The Ultimate Chess Game

Matching wits with an old monarch such as a high-country mule deer, one can usually expect to be on the losing end of this game. Add bad weather, lack of food and appropriate clothing, your odds of success grows even lower. The only thing that salvaged my 2011 Colorado archery mule deer hunt was pure determination and a little bit of luck!

Every year I look forward to hunting big mule deer. This is by far one of my most anticipated hunts of the season. I tend to hunt solo, which is my preference. If anything goes wrong, it’s on my shoulders and I have no one to blame but myself. I love hiking in the mountains and taking pictures of deer all summer long. Watching many of the same bucks return to their summer ranges and devising a plan how to get into bow range of these bucks, is all part of the fun for me. I managed to find several bucks this summer I would have loved to have hung my deer tag on, luckily none of these stalks panned.

Summer Scouting Pics



Being a man nostalgic in nature, I decided to go checkout one of my favorite areas to hunt. This happens to be the same mountain I killed my first Muley on several hunting seasons ago. Perched on a great ridge for glassing, I broke out my jacket, binoculars and spotting scope and went to work. Maybe 10 minutes or so of glassing, I had a small group of bucks located high above the tree line. Wanting to get a closer look I grabbed my gear and started the steep climb up. As I worked around a ledge, I noticed an old, huge, non-typical buck feeding by himself. Not more than 120 yds away, he had me pinned down. My only hope was to turn around and walk away. To my surprise, this tactic worked flawlessly. The buck moved into cover and watched me disappear out of sight.

Spotting Bucks



All the time I’ve spent scouting this mountain, I‘ve never laid eyes on this buck. He basically lived on a small ridge surrounded by cliffs. Living by himself, this deer was in an almost perfect spot to avoid hunters. There’s no possible way to see him unless you commit to climbing a knife ridge exposing yourself to the rest of the deer in the basin. Your second option is to drop below him and try working your way up the cliffs and get above him for a shot. Most of the time, the cliff approach wouldn’t work because you’d be hiking in blind and the thermal winds would carry your scent upward right to the bedded buck. Today wasn’t most of the time. There was a huge snow storm pushing the thermals down instead of up and I knew this was my chance.

After the Storm



Slowly making my way up the cliffs, I set my hunting pack and jacket on the icy, wet ground. I wanted to be as quiet as possible and didn’t want to risk my bow string accidently hitting my jacket’s sleeve and deflecting my arrow. Once on top, the wind really started to howl. I knew this would be an ideal time to slip around in the pines looking for my buck. Sure enough I spotted his rack sticking up over the short pines no more than 50 yds away. Given the windy conditions, I pressed closer and closer until I was within 20yds of the bedded buck. Unfortunately, his body was still hidden behind the pines so I backed up to 30 yds hoping to get a better angle on him. It was now a waiting game. The weather was so nasty my fingers literally kept freezing together. With frozen fingertips, I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to feel the trigger on my release to make a good shot. I waited 30 minutes in this horrible, wet, windy, weather just to have the wind switch and blow the deer out of his bed. He ran over a rise and out of sight, but never came up over the adjacent ridge. I figured he either ran down the cliff and I’d see him in the bottom of the basin or he was waiting on the other side of the rise. I decided to back out and try to relocate him in the morning.

After the Blown Stalk...soaking wet



The following morning as I got ready to leave the trailhead I had one of those sick feelings. I just realized I left my pack with all my food, water, clothes and gear back in my garage. Because of time constraints, this was going to be my last day to deer hunt. It was now or never, so I sucked it up and went for it. With bow in hand and binoculars on my chest, I hiked up the mountain in hopes of relocating my buck. Sure enough, at 7:15 AM, I found him feeding all alone in the exact same area. This time, instead of feeding in the open, he stayed tucked in the pines. At over 700 yds away, this buck was on lock down.

Today’s approach would be from the exposed knife ridge. I knew the buck was alone so I need only worry about staying out of his line of sight. Every time he would feed away from me, I’d work my way closer. At 300 yds it was decision time. What approach should I take? Go high and hope the thermals start up? Stay low and hope the winds keeps blowing down the mountain? Normally this is an easy decision as I’d almost always hunt high. However, I could see snow and rain coming my way and who knew what the winds were going to do? I kept telling myself be patient, you have plenty of time. True as this may seem, I had no food, water, rain gear or jacket. I wasn’t sure I could deal with the wind or snow if it was anything like the day before.
As the storm rolled in, I took cover in the pines and curled up in an old deer bed. I finally got so cold I had to move. I rose up and started glassing for my buck. I could just barely see the tips of his antlers in the pines so I cautiously worked my way closer cutting the distance to 140 yds. This was it, I ran out of cover. I either had to try to get above him, drop below him or stay parallel with him. When the sun popped out, the winds were consistently going up. When the snow and rain rolled in, the winds were coming down. My best bet was to stay parallel in hopes he’d eventually feed out in the open.

