Dreaming of Next Winter

I was looking through some of my photos from last winters trip to south east Colorado for a big Mule deer. It was early December. When I arrived it was mid forties with a nice breeze. The next morning the weather had changed, negative 2 and 14 inches of snow. I was hunting a tree line in the middle of an alfalfa farm. Bucks were cruising for does. By the end of the first day I had seen 5 to 10 shooter's but none were within bow range. Day two was about the same. I was a hard day of hunting, I left my lunch and water in the truck. I sure did miss my PB & J! I did enjoy one very exciting moment. I rattled up about a 135" buck that I decided to pass on. What a great day! Day three, time to get serious. Deer were acting about the same as the first two days. Sometime after 1:00 pm I spotted a nice 3 x 3 chasing some does. They were around 400 yards away. I started rattling some horns and using a "can" call. Out of nowhere Mr. Big showed up. Man, what a buck! Mr. Big stayed with the does and ran the 3 x 3 away. Yea for me, that 3 x 3 was now back on the prowl and I sounded like a herd of lovesick does. It took about another 30 minutes but he came looking for me. When he got about 60 yards out I had to decide what side of my tree he was headed to. I started to make my move to the left but changed and moved to the right. To my surprise I got it right, the big 3 x 3 came in to 8 yards and took a Goldtip arrow through the lungs and top of the heart. I watched him go down within 40 yards. My big 3 x 3 ended up scoring around 158 inches and weighed over 300 pounds.




Now I've got to figure out how I can get back out there next winter.