Stories of Your First Coues Hunts

[Red Rabbit]

The Initiation: My First Coues Whitetail Hunt

 

A long time friend convinced me to put in for a December whitetail hunt in Unit 29. I was teaching in Texas at the time and this hunt would be on the trip back to Phoenix to see family over Christmas vacation back in 1982. I had not been to Skeleton Canyon and Geronimo's Surrender Sight near Apache, AZ before.

 

A day before we were to hunt, I arrived after dark only to find the creek at the canyon mouth swollen due to 5” of rain that day. Not wanting to venture across the creek which I could not see its depth, in a 2wd S-10 towing a boat to be used later at Lees Ferry, I waited to cross until morning. My friend drove down from Phoenix the next day. We set up camp and took a scouting ride so I could see some of the area before we hunted the next day.

 

At the time, I had only been hunting for a total of one year. I had never hunted Coues before and asked what a nice one was. He said they were small, about 100 pounds, and with 3 points on a side. If it was big enough to see antlers, I should shoot. I envisioned something like a small, basket-racked, Texas Hill Country 6 pointer (eastern count).

 

The next morning in a light, short-lived rain, we set out together up a draw. When the draw split, we decided to go separate ways. While my friend continued up to the right, I went up and to the left a hundred yards from the juncture to glass the opposite slope. Quickly I spotted a buck and could see antlers, but I lost him when he walked behind a juniper tree. Frustrated after not being able to relocate the vanished deer for several minutes, I decided to journey further on up the left draw.

 

After walking a hundred yards or so, I told myself, “This is stupid to be walking away. The buck has to be there. It didn’t just disappear.” So, I hiked back and started to look again through my Bushnell 7x35 InstaFocus binos. After a few minutes, the buck was located near the same spot I had lost sight of him originally.

 

To get closer to for the shot, I went on the backside if a curvature to hide me, down to the bottom and maybe 50 yards up to a boulder. I could rest the rifle on the rock as I shot uphill at the deer. When the buck stepped into a clearing, maybe 150 yards up the slope, I sent a 150 grain CoreLok from the 7mm Remington Express to the lungs. The buck dropped instantly. I went up to him, looked at the small 8 point buck, tagged him and proceded to field dress him.

 

Looking back down the draw from where the buck lay.

 

Rather than going back to camp for the frame and pack him down the hill, I decided I could ride the Honda ATV up the hillside and bring him down the easy way. After walking back down to where we left the ATV that morning, I drove up the creek bottom and up the hillside to the buck. I needed to traverse sidehill about 30 yards to go over to the buck. I traversed about 10 yards of it before gravity and slope decided that I had overcome the center of gravity. The Honda rolled over, with my body cushioning its first rotation against the ground. Fortunately, the seat was the part that pressed down upon my back and head, and not the handlebars or racks, or footpegs. I looked down hill to see it rolling over and over and over, bouncing each time it hit a tire, and with flashes of red flailing outward on each rotation. I envisioned a complete loss of the plastic fenders.

 

Picking myself off the ground, I walked down to the Honda, noted the red was the red straps and not busted fenders, rolled it over from its side, cranked on the starter a few seconds to hear the sound of the dependable Honda. I drove straight up to the buck and tied it onto the rear rack. The first attempt at turning made me notice that I could not, as the handlebars had been bent down to thigh level. A couple of upward yanks on the bars and I was on my way back to camp. My friend returned to camp that evening having walked miles up the right draw and only saw two muley does. He asked how I did. I pointed to the buck in the oak tree. He remarked, “Geez Koepsel, that’s a nice one.”

 

 

Doug~RR

[azcouesandelk]

My first coues hunt was in 2004. I was 16 years old at the time and was interested in learning about these deer after my dad had hunted them the year before and had several close calls. The draw results came out and my dad and I had been drawn for the November tag in 36c. Not knowing anything about these deer I started to research them and found this forum . This is where I found the passion. I bought a pair of 8x42 wind rivers to glass of my knees with.

 

Come the hunt we had 2 days of scouting in and I was going to shoot anything. My dad and I had hiked way back in an area where we had pig hunted in February and seen alot of deer. We set up looking opposite directions and I found a group of does with a spike. I had the spike in the crosshairs but passed him up thinking to myself that I can't shoot the first morning and I was sure I would see bigger bucks. We hunted the rest of the day only finding does and a herd of pigs.