Hours literally passed with nothing but rain, snow, lightning and thunder. When the weather finally cleared at 2:15 I unraveled myself from the fetal position and started looking for my buck. This time he was up walking towards the open hillside in front of me. I couldn’t believe it! I was mentally prepared to stay until dark and now I might actually get my chance. He hung up about 100 yds away. Constantly looking around for danger, he finally started to relax and began feeding closer. At 80 yds he dropped in a small ravine and I made my move. On my hands and knees and completely exposed with nothing but a flower between us I closed the distance to 60 yds. I now needed him to turn broadside before he picked me off. Once again, from this low profile I could only see his antlers. I waited until I thought he was broadside and slowly began to rise up. I could see he was slightly quartering to me. I ranged him at 58 yds and tried drawing my bow back. He picked up motion so I froze for what seemed like forever. Convinced there was no threat, he went back to feeding. A few more steps to my right and he’d see me for sure. I decided to try drawing my bow from a very awkward position and rise up. This worked perfectly! Given the steep angle of the shot I placed my 50 yd pin on his back. With the deer looking in the opposite direction, I let my arrow fly. Watching my arrow hit its mark, I was ecstatic! Fortunately, my buck bailed off the cliff and died in a beautiful meadow about 1,000 feet below making the pack out and picture taking much easier.








For me, one of the more exciting aspects of this hunt is the history behind it all. I cut my teeth hunting mule deer on this mountain. It is a very dear place to me that holds a special place in my heart. I shot my first mule deer seven years ago on this mountain. Ironically enough I killed both deer with a bow, in a snow storm, in the same drainage, and at the same elevation. The only difference, this buck is much larger!

None of these pictures really reflect all my buck’s points. He’s a 7x10 with an outside spread of 29.5 inches. With a gross score of 193.5 inches, he is my second largest archery mule deer to date. I’ve been extremely fortunate to have killed what I consider to be some tremendous trophies. With that said, this buck means more to me than any of my other trophies. I worked my tail off, used all the hunting knowledge I have and didn’t give up. Everything came together and I couldn’t be prouder of this buck!




Gear Used:
- Hoyt CRX 32
- Spot-Hogg 7 Deadly Pins Bowsight
- Leica Geovids 10x42 Binoculars
- Lathrop and Sons Mountain Light GTX Boots (awesome)
- Kifaru UL 5,200 Hunting Pack

New Spot-Hogg Partnership

We here at Wild Game Guardian are excited about the new partnership we have forged with Spot Hogg Archery Products. I have personally been using their bow sights for several years and can attest, they truly make the world's toughest archery products! From Colorado to Alaska, I always have a Spot Hogg sight on my bow. Best archery sights on the market......period!

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Good Luck Hunting this Fall

Brown is Down

What is the most dangerous hunt in North America? I bet if you asked 10 people, at least 90% of them would say grizzlies or brown bears. If you really wanted to push the envelope, add a bow to the equation and now you’ve really upped the ante. When I headed to Alaska this past year, my primary focus was on hunting Dall sheep with my bow. But, as most hunts in Alaska incur bad weather, my sheep hunt was no exception. Alaska’s infamous cloudy, wet weather churned up and down the valley floor for several days making it virtual impossible to locate any rams on the peaks and ridges above.

Luckily my guide, Scott McRae of Alaska Summit Guide Services convinced me into purchasing a brown bear license before departing Anchorage on our sheep hunt. Scott mentioned that we may get lucky and see bears walking the river in search of spawning salmon. To me the thought of hunting a huge bear with archery equipment was beyond intriguing, it was one of this archer’s ultimate dreams. But as in most dreams, they usually don’t materialize that easily. I’ve been to Alaska three times before and have never seen a brown bear or grizzly. Bear tracks…yes. Bears….no. I kept thinking you can’t win if you don’t play so I bought the license in hopes of actually having an encounter. Statistically speaking, the odds of seeing a bear had to finally be in my favor, right?


