Here is a not so quick recap of my hunt out in South Dakota last week at my cousin’s ranch. I got home Wednesday night with the family and headed south about noon on Thursday. My cousins live about 15 miles north of the Missouri river. It’s pretty rugged for central SD, but still no trees to speak of. After a quick visit, we decided to head out and see what was out and about with my bow in hand. My cousin Dan said the deer had pretty much disappeared over the last few days with the warm weather. Top it off, the mule deer just hadn’t shown up this winter yet. The plan was to do a spot and stalk. My cousin’s had sat in the tree stands the previous few nights with barely a deer sighting.
We had covered most of the ground around the place jumping quite a herd of whitetails to our surprise. They were not in the mood for us apparently rifle season was still fresh in their mind. As we drove down through the center of the ranch I commented how I couldn’t wait to see the lack of junk after last summer’s cleaning crew came through and hauled 100+ loads of steel out of the place. The bad part of this was the mule deer loved the junk yard. I wondered how the lack of “cover” would affect the behavior.
Ironically, like nothing had changed we rounded the corner and were commenting on the huge pile of tires the boys need to dispose of and here were the mule deer. One pretty good one and one smaller buck along with about 8 does. We decided to back out of this alley and circle from the down wind side. The problem now was with the lack of old cars and trucks, the stalking would be virtually impossible. The old tree grove is quite barren. We decided our only option was to sneak along the road hoping the deer would focus on the pickup and not me stalking within range.
The plan worked perfectly, except the smaller of the two bucks presented the best shot. Given the days on the calendar were quickly passing by, I wasn’t going to be picky. My guide ranged the buck at 47. I felt he was a bit further so I held center mass with my 50 yard pin. The shot looked to be perfect as the deer did the mule kick just like on TV. We waited a bit as we watched all the other deer head up the alley to the north pasture. After a short while we walked down to the spot of the shot. A perfect pass through with lots of blood. Ok, head back to the truck for a cold beer and let the deer expire. Maybe we were a bit too arrogant, but I think all 3 of us felt this was a killing shot.
After a beer, the tracking started. Jr(one of the best cattle dogs I’ve ever been around) was on the lead until he was side tracked by an old dead mule deer my cousin had unhooked from the fence, not once, but twice in the past 10 days. It didn’t matter, we had massive amounts of blood and I’m pretty sure Ray Charles could have followed this trail. As we got to the edge of trees where I expected the deer to be laying my heart started to sink. We followed the blood up the alley through another set of trees into the north pasture, but then we lost blood. We searched for quite a while before deciding to walk the trees. Nothing. Then we started driving the draws. Sure enough, the last one we came to in the far NE corner held the herd we were looking for. My buck was bedded down about 150 yards from the truck offering no opportunity to try a sneak. Soon he got up and headed in a SE direction up a huge draw into the one pasture I’ve only been in one other time in my whole life(that I can recall anyway). He was hurting badly and moving slowly.
Our goal was to get on the east/south side of the deer to watch him bed down. I found out why we don’t ever go into this pasture. It was rougher then heck. It took us quite a while to pick our way to the eastern border of this field. We checked several draws along the way and checked the eastern edge to be sure the deer didn’t get out ahead of us. Nope, nothing. So we headed back to the top to start searching the other draws. Dan stopped the truck to glass a big draw to our left. Nothing. As were all focused in the direction the deer “should have been”, Dan spotted him out to the right of truck bedded down. I ranged him and he was past my comfort zone. Our conversation went something like this. 1. Leave him, come back later? 2. Attempt a stalk and hopefully push him towards the place? 3. Attempt a shot? Long story short, I decided to take the shot. We had no time left to make a sneak. Our light was down to only a few minutes before legal shooting was done. We all agreed, the best odds to as quickly as possible end this deer’s suffering was to get another arrow in him.
In my head, I knew how to figure the yardage and where to hold. Did a quick compensation for the slight cross wind and let it fly. To all our amazement, I hit him. The Lumenok showed the flight pattern of my rainbow arched arrow perfectly. With a loud KA-WHOP, the arrow nailed the deer, a little high and little back. My guides jumped out of the truck as we all watched the deer head down a draw. I had turned to my other cousin in disgust thinking I just may not get this deer even after that miraculous shot. Luckily guide #1 saw the deer pile up on the edge of a hay field about half mile from our location. Honestly, I was a bit hopped up on adrenaline and things are a bit blurry. I do remember asking Dan several times if he was really down even though I could see the Lumenok through the binocs.
He’s not the biggest deer I’ve ever shot, but by far one of the coolest stories that will get stretched and re-told for many, many years to come. I have to apologize up front for the pics. It was pretty cold out that night and we simply were in a rush.
Pic 1, my two oldest the next morning.
Pic 2, the exit wound from the first shot.
Pic 3, shot by my 6 year old. Best she could do with a cell phone.
and great job getting the girls involved! 
I have been pulling for you all fall 
Someday I want a muley 