 

The second day of the hunt we went back to the same general area and around 10 in the morning a small 3x2 stepped out and I was going to take the shot. I flipped the safety off and the buck turned and ran. Not wanting to shoot at a running deer I waited to see if he would stop. That deer ran over 600 yards and did not stop til it got over the ridge. We hunted til dark and saw no more deer.

 

The third morning we hunted all morning without seeing a buck and my dad was packing up camp while I went on one last hike. I walked in some thick ocotillos when I saw a deer. I through the binos up and see a nice 3x3 with no eyeguards. I pull the rifle up only to see the bucks tail going up the side of the mountain. I head home discouraged but happy that I was able to see some deer.

 

We go out the second weekend only to see does, mule deer bucks, and pigs. It was my first ever whitetail hunt and since I have been involved with 9 successful coues hunts.

[azcouesandelk]

Also great buck Doug! He has some real nice G2's

[Tines]

It took me 3 seasons until I killed my first coues deer (or deer in deneral!)

 

A month before the hunt started, I blew my knee out playing high school football. A cornerback from Salpointe that seriously lacked in tackling skills decided to "try" on me. I guess it sort of worked out for him! I was determined to make it out regardless of my handicap.

 

With a rifle in one hand- and the other hand used to brace myself up the mountain- a torn ACL wasn't going to stop me! My brother and I got to our glassing points just before light. After about 30 minutes of seeing nothing, some hunters accross the canyon shot down into the bottom at a group of 4 bucks. They all ran straight to us- 2 splitting off at the last second and the remaining 2 heading 75 yards in front of us.

 

The first deer to come into full view was a little 2-point. Yeah, like I was going to pass him up! I YANKED the trigger and down he went. I was on top of the world (in more ways than one)!!!!! I didn't care about the 3x4 (not including eye-guards) that was right on his tail and had to step over him after he fell. That's okay, because about 15 seconds later, my brother took him just around the corner.

 

Shortly after that, I found out that it's easier to walk up-hill with bad knees as opposed to down. Especially with a deer on your back!

 

Thanks for starting this, Doug. Brings back some happy times............ even if my professional FB career was "cut short".

[SilentButDeadly]

I wrote this story after I killed my first Coue's last September, he was the first big game animal I've killed, I was alone and it was life altering:

 

A thousand feet of barren granite cliff climbed into the sky bathed in peach and amber light. An exceptional amount of rain had fallen that summer turning the hillsides a dozen shades of green. In the shadow of a low palo verde tree I stood in stunned silence. Twenty yards downhill a buck was lying on his side looking out at the majesty of the broken cliffs in the dying light. It was his last sunset.

I cannot wholly describe the feeling, knowing that I had taken his life, except to say that my mind was swirling with shock, elation, and even pity. It was the end of the first day of my fall hunt and I had ended it with a lethal shot into the first big game animal of my life.

I’d missed the opening nine days of the Arizona bow hunting season. Work had taken me to the Big Belt Mountains of central Montana. I had drawn a javelina tag that was going to expire as soon as the sun set my first day home. Concurrent to javelina, the deer hunting season was underway, although it went on for another twelve days. It had been my intention to hunt for javelina this day and begin the hunt for a whitetail the next.

The day had begun with a drive down a sandy desert road before twilight. The road usually coughed up dust, but this morning it was wet and soggy from the ongoing monsoonal moisture we had been receiving. From the truck I walked through the tangle of ironwood, cholla, and saguaro toward a series of cuts in the mountain side where I had encountered javelina on some of my previous hikes.

When the stars had faded I pressed my lips to a short plastic tube. The reed reverberated, imitating the scream of a wounded rabbit. On a previous excursion I had found that javelina reacted with significant vigor to the call. An entire herd had charged out of the rock filled drainage above me. The boars had come to within thirty yards of me, snorting and pawing at the ground, sniffing the air for my scent. If I hadn’t been safely above them on a rock outcrop I don’t know what I would have done. Even then I wasn’t sure what I would do if they decided to wait until I came down.

This morning I was ready though, I had my compound bow and a quiver with five razor tipped broad heads at the ready for the first sign of a boar.

I had crossed the drainage and was headed up the next hill when I heard a snort and then what sounded like a sneeze above me. I put the call into my pocket and plucked an arrow from the foam and plastic quiver strapped to my camelback. My boots crunched on the gravel as I crept up the hillside. I peered around palo verde and saguaro looking for any sign of the coarse speckle haired pigs sneaking about.

