by Luke Prough
All my life I have wanted to take a trophy mule deer. After years of friends harvesting good mule deer all around me, it was my turn. In the fall of 08 I harvested a decent 3 point with my bow. That harvest only satisfied me for a short while before I was dreaming about harvesting a true trophy mulie. After 12 long months of waiting it was finally time to head out to the hills to search for that once in a lifetime trophy.
With the archery season being a bust, I was determined to harvest a good mule deer during the general rifle season. We hunted hard all September but saw nothing worth drawing on. Before I knew it was time to pack my truck and head out.
Nervous and anxious, that’s how I felt when I pulled up to my destination for my upcoming mule deer hunt in central Idaho‘s primitive land. The time was 4:00am, just in time to start my grueling hike straight up the main ridge to the top of a canyon I have hunted several times before. I had 3 miles to hike in the dark without a trail.
With my pack cinched on my back and my rifle in my hand, I began my journey. By 6:00 I was ¾ of the way up the steep and rocky ridge. With pain in my legs and lungs, I decided to take a quick water break and sit for a minute. Sitting on that rock made me remember all the times I have climbed this ridge with my father in my early years. Remembering where I have shot deer before, where I shot my first coyote. It was all memories that I will never forget.
By 6:15 I was sweating up a storm again. Hiking over fallen trees and under overgrowth, I was slowly covering the needed ground to get to my destination, only stopping to check my footing and my direction. I only had about ¼ of a mile left when I started glassing for deer. I stopped to glass the same areas I had seen deer in years before. After a vigorous search, I decided to finish the climb since I had seen no deer around. 10 minutes later I was at the top of the amazingly large and beautiful mountain range. It was then that I took off my pack, situated my rifle and began glassing the ridge line down the other side.
The morning sun was cresting over the eastern mountains, giving me a sense of warmth in the cool late October air. Seeing all the beauty that god has createdl, I sat and thought about who been here before me, who has shot bucks from this mountain top and if my bullet will strike true to my target today.
After about 45 minutes of glassing, I was putting my pack on and turned around to head down the other ridge and back down to the bottom when I spotted something moving out of the corner of my eye. When I turned my head I could tell right away what he was. I quickly dropped to my knees, lay my trusty Remington model 700, 300 win mag. on the rock I had been sitting against and looked through my Bushnell 3×9 scope. He was walking away from me, Quartering away at 400 yards. I could tell that he was at least a 4×4. His neck was swollen and his body looked good. I could already taste the delicious meat laying beside my mashed potatoes.
After watching him for about a minute, I took a deep breath, put the crosshairs behind the shoulder and squeezed the trigger. By the time I lifted my head away from the scope my buck was rolling down the mountain. The only bad thing about this whole situation was that he was rolling down the opposite side of the mountain. I quickly put my scope on him again, putting another round in him to finish him off. 10 seconds later he was curled up half way down the mountain.
When I saw that amazing buck curl up on that steep slope, I dropped to my knees, and thanked the good lord for the amazing adventure that he enabled me to do. Soon after, I picked up my empty shells off the ground, loaded my Blacks Creek Guide Gear pack on my sore but eager back and started the decent towards my fallen trophy. I couldn’t wait to put my hands on his beautiful set of antlers. It took me no time at all to slide my way to him. When I reached him, he was even better than I anticipated. From what I thought was a decent 4×4 which I would have been plumb tickled to have harvested, turned out to be a beautiful mature 5×5 with no eye guards.
After some pictures of my trophy, my favorite part of the whole hunt was soon to begin. Caping and boning out the animals I harvest is by far my favorite part of hunting. Taking pride in how you harvest the meat is very important in my eyes. Even down to how you tie it to your pack.
After an hour of caping, cutting, de-boning and packing the meat into my pack, I was ready to start my journey back to the truck. The 3 hour hike back up to the top and down the other side felt like nothing this time around. Before I knew it I was crossing the final creek in the bottom less than 100 yards from the pickup. Setting that pack in the bed of the truck was the best feeling any hunter can feel. Knowing that my family and I will have fresh meat for the long winter ahead was a feeling that a parent and husband loves to feel every time they harvest an animal.
DIY hunting has always been my passion and I cant wait to pass it down to my children when they are old enough. My 2 year old son is already telling his mother that he is ready to go hunting with his daddy to get his own deer. The buck ended up scoring 156” B&C. Even though he was not a huge animal, he was still for me a trophy of a lifetime and the hunt was 100% DIY and 100% satisfaction.