In the field, wet, damp and borderline miserable we switched our focus from trying to glass the peaks above to glassing the river bottoms below. We dropped elevation to get a better vantage point where we could see the river and surrounding marshes below. I bet it wasn’t more than an hour later when Scott said “Bear!” I couldn’t believe it. The words I longed to hear for so many trips finally rang true. Scott quickly got the spotting scope out and started sizing him up. After only a few short minutes of watching the bear fish the shoreline, Scott estimated the bear to be around 8 ft. To me, 8ft or 10ft, it made little difference, I was engaged and wanted to seize this opportunity. Scott studied the valley floor, carefully mapping our route. As in most mountain hunts, it took us longer to reach our destination than expected. Thick brush and wet marshes just added to the degree of difficulty on this hunt. Once we finally reached the river, we both began glassing, searching for the bear.

Taking pictures through the spotting scope before our stalk.












Within minutes I located the bear. He was about 400 yds down river on the opposite bank and working his way towards us. I honestly remember thinking “this is actually about to happen”. In hopes of getting a closer shot, we waded our way across the shallow river to a small sandbar. But just as quickly as all that adrenalin hit me; it started to dissipate even faster. The bear walked into the thick brush and was no longer in sight. I sat there waiting and wondering in a much more somber mood…is this going to happen? We waited 20 - 30 minutes before wading back to the river bank. We both figured the bear must have smelled us w/ the swirling winds. Seeing as we really didn’t have enough daylight left to do much else, we opted to stay put. Scott and I sat on a log and shot the breeze for an hour or so.

As the sun began to fade, I heard Scott whisper “Bear…. Less than 200 yds down river and closing quickly”. He apparently crossed the river and was walking right at us. Like a Chinese fire drill, we quickly moved to a sand bar about 40 yds from the river bank figuring the bear would give us a clean broadside shot. Obviously the bear didn’t get the memo as he jumped in the river and started walking right at us! I remember Scott saying “make sure the bear doesn’t see you”. Great, I’m basically behind a twig and a huge bear is walking right at me. How in the world am I going to be able to draw my bow without being noticed?


The bear is still walking right at me, head on 50 yds, 40 yds, 30 yds and then finally he starts quartering to me giving me a slight shot. He briefly looks away and I quickly draw my bow waiting for my opportunity. Still moving closer, I can’t take it any longer and let my arrow fly. At a mere 15 yds, I watch my arrow disappear into the bears hide and brace for the train wreck as he’s running directly at us. Sitting motionless, only tracking the bear with my eyes everything seems to be running in slow motion. The bear is definitely trying to figure out what just happened. He runs by us with blood pouring out his side, running into the river and then onto a small island 70 yds away. Watching the brush move back and forth we knew the bear was hit hard and was most likely going to bed down

A few minutes later Scott whispered, “Can you believe how close that bear got to us? I watched the entire event unfold through my rifle scope. I had pressure on the trigger and planned on shooting if the bear stopped”. I knew the bear was close, but seeing as I was on sensory overload I never really grasped just how close the bear really was until we walked over to look for the blood trail. My arrow passed through the bear and was dangling out the opposite side. When the bear ran by us the arrow fell out…..5 yds from me!!!! I had no clue the bear was that close. You could see the bear tracks and huge amounts of blood all over the sand. We were both confident that our trophy lay dead less than 80 yds away.

The Magnus Stinger Buzzcut is one of my favorite broadheads. Tremendous blood trail!














The bear ran by me at a mere 5 yds, note the arrow in the picture














We circled the island and slowly worked our way on shore. I climbed an old dead tree to see if I could get a visual. Working my way up higher and higher, I finally saw what I was looking for…..brown is down! After taking pictures and skinning the bear we started our long walk back to camp. Later, Scott pulled out a tape measure and the bear measured a legitimate 8’1 ft. Scott was right on the money! I couldn’t be happier scoring on a solid P&Y Brown Bear
































Spraying Down the Hide with Wild Game Guardian
















Gear used on the hunt
-Mathews Drenalin Bow
-Eastin Axis Arrows
-Magnus Stingers Buzzcut Broadheads
-Spot Hogg 7 Deadly Pins Bowsight
-Leica Geovids 10x42 Binoculars
-Trophy Taker Arrow Rest