I reached the ridge top without seeing or hearing anything else. I looked about for any sign of the direction that they might have run. I found no prints except my own.

I put the arrow back into the small quiver and brought the call back out. I blew several long excruciating screams imagining what a piglet in the jaws of a coyote might sound like.

Unexpectedly, I heard twigs snap and rocks knocked loose behind me. I turned and saw two gray shapes bound out of the thick arroyo and begin to head up the next ridge. “Deer,” I thought. With one hand I lifted the 15x60 Zeiss binoculars strapped around my neck, I tried to move them slowly to avoid the excessive jitter of the massive optics. I had trouble finding the deer in the narrow field of view. I put down my bow and gripped the heavy rubber binoculars with both hands. I centered on the two deer as they moved up the hill.

At less than two hundred yards from me the bucks were moving briskly. The leader’s rack was well outside his ears with at least three points on each side. The follower was smaller in body size, with a taller narrower rack which rose almost vertically from his head and wrapped around tightly. My heart began pounding. Should I change tactics completely, abandon the search for a javelina? I hadn’t planned on hunting for a buck; from what I understood there wasn’t much of a chance once the deer had winded you or seen you, especially a Coues deer. I couldn’t decide what to do, and that was my first mistake.

I remembered the advice I’d received concerning Coues whitetails. “If you want to hunt these little desert deer you’ve got to get above them,” one hunter had told me. That was probably the only impartial suggestion I had ever received.

“Stalking a Coues into bow range is next to impossible, they live in inaccessible terrain, have excellent senses, and are pretty much crazy,” my future father-in-law Ernie had told me.

“What do you mean crazy?” I asked him.

“Whitetails are completely unpredictable once you’ve begun stalking them. A mule deer when spooked will run a straight line for over a mile, up and down ridges. A Coues on the other hand will run one direction and might turn a hundred and eighty degrees back on itself. If they hear or smell you, you will find that they simply disappear,” he’d said.

My indecision to abandon my search for javelina and go after the bucks resulted in a ‘what not to do’ lesson. I broke all of the modus operandi Ernie had tried to teach me that spring. I never tried to relocate them by gaining elevation and backing off, I simply walked along the same ridge I had last seen them. I left on my shoes, crunching twigs and branches as I walked. I ignored the wind and moved in a direction that they might catch my scent. After twenty minutes of pseudo-stalking I landed up spooking them down the hill and lost them. Somewhat disgusted and astutely aware of my own failures I decided to turn around back toward the truck. I knew another area around the mountain where I had run into javelina earlier in the year.

I moved more quickly then, blasting away at the predator call every few minutes. I would stop to glass the drainages below me and the ridges above me as I moved. I had almost reached a tall ridge which stretched out from the Front Range when I spotted what looked to be a hunter up on a rock outcrop. I lifted my Zeiss and quickly made out the shape of a man hunched over a tripod, peering in my direction. I put down the binoculars and lifted my hand. To my surprise he waived back, in a friendly sort of way – not the “Yeah, I see you, now bugger off,” response I anticipated.

I decided to go up and talk with him. I considered that it might piss him off to have another hunter coming up on him, but figured that once I told him I was only after javelina he might relax and even throw out some information.

The climb up the hill was one that I had done a half dozen times before, and I knew the rock that he was sitting on. I crossed over and down onto his position. He didn’t hear me until I was about twenty yards away. “Good morning,” I said in a neutral voice.

“Morning,” he replied. Right away I recognized him, I had seen him once before during the spring. He and another man, who I had subsequently seen several more times and struck up an informal friendship with, had been glassing for Coues near where I’d parked the truck that morning.

“Your name is John, Patrick’s friend right?” I asked.

“Yeah, I recognize you, what’s your name again?” he replied.

I told him my name and what I was about that morning. He told me that he hadn’t seen any javelina. He wasn’t hunting; he had already shot a buck earlier in the week. We chatted for a few minutes and he agreed to help me glass for javelina.

We moved around the point to a spot that looked down into the next valley over. After glassing for a few minutes I spotted a spike buck bedded down under a big palo verde. I pointed him out to John and we continued to look for javelina.

After an hour of glassing we still hadn’t seen any javelina. John suggested that I go after the buck. At first I dismissed him, I still wanted to find a javelina, but after a few minutes discussion I changed my mind.

