower reaches of this unit had to offer. This is just a beautiful place, very unique and one that I won't forget any time soon if for nothing other than the views!
Darkness fell, and it was back to camp. I had seen a good amount of deer the last two days, but not many bucks. And the bucks I did see were small for a premium unit. In fact I had only seen one 4-point and he wasn't a shooter for this hunt. On the way we were talking about what the plan should be. It was decided that we should head to the valley I scouted. I told Paul and Trav we needed to be in our places an hour before dark. After some grumbling by Trav about how early he'd have to wake up, it was agreed upon that the alarm would go off early and we'd be on the road to hike to where we'd each set up for the morning. Skip forward a few short hours and we were all in place. Me first at the lowest point to reduce distance for a shot. Trav was deeper into the valley and a little higher up than I was. Paul was furthest into the valley and highest so he could be on the spotting scope. We were in communication on the radio and all was set, now it was just waiting for first light. That hour seemed like ten! This below was one of the most welcome sights I had beheld in a long, long time!
Not long after light a group of two does filed through. It was awesome to watch these animals as they snuck through this valley. I had the glass out looking for anything and everything that could even be mistaken for a deer. I looked up the hill and saw that Trav was doing his best to catch up on the sleep he missed out on the night before!
After a while looking through the glass I had to stand up and give my back and my eyes a rest so I stood up to stretch. Less than a minute later I looked to my right up the valley and noticed a big white face looking up right at me. I radioed to Paul, "Hey Paul, there is a super wide buck just down from you. Can you see him?" He couldn't. I got the binos out and put them on this guy and I could tell he was a wide buck. But he looked like a 3-point to me at the angle I was looking at him....straight on. Right then the buck turned and started running directly away from me and I could see he had small G2's and was actually a 4x4. Paul spotted him at this point and said, "Ty, I may be having buck fever here but I think that is a legitimate 30 inch deer." I thought it would be a moot point as he was running right away from me and I figured he had busted me and was long gone. He looked unbelievably wide. I tried to convince myself that he wasn't as wide as he looked as he was running away and I have always been told to not judge a deer that is going away. The buck reached a tree line in the valley and turned and was walking/trotting directly perpendicular to me at this point. Conversation ensued between Paul and I about if this was a shooter or not. I could hear Trav talking up the mountain, but he was not coming in over the radio. At this point the buck stopped, broadside, looked up right at me and just stood there for about 6-7 seconds. I ranged the buck....175 yards. Being inexperienced I was convincing myself that the buck wasn't as big as he looked and I was waiting for one of my brothers to give me the green light that they approved. Finally, Trav chimed in on the radio and said, "Ty, I like him. I think he'd be a great buck for you." (apparently Trav had been saying it was a huge buck all along but just wasn't turning on his radio when he said it.....so he says!) The buck started walking again and it was at that moment that I decided this was my buck. Problem was he was in an area with a lot of cedars and scrub oak so clear shots weren't common.
The buck was quartering away from me at this point when I noticed that if he'd just clear one more set of trees I'd have a clear lane to shoot through. I ranged a bush in the lane and it was 186 yards. My gun was dead on at 200...perfect. I had the tripod set and a good, steady hold, and waited for the buck to appear in my scope. Sure enough, he did. I held just behind his front left leg and squeezed the trigger. All I saw was a puff of dust well below where I had been aiming. I didn't see the deer, and I couldn't see him running out anywhere. Crap! Did I miss? "Guys, did I just miss that deer by like 10 feet or what?" My mind started playing serious tricks on me. Did I hit it? Did I miss? I had no clue. The rest was good. The shot felt good. What happened? Neither Paul nor Trav could see the buck when I fired as trees were in the way from their vantage point. Neither knew I was going to shoot as I failed to mention that to them as well. Trav came down and said he would go take a look. When he got to the bottom of the cliff he yelled up that he had dropped his radio, so just to give him hand signals. (we've always thought Trav would make a good working retriever!) I sent him to where I thought I shot, he found nothing. Paul came down and he headed down with the radio and we expanded the search area as I was guiding him over the radio. He spent a good amount of time down there looking for blood, a body, anything. Nothing. We debriefed the situation and took our spots again. I couldn't believe I had missed this buck. I was beating myself up pretty good and after a while I just said we needed to go somewhere else as looking at this was just making mad. Before we left I was wondering if the scope had got knocked off or what. I ranged a bush on a hillside at 105 yards and had Paul watch to see if I hit right on it. Boom....gun was still on. I guess I had some serious buck fever and just didn't realize I was shaking? Had to have been that.
