JGJohnson
Member
Nebraska Rifle Mule Deer – November 2019
Nebraska’s 9 day rifle season fell roughly a week later than normal this year. I had spent the fall wondering exactly what that would mean. Would the rut be tapering off, or would it fall better?
I missed the opener weekend because I was on call. As a veterinarian on call, there is no worse karma if you are on call than trying to do something that you absolutely have to finish. I just knew if I went hunting, I would be stalking the buck of a lifetime and my phone would ring. Worse yet, I would have a buck down a not short distance from a road.
A Colorado elk hunt had fallen through in late summer leaving me with plenty of vacation days. Thus, the decision was made to completely forego opening weekend and take vacation the following week. This would leave me Tuesday through the following Sunday to try and fill my tag.
The opening weekend came and went with only some mild pain. “All the mature deer were surely dead by now,” was stuck in my mind. I spent most of Monday at work preg checking cows and worked into the late evening helping finish up some sale barn work. In my travels that day I had seen several groups of deer. First, a lone whitetail buck was observed. Is the rut winding down? Once out of the low ground and into the hills, all the other groups seen were mule deer, and all had mature bucks with them. Muley’s are still rutting!
Monday evening was spent giving all the gear one last rundown with the help of my almost 3 year old daughter. At times she is just about as excited about hunting as I am. One evening we were play fishing on the steps. She pulled one out and described in her words, “Wow, a great big one!” As she was grunting and straining to hang on to it she says, “Daddy, quick, shoot it so we can eat it!” That made me proud.
Tuesday morning found me overlooking a large valley before dawn. This valley is actually where I took my buck last year. (Read about it here https://www.hunttalk.com/threads/2018-nebraska-mule-deer.286399/ ) Could it produce two years in a row? If it would, does that grant it honey hole status?
I choose this location for my first morning for one simple reason. I was technically still on call until 8AM on Tuesday morning, it is less than 10 miles from town, and the hike in to the glassing point is only a half mile or so. With light slowly gaining I spotted a porcupine bumbling the way they do up a coulee. That would end up being the highlight of my morning. At 6:30, right when the glassing was getting good, karma struck! The on call phone rang. A client’s sheep guardian dog had been hit by a car. So ended my morning hunt. I made it back to town about the time they pulled in to the clinic. The dog was stabilized and handed off to another doctor once they arrived for the day. My on call time was officially done for the week and it was time to get serious about finding a buck.
The rest of Tuesday was spent in some serious canyon country unproductively glassing bedding areas that had been located in years previous.
Wednesday morning found me glassing a large piece of CRP at daylight. Immediately north of the CRP was a pivot of rye, and all the area surrounding it rolled into sandhills. I caught one doe cruising out of the rye well before daylight. I also found a freshly dead prairie chicken while rounding a dune to get to a different glassing point.
At roughly 7:15 I glassed a buck and a doe roughly 2 miles out. My el cheapo binoculars could not resolve much of the antlers other than I could see sun shining off of them. I watched them work into a range of dunes and disappear. After loading up the gear, I set off after them. I headed for a low dune about ½ a mile east of where I thought they would bed so I could get the wind right and come in with the sun at my back. While booking it over to my reassessment point, the wind decided to come up and flat get with it. I eventually relocated the pair bedded in classic mule deer fashion. They were just on the leeward side of a roll with a 4-600 yard view in most every other direction. The buck was young and carrying what I figured was his first set of antlers. I snuck out and left him be. If he doesn’t get stupid, he will be a dandy in about 4 years. As long as he stays where he was, he will be safe.
The rest of Wednesday was spent still-hunting through some coulees out of the wind. The deer were looking for cover from the wind and I really didn’t want to be glassing into it either. Lots of sign was seen, but few deer were saw.
Thursday morning was blessed with 4” of wet heavy snow. A large loop though some new country found nothing more than a large group of bulls (bovine variety) bedded out of the wind….and a coyote….and the spot where I’m going to be for the teal opener next September. Dinner back in town and a short nap consumed some of Thursday afternoon. It is vacation time after all! Thursday evening was used to sit on a choke point coming out of a large canyon system up onto a wheat field on top. The tracks and droppings said that quite a few deer were using it. That evening one young buck came through. Not quite what I was looking for.
Friday morning I was back on top of a dune overlooking the same area I glassed Wednesday morning. It was just too good and I couldn’t stay away. Well before daylight, as if they were gray ghosts, a herd of mule deer came out of the rye and started crossing the CRP corridor to bedding points beyond. The herd was made up of at least 10 does and one buck I could visualize antlers on actively pursuing a doe. It was still pretty dark and again, my binoculars couldn’t make out much more than antlers at roughly a half mile. These binos really struggle during twilight.
Half way across the CRP, I started to lose track of deer. Some started to bed, some continued to work south, and some moved southeast. The doe that had bedded soon rose and moved off as well. Within 20 minutes they were all out of my view behind a line of cedars and I had lost track of all of them. Decision time. An old homestead grown up with brush sits on the far corner of the CRP. Had they bedded there, somewhere out in the CRP, or on into the hills?
As I was analyzing, I glassed beyond the CRP. A little over a mile out I caught a white rump. I watched as the group went over a low saddle between two larger dunes. They were lined out and headed somewhere. I counted 8 head go over the ridge. That left 3 deer unaccounted for. While contemplating my next move, a young fork buck came back out into the CRP. He was limping and obviously looking for somewhere else to be. As he was moving across, another young buck with a full but very spindly frame also hustled out into the CRP from the direction of the homestead. My analysis: someone had just put a whooping on these two young whippersnappers. I decided I would like to meet that ‘someone’ and I figured he was bedded in the old homestead.
While moving towards the homestead I thought I might as well try and find a good ambush point in the area of the cedars to be at the next morning. Once down by the cedars, I was marveling at all of the smaller trees that had been trashed by rubbing. I turn around and on the edge of the homestead there stands a buck. Through the binoculars, I could evaluate a fairly heavy frame that was just inside his ears, maybe 20” wide or so. Definitely worth an attempt.
I had him at roughly 200 yards, but with the tall CRP grass, the only shot I had was offhand. That wasn’t going work. Thus, the stalk was on. I dropped my pack and heavy gloves and crawled into the grass. I closed to about 100 yards but was now in a low depression and couldn’t clear the grass, evening standing. The buck was feeding away on the fall forbs and was clueless. I moved into 75 yards and peeked again. The buck was standing alert but wasn’t locked on to me. I needed to move forward another 5 yards to clear one last clump of big bluestem and I would have a clear shot, sitting, at 70 yards. He was as good as dead. I was already planning the pack out. I would be back in town before noon. All my effort was finally going to pay off.
I think everyone knows where this is going. I got to my shooting point and slowly sat up. No buck. I frantically glassed the surrounding brush to see if I could locate him. Nothing. I was seriously bummed. How could I have screwed that up? I hustled to a rise and glassed everywhere I would think a buck would slip away through, but to no avail, he was gone. Damn! I had pushed a little too hard and I paid for it.
I spent the next hour and a half trying to find the bigger herd from first light, but mostly I was just feeling sorry for myself. I could not turn up the herd, nor the vanished buck. I had resolved that they had quit the country and that I might as well head to town and treat my wife to dinner out over her noon hour.
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Congratulations, thanks for sharing