We worked up a simple plan where I would stalk down to the buck, and if he stood up John would holler from the hilltop to stop him so I’d have enough time to draw down on him.

Down the hill I stopped every so often to look out at the palo verde the buck was under. I wanted to memorize some of the trees from above so I wouldn’t lose my bearings in the thicket as I stalked closer. I crossed a dry creek bed that led into the thicket of mesquite and cholla. I took off my shoes and put on my extra pair of thick wool hiking socks. I left the Zeiss with my shoes on the ground; they wouldn’t be any use stalking in the thick bushes. I kept my rangefinder and quiver and started out in the direction of the palo verde.

I found that the ground was soft and even a little damp from the recent rains. I was able to move quietly and there was almost no breeze. After about twenty minutes I had moved much closer, but I couldn’t tell which tree the buck was bedded under. I pulled an arrow from the quiver and knocked it. For ten minutes I slowly picked around several large mesquites trying to spot the right palo verde. Suddenly I heard the crack of a branch breaking about twenty yards ahead of me. Then I heard a loud yell from John up on the hillside. Before I had time to clip my release onto the string the buck was up and bounding away from me.

I took the arrow off the knock and put it back. Gingerly, I crossed the rock and cactus covered ground to where I had dropped my shoes and binoculars. John met me at the bottom of the hill a few minutes later and we spoke one last time. I thanked him for his help and we exchanged phone numbers.

It was going on 10:30 am and I had promised to be home by mid day to my fiancé Marisa. On my way back to town I thought about the two big bucks I had left on the other side of the mountain.

That afternoon I started a mile north of where I had last seen the two bucks. My intention was to climb a high ridgeline and glass down to try and relocate them, or perhaps even stumble onto an elusive herd of javelina.

Five minutes down the trail I saw a doe. She was feeding, barely paying any attention to me even though I was up wind from her. I went up the ridge along an old disused hiking trail. On the old trail I came across a desert tortoise. On my previous shed hunting hikes, the discovery of a desert tortoise, often by my dog Briggs, meant one thing – no shed antlers were to be found that day. I muttered to myself as I walked on past the hard shelled creature. At an open point along the ridge top I stopped and set down my bow. It was a bit too low for good glassing, but I figured I’d take a minute to look around.

I rested my elbows on my knees to steady the binoculars. I glassed the far hillside where I had last seen the two bucks that morning. For fifteen minutes I looked under every mesquite and palo verde on the ridge without any success. I turned the binoculars to the west and looked down the drainage and up the other side. After only a few moments of looking on the near hillside I saw the fuzzy antlers of the large buck brushing against a tree branch as he nibbled at the foliage. I moved the binoculars around to try and pick out a feature on the landscape that I might recognize when I lowered the lenses. The two bucks were just below a large rock crest. I lowered the binoculars and quickly ranged the rocky outcrop. It was less than one hundred and fifty yards away! I could clearly see the two bucks with my naked eye.

My heart started to slam against my breast; my hands began to tremble. What should I do? Wait until they bedded down and then make my stalk? The wind was in my face, they wouldn’t catch my scent. I had time; the sun was still over an hour from setting. I peered through the binoculars again. They were working their way around behind the large rocky outcrop. A thought came to me. If I hurried I could close the distance on them while they fed behind the rocks. There wasn’t time to think, so I acted on impulse. I took off my shoes and put on my extra pair of wool socks. I tied my shoes to the base of my camelback and put it back on.

I found that my sock feet were much quieter than my shoes, and that if I chose my steps carefully I could move quickly and quietly.

As I stalked down toward the bucks I focused on my foot falls, finding hard packed ground or large rocks to step on. I avoided all of the grass, brush, and gravel that I could. It only took me ten minutes to reach the rock outcrop. When I got to within what I guessed was fifty yards I took out my range finder and started getting the distances of the saguaro and palo verde nearby. I took an arrow out of my quiver and knocked it. I clipped my release to the string, I wouldn’t be caught off guard the way I had that morning. I slowed my movement even further, only taking single steps before stopping to look and listen. I was still above the broken rise of rock. The outcrop was larger than a house and overgrown with brush. I decided to move around it along its uphill side toward the direction I anticipated the bucks to come from.

As I took my next step I heard a crunching noise. I froze. I looked toward the source of the sound but saw nothing. The crunching noise continued to get louder, and still I couldn’t find its source. Little did I know that my bad luck with tortoises was about to change. Slogging along the gravelly hillside stopping every few labored steps to tear at some of the fresh grass sprouting out of the stony ground was yet another tortoise!

