First Timer!!

I Spent the weekend hunting with one of my best friends from high school, Jason Weltzin. Jason arrived Thursday night and we were looking forward to getting to catch up and hunt like old times, but also hoped to succeed in Jason tagging his first mule deer. We found a few good bucks right out of the gate, but we ran out of daylight.

After a few failed attempts, we decided to head to a new location Saturday morning. We found a large group of does with multiple bucks strung out along a weedy fenceline between a crop field and a large CRP field. The wind wasn't cooperating because it had all but died, but we watched the deer bed and decided to give it a try. We used the mule deer doe decoy to help cover our approach. As we approached there were multiple small bucks chasing does around the tall grass between us and the target bucks. We slowly made our way towards their location. Every once in a while I would look all around us to make sure that a buck hadn't snuck in behind us. I couldn't believe it when I spotted a mature buck parallel with us about 300 yards away. While Jason sized him up, the buck was extremely nice and bedded down. Jason made the decision to pursue the new buck and the hunt shifted gears. We crawled through the grass using the decoy to shield our movement. The buck had glanced our way a time or two, but paid no attention to us. We held up when we were 40 yards from the bedded buck and decided that was far enough. I think we could have got even closer, but we didn't want to push the envelope. The buck laid his head down for awhile and when he lifted it to stretch I raised the decoy up high. The buck locked onto the doe decoy and stared at us for a minute or so before casually rising from his bed. Jason took that opportunity to draw and the buck stood broadside allowing him time to settle in. Jason made a great shot and had accomplished his goal of tagging his first mule deer! It was an awesome hunt that neither one of us will soon forget!