We took off and were heading to the west side of the unit to see what we could find over there. I decided to take a very random road just because. We got a couple miles down the road and I was still beating myself up pretty good. I decided that the road we were going down was not where we should be and turned around. As we were coming back up the trail I was just laughing to myself how much hell my dad would be giving me for missing that buck. He wouldn't have missed. At least that's what he would have been saying! "Pops, you're going to have to come through for me on this one. That was a great buck. Don't let that be the only good buck I see. I need you to give me another shot!" A short time later, literally probably less than a minute later I stop, waive Paul up to my side, and say, "Paul, when I fired a shot at that bush, was there a big puff of dust?" "No, why? What are you thinking?" He could tell I had something cooking in my mind. And as soon as I had said that to him, I could tell he had something cooking in his mind as well. "What I'm thinking is there is a dead deer back there and we just didn't look in the right area. I'm going to sleep a lot better tonight if we go back and the three of us all spend some time looking some more." "Let's go then!" said Paul.
We got back to where we parked the wheelers and devised a plan on a grid to cover the area I thought I had shot and expanded that area significantly in all directions. I had to have hit that deer. No way I missed that buck. I was pretty convinced I hit the deer at this point. We started on our grid and we were striking out. There was so much sign in the bottom of this valley and a couple ditches I didn't know existed from looking from the hillside above. As we went back and forth, zig-zagging through here I started to question, "Maybe he dropped into one of these ditches and headed out of dodge where we couldn't see him?" One last pass fellas, and then we'll get out of here. That was the plan. On our way back I hear Trav yell out, "Uh, you guys might want to come over here!" "Are you kidding me? You better not be kidding me!" Paul starts running over there, "Ty, come here!" "You guys better not be kidding me!" By this point Trav was jumping up and down, fist pumps in the air and jumping like crazy! Paul started doing the same. I came up and saw this monster in face down in the sage brush. Dead in the tracks I shot him in. He didn't take a step. A well-placed 180 grain Barnes Triple Shock in a .300 win mag right behind the front shoulder went in through the heart and blew out the opposite shoulder. I was elated! Below is a pictorial of what we did next. High fives, hugs, shouts, jumps were a plenty, and then we repeated them all again!
(we found the bullet in the skin on the opposite shoulder....perfect retention and expansion!)
I don't know what happened before we found this thing, but we'll just call it a little post-shot buck fever. It doesn't matter now because my dad did just what I asked him to do, he came through for me and told me that the story with this deer wasn't over. Just another thing I owe to my old man! Thanks pops! Love you and miss you, but so happy you were a huge part of this hunt with us boys.
This deer was part elk. I've never seen a deer with a body this big. It took all 3 of us to move him around and position him for the photos. We got him cleaned out and loaded on the wheeler and it was time to cruise back to camp.
Back at camp we decided it best to hang it, skin it, and take care of it fully the next day. Trav got to work on getting it hanged and skinned, and did a great job!
That afternoon we knew we didn't have time to get packed up and out of town, so we decided to go out and sit on a water hole and see what we could find. There was a ton of deer using this for a quick drink. No big bucks, but a ton of deer. These are just a sample as we sat for a while watching.
I had joked a lot with my brothers about shooting a 200 inch or 30 inch wide deer opening morning. But what happened so greatly exceeded my expectations and hopes for this hunt. The buck stretched the tape at 34 inches wide. I couldn't have expected that in my wildest dreams! Let alone at 8 AM opening morning. From the second I found out I drew this tag until returning home from the hunt this has been an incredible experience. I couldn't have asked to share it with anyone other than my two brothers and thank them for sacrificing their time to come down and be a part of this with me. What a hunt. What a story. What a buck! I'm still just in shock about it all. But he's going to look great on my wall!
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