Silently, I cursed the tortoise. Dread crept into my mind. Was this a doubly bad omen, two tortoises on one hillside? At the same moment however, a thought came to me. The deer had to have heard that tortoise, he was walking from the same spot that I had last seen them. Had he spooked them? Quietly I took another five steps down the path that the tortoise had just come. I stopped and stood motionless. Abruptly my eyes shot toward the movement of a gray shape appearing at an opening. Less than thirty yards away was the smaller buck. He was feeding, his body quartering away from me. I knew he was close, but how close? I didn’t want to guess for twenty yards and have him be at thirty. I unclipped my release and slowly reached up to grab the rangefinder hanging around me neck. Nervously, I put the monocular to my face. A quick click on the white of his rump returned the number twenty four. Twenty four! I could hit the lid of a Pringles can from thirty yards with merciless accuracy. I lowered the range finder slowly. He was still facing away. I re-clipped the release onto the string. I let my muscles go through the practiced movement of raising the right arm, drawing the string back with the left, anchoring my thumb against my cheek, resting the tip of my nose against the string, looking down the peep sight. I stood at full draw steadying myself. I tightened my back muscles letting my bow arm relax.

Peering through the peep I let the pins come into and out of focus as I aimed at the buck. I needed for him to turn toward me. As I focused my aim the larger of the two bucks came into view. He was walking almost directly toward me. Adrenaline pulsed through my veins. I brought my pins into line with the larger buck. He was facing me straight on at less than twenty yards. He quartered toward me as he began to move around a mesquite. My back tightened, my left arm moved backward a fraction of an inch, the bow convulsed and the sharp sting of the string snapping forward thumped in my ears. The buck jumped forward and ran to my right. The smaller buck leapt up as well, wheeling about to follow his friend. The large buck stopped and stood at thirty yards, but now a small palo verde stood between me and the two deer. The smaller buck looked about and trotted away. The larger buck stayed, standing motionless.

I reached around my back and pulled another arrow from my quiver. To my surprise the insert had come loose and the broad head remained embedded in the foam, leaving me with only a shaft in my hand. I carefully lowered the shaft to the ground putting out my foot to stop it from bouncing on the rocks as I dropped the nock. Again I pulled an arrow from my quiver. This time the arrow came as it should. I knocked it and stood there staring at the buck. The small buck was gone. From where I stood I couldn’t tell if I had hit him. What if I had missed? He could bolt at any moment and be gone; I would have blown a shot at less than twenty yards.

I could hear what sounded like the buck pissing on the ground. That dang deer was taking a leak before tearing away into thin air like a gray ghost!

I carefully took a side step, and then another, trying to get out from behind the palo verde. I drew back on the bow, keeping my eyes on the buck. He was staring right at me. I was still behind the branches of the palo verde, and had no decent shot. I took another side step. Still, no shot. Then the bow convulsed and the string snapped forward. I watched the arrow snake through the palo verde branches and sail over the buck. The arrow bounced off the ground and disappeared. The buck wheeled about and began to trot away. “You idiot, you’ve ruined it,” I thought

To my immediate surprise, he stopped after only a few steps, still in view. I pulled up the range finder and ranged him. He was now at forty five yards. I knocked another arrow, drew back again, and pulled the release. The arrow sailed high a second time. Had I now missed him three times in a row? As we stood there looking at each other, I saw how oddly the buck’s stance was. His feet were only a foot or so apart and his back was bowed up. He turned and trotted down the ridge, disappearing from sight. I stalked clumsily, not knowing if I should run, walk, or stalk. When I reached the spot where he had stood I saw blood on the ground.

“The pissing sound?” I thought. Maybe it hadn’t been him urinating.

I walked back to where he had been standing when I shot the second arrow. There on the ground was a small pool of blood. He had been bleeding, a lot, that was why he hadn’t run when the other buck took off. I had hit him with the first shot! But where had I hit him? I still hadn’t seen any wound on him.

