I had never been on any of the ground, so I decided to scout/still hunt. The first piece was a total bust. I saw a few tracks, but I walked 3-4 miles and the sign just wasn't there. The more I travel to hunt, the more I have decided that I won't hunt marginal sign. I'd rather spend the whole trip looking for a place to hunt than spend the whole trip hunting spots I don't have confidence in. So...on to the next spot.
I had a hard time finding the access road to the next piece of public. I talked to a local guy and he told me the place gets basically no bow pressures. When I finally found the access road, I started walking a transition line. It was a relatively windy day, with winds 10-15mph and occasional gusts to 20ish. I was only a few hundred yards in when I jumped two nice whitetails. The one was a 130s class, and a deer I would have definitely shot. Unfortunately, they vacated the area pretty quickly
Good news, I jumped them from bedding. I pinned the area on OnX and kept walking. About a half mile later I jumped a doe at about 25 yards. We had a stare down for about a minute, and then all of a sudden, a big buck busted out next to a big dead fall. He didn't have a monster rack (115-120"), but he had a HUGE body that definitely said mature deer. I took a pic of his very well worn bed. I pinned the location on OnX and took note of a few trees about 100yds from the bed that I thought I could sneak back into on another hunt since he looked to have left the county.I walked another mile without seeing any deer or much sign. Then I walked up on a thicket type area. My wind was really iffy, blowing slightly quartering ahead of me, and I think that cost me. I looked into a hole in the thicket and saw the tallest rack I have ever seen. From the base of the rack to the top of the tines looked as long as the deer's neck
Shooter for sure. I covered 50 yards quick and then started glassing the edges of the thicket hoping to see this giant pop out. I never did see him again. I took note of suspected bedding for another hunt. At this point, I had blown out 3 shooters and all of them ran the same general direction. I worked back to the truck after a 4-5 mile loop and made a plan for the evening. There was a county road on the other side of the public where I could access with the wind in my face and work towards the direction where all the spooked bucks had went towards.I started in with about 2.5 hours before dark. I was moving really slowly and stopping every 30-40 yards to glass suspected bedding. About 45 minutes in I spotted a few does. They were upwind of me. Before I knew it, they were 20 yards away. I was tucked into a Russian Olive looking shrub. Despite my best efforts, the does noticed me when they got to about 15 yards. Then they did the ol' stomp and snort dance for a few minutes before bounding back into the bedding area. I was a little bummed and thought the hunt might be over. It was only the first night though, so I wasn't too disappointed. About this time, I also noticed I wasn't in the greatest location. I was on a sidehill around 20ft tall, and I couldn't see over the top to the other side. I decided I would creep in another 30-40 yards closer to suspected bedding and also move up the hill a little more so I could see the other side but not skyline myself too bad. I tucked into another Russian Olive and about 5 minutes later I saw 2 mule deer does. I was watching the muley does when I noticed ol' snorty, the whitetail doe, was coming back out of the thicket. I watched both doe groups for about 10 minutes when I saw a whitetail buck pop out. It looked like a year old 6 pointer. At this point, all the deer activity had been straight ahead of me at my 12 o'clock. I glanced over to my right and saw what I thought was a rack about 100 yards out, just over the top of the hill that I had moved up so I could see over. It looked like a 2 year old buck, and I had seen only whitetail bucks, so I didn't pay too much attention to him.
At this point, I decided I didn't like my shooting lanes and made a move towards the 2 year old buck hoping he had big brother with him. It took me about 10-15 minutes to move 30 yards. I ended up leaning against a real large cottonwood tree. There was one other big tree about 8 yards from me at about the 10 o'clock position. I watched the does feed around some more and kept tabs on the buck who was now about 70 yards away. It was getting down to the last half hour of light and the does were all starting to work parallel to me about 60 yards away. I looked back at the buck, and to my surprise, he was walking right at me. I took a peek through my rangefinder, and noticed it was a mule deer buck! Now I was pretty excited by this 2 year old buck, since I had never shot a muley with a bow. He was at 40 yards, then 30 yards, then 20 yards, coming right at my tree. About 15 yards out, he veered to my left and I noticed the left side of the rack was a 4pt side. I didn't get a real good look at the right side, but I decided if I could get drawn on him this close that I would shoot. He walked just on the other side of the big cottonwood 8 yards from me. I drew my bow, anchored and readied to shoot. When he stepped out behind the tree, I thought he would peg me and bolt for sure. To my surprise, he kept walking, completely oblivious. At 13 yards, I gave him a soft meeeehhhhh" and he stopped almost perfectly broadside. I let the arrow loose and he took 4 big muley hops, stopped, tipped over 30 yards from the shot, and I had my first archery muley down! I was pretty excited. He was probably the second smallest buck I saw all day, and he won't be making any record books but it was a super fun hunt, my first buck from the ground, my first archery muley, my first solo recovery, and on public land to boot.
