‘Things won are done, Joys soul lies in the doing.’ Wm Shakespeare.

*

THIS HUNT, ALTHOUGH just beginning, has a history. Two years earlier, while hunting elk in Nevada, I found a world-class typical mule deer. This type of discovery is most precious and is not to be shared without careful consideration. Thus, I entrusted this information to only one person I deemed worthy, my long time hunting companion, Greg Krogh.

Since neither of us had a Nevada archery deer tag that year, we could only wait and hope the buck would survive the winter. The following year we put in separately for the drawing to increase the odds that one of us would receive a tag. Greg drew; I did not.

Shortly before the archery season, Greg found the buck, and he killed him on the second day of the season. We were not disappointed. The buck had an official net Pope and Young measurement of 202 2/8, making him one of the largest mule deer ever taken by a bow hunter.

Greg owed me.

Later that year, as if by providence, while scouting for his rifle deer hunters, Greg found a great nontypical deer. He and his hunters pursued the deer hard during the rifle season, but the buck eluded them.

The following year, when I obtained an archery tag, Greg returned the previous year’s favor – he told me where to find the big nontypical. He even offered to help me on the hunt, an offer I quickly accepted. Absolutely no one is more qualified to help on a mule deer than Greg Krogh.

After telling me where the deer lived, he said, “If you shoot this deer, we are even.”

ARRIVING IN OUR UNIT four days before the archery season, we set up camp and split up to search for the buck. I make the long climb onto a lonely plateau.

As I settle in to glass, I feel a familiar stirring, the same stirring I feel each year when I first venture into the wild. It is a powerful feeling of connectedness and peace.

I believe at some primordial level, I nourish my spirit from the wilderness. These open spaces seem to be a vital nutrient my soul yearns for and will perish without. Tonight, sitting on this desert mountain alone, watching the sun set and the sky change, the old, good feelings return. I feel I am home.

Wresting myself from my meditation, I make the hike out in the darkness. I arrive back at camp to good news: Greg has spotted the big non typical, and the buck has grown substantially since last year. I look at his video footage. The buck is a giant. He is well over 30 inches wide with beams as thick as my forearm, and many extra points sprout laterally. We exchange high fives and dance around camp like children.

I’VE HAD A DREAM, since I started hunting some 35 years ago, to bag a mule deer of immense proportions. This imaginary buck carries wide, heavy antlers and 10 or more points a side. As is true for most dreams, I knew this one would probably not come to fruition. But the dream has held firm and each August I leave for the mountains, dream very much alive, looking and feeling the same as when I was 16 years old.

Tonight though, my dream is here; palpable, fleshy and bedded on a mountain a few miles away. Every time I look at the video image, the massive, velvety rack reminds me that my dream, right now, is very real.

What odd thoughts and emotions attack you when a dream seems within reach. Deep within I feel my success or failure is predetermined by fate. I fear disappointment. I struggle to defeat this fatalistic thinking, but it persists, like fibers of doubt woven into the fabric of my being.

To fight the doubts, I tell myself the outcome of this hunt must be partially determined by my actions. I remind myself: you aren’t really alive if you don’t have the power to alter the future.

The next morning, we glass the buck at a distance, and do a little reconnaissance before the hunt starts. He and his companions have chosen their home well. He lives on the lee side of a mountain that acts