I pulled my last arrow from the quiver and knocked it. I walked slowly, following his blood trail, picking out the spots on the ground where his hooves had torn up the soil. Twenty yards down hill I spotted him. He was lying on his side on a flat overlooking the high mountains beyond the foothills. He turned to stare at me, our eyes met, after a few seconds he looked away. What was he thinking? Was he angry or afraid? His body convulsed as he tried to breath. Blood erupted from his nostrils and sprayed the dirt. He was dying; the first shot had been a good one. I remembered what Ernie had told me about hunting mule deer, how he always put a second or third shot into the animal if he could; to make sure the buck would die, and not escape. I drew back the bow and took my time. The other two shots had been rushed, there was no need to rush the shot now, it had to be true – it was my last arrow. The string snapped forward and the arrow found its mark. I expected the buck to jump back up and maybe run off further. Instead he simply turned to me one last time before looking away toward the hills ahead of him, the hills he had probably been born on and spent his entire life, the hills he would walk no longer.

I stood silently, watching as he took his last labored breaths. Soon he would be gone and I would be a hunter, a killer, just like Ernie. What did that mean? Was this what I wanted? Had I done it to feel accepted, to join a new group? All of those thoughts faded into the tragic beauty of the sun light on the cliffs. My emotions continued to dance as I set down the bow and watched the buck. The world shrank and then grew as my senses expanded to take in everything around me. In those final moments it was just he and I, and the dying light of the sunset.

 

[firstcoueswas80]

im not exaclty sure when my first deer hunt was, but i think i was around 12 or 13 years old. so that would make it 1997 or 1998. my dad and i were hunting in 34a and we would "glass" with our 16x50 bushnells on our walking sticks. we would actually see some deer. one year i was sitting in the same draw that my second coues came from when two small 3x3's walked out. they were maybe 250 yards from my dad and i and feeding in our direction. I decided to let them get as close as possible before shooting. well, they got in the bottom (had maybe 20 smll mesquites in it, though no way they could disappera) well i was wrong! they up an vanished into thin air! never saw em again!

[Red Rabbit]

NL,

Great story to share. Liked the details and emotions that you told as it really puts one alongside of you on the hunt.

 

Doug~RR

[GRONG]

Tyson........ What can I say man that has to be the best, most heartfelt story I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Don't know how I missed it two years ago but WOW that was an awesome story. Got me all choked up brother...... I know exactly what you're talkin about. dang good read my friend....

[CouesWhitetail]

Tyson, I missed your story too, until now. Wow, great write up!! I too enjoyed all the details and emotions. Congratulations on that fine hunt.

 

Amanda

 

[SilentButDeadly]

thanks all, I too re-read it yesterday... I lost 30 minutes of work throwing it back into Word and editing it down to make it smoother... (I'm never happy with my own writing!)

 

t

[Coues Sniper]

Tyson........ What can I say man that has to be the best, most heartfelt story I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Don't know how I missed it two years ago but WOW that was an awesome story. Got me all choked up brother...... I know exactly what you're talkin about. dang good read my friend....

+1. EXCELLENT read Tyson, thoroughly impressed.

[Coues 'n' Sheep]

Nice story Tyson.... the ending embodies the feeling that I feel everytime... well put!

 

 

I, however, am going to be short and blunt on my first coues story!!

 

 

I was brand new at the concept of hunting coues with a bow and I bought and set up two treestands in spots that I thought "looked good"!! What good was then I am not sure.... mostly blind luck I am sure. My thought was, "Those Eastern hunters do it, why can't I?" Oh and I thought I was being revolutionary!!! Who would EVER think to hunt coues from a tree???? What can I say I was young..... Anyhow, my first tree stand was in the bottom of a draw along two trails and the first afternoon I sat it I saw like 6 does cruise past the closest was 6 yds!!!! Man was I stoked!!! ......And a Junky was born!!!! I was so close I could see her eye lids blink... and that was just awesome to me! A few days or a week later I sat my other spot in the morning and the rut was on! I had a 80" (maybe better) type buck come past me on a trail, but he came from behind me and was past the shooting lane before I saw him.... ... man was I bummed! Than not an hour later I saw a deer coming back up the same trail and I was prayin' it was that buck. I saw that it was a buck and went into Shooter Mode... I knew it was a smaller buck and did not care, I wanted him! I was shooting an old Pro-Line bow and alum XX75 arrows and the bow was so slow that he almost completely jumped the string! But, luck was with me that day and I watched my first coues buck expire within my sight!! He was no monster, but I was aweful proud of him!!! This buck created a Monster Addiction... one that plagues my life to this day!!!!

 

Sorry, I didn't ever carry a camera back then... so when I got to my Dad's house he snapped a couple for the scrap book....

