king' s outdoor world - Index

king' s outdoor world - Hunting Illustrated Magazine Dec/Jan 2008 - Coyote Crazy! - Index

MR. MASS
BY STEVE MERRITT
If there is anyone out there that
loves antlers more than me I
would be surprised, especially
antlers from big mule deer. There is
just something about big mule deer
that gets me really excited. I believe
that big mule deer are some of the
smartest animals on earth. I have
seen big bucks do some amazing
things to outsmart hunters, including
me. I have killed some big bull
elk with my bow, but there was a
different kind of excitement when
I spotted the two monster bucks
standing together on a distant ridge.
Earlier this fall, my brother,
Dad, two uncles and I spent a couple
weeks bowhunting elk. We saw
some big bucks (out of range) so
we were pretty excited to start rifl e
hunting deer after we got our elk.
36 HUNTING ILLUSTRATED.com
We did end up killing three real nice
bulls with our bows. I took a beautiful
6x6 that scored 331 Pope and Young.
My Uncle Dan also killed a nice sixpoint
and my brother, Jason, got a nice
5x5. However, there was still over two
weeks of the deer season left, so we
were all looking for a big buck.
Jason was the fi rst to take a
buck. His buck was a tall, beautiful,
4x6 with back forks about as deep as
they come. My Uncle Dan also killed
a really nice 7x7 that had good mass
and was really a neat looking buck. I
had a chance to shoot the 7x7 twice, but
never really got a good enough look at
his antlers to risk a shot. After I saw the
buck dead, I was kicking myself for not
shooting the buck.
My goal for this year was to
shoot a typical that would net at least
180. I have shot some nice bucks
over the years, but nothing that I
would consider a real trophy. I live
in western Wyoming and we have
some of the biggest bucks in the
country. Over the course of the next
ten or twelve days, I passed up some
real nice bucks that I normally would
have shot other years. However, my
goal this year was a buck that would
net 180, so I didn’t shoot.
I had two days of the season
left to hunt and I was starting to think
that I had messed up by not shooting
a few of the bucks I had passed
up. My dad always says, “You will
never kill anything big if you shoot
the little ones.” I was going to shoot
a big one or nothing.
On the second to last day
of the season, my Dad, Cousin Mike