[billrquimby]

These are the opening paragraphs for chapter four of my book,"Sixty Years A Hunter," which the publisher is now advertising as "available Fall 1999." -- Bill Quimby

 

Arizona Whitetails Are Special

 

ONE OF THE first things I did when I left Yuma in August 1954 to attend the University of Arizona was to call Jean Potts, who now was living in Tucson. I'd dated her a couple of times even though we attended high school in separate cities, and I even rode the train to Tucson on my father's pass to escort her to her senior prom. We were married eighteen months later and were living with her grandmother at her family's home at Park Avenue and East Fort Lowell Road while we both attended the university. Jean's parents had given her and her twin sister a Jeepster convertible while they were in high school, but I knew better than to take it hunting, so I left home on foot at 4 AM on the third Friday of October 1956, the opening of Arizona's annual deer hunting season, with my lever-action .303 Savage and a steel U.S. Army canteen filled with water.

 

Tucson was much smaller than it is now and Campbell Avenue was one of the few roads that cut into the foothills north of River Road. Dogs barked at me as I walked in the dark past the last of the houses but I apparently awoke no one. This was quite a hike I undertook, perhaps seven or eight miles just to reach the Santa Catalina Mountains where I'd been told I could find Coues white-tailed deer. Although I walked through what then was prime mule deer country I saw nothing other than several large coveys of Gambel's quail and cottontail rabbits.

 

The sun already was well up when I reached the Coronado National Forest boundary fence, just above where a house now sits at the end of Ponatoc Road. As I approached the barbed wire fence I suddenly heard rocks rolling ahead of me. I climbed the fence and ran to where I could look down into the canyon. Standing perhaps seventy-five yards below me, looking back to see what had startled it, was the first white-tailed deer of any kind that I had ever seen. It had a small rack but it was a buck. Before it could turn and run off I brought my rifle up, placed the top of the post in my 2.5X Weaver scope on its shoulder ... and yanked the stiff trigger. The deer whirled and ran a few yards downhill before collapsing.

 

My first thought when I reached my first Coues whitetail was that it had a mouse-like face. (I've felt the same about every Coues deer I've shot.) It was a beautiful animal, with the wide skull, short nose and large ears that set this subspecies apart from other whitetails. Its coat seemed to be a lighter gray, almost silver, with more white on its underparts than the four or five mule deer I'd taken up to then. As I expected it would be, its tail was longer and broader than a mule deer's, and its neck was swollen in pre-rut. What I hadn't expected to see was the auburn color on top of its tail and on the top of its head. The deer weighed perhaps ninety pounds on the hoof and its small antlers had three points and an eyeguard on each side, which is typical for a mature whitetail buck in Arizona.

 

I gutted the deer and tried carrying it but I didn't go far before I realized there was no way I was going to pack that animal all the way to where we lived. Even if I could have, that deer and I would have created quite a sight when I reached civilization. I hid the carcass and my rifle near a two-track Jeep trail and started off the mountain. It seemed to take forever to finally get home. One of Jean's cousins and I returned in his car to retrieve the buck that afternoon.

 

This was a half century ago, and we didn't call them “Coues deer” then. They were “desert whitetails,” “Arizona whitetails,” or just “whitetails.” We can blame Jack O'Connor, a former Tucsonan who was Outdoor Life magazine's gun editor in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, for all the hoopla that surrounds these deer now. He romanticized them in his articles and books, calling them “gray ghosts” and declaring them one of North America's top trophies, second only to his beloved wild sheep, of course. (According to O'Connor, nothing came close to sheep hunting.)

 

We also can blame the Boone and Crockett Club for establishing a separate category for Odocoileus virginianus couesi in its record books. When the club's first books were published some scientists believed our little deer were a distinct species. Later, after it was decided they are only one of thirty-eight races of white-tailed deer, the category remained

[Mr. Jonathan]

Silentbutdeadly- Thank you for being honest about your hunt. That is an exceptional story, and a real work of artistic literature. I really appreciate the honesty with which you dealt with all the thoughts and emotions, especially at the end. I'm glad to hear that the taking of a life had significance to it beyond measurable inches for some record book. This story was as effective at rekindling the hunting flame as the first cold breeze of fall is. If you've produced more writing since your first hunt, I'd most certainly be interested in reading it. Thanks again.

[bchoitz]

I'll sound the echo here.

 

Silentbutdeadly, that is by far the best hunting story I have read in a long time. Thanks for posting it.

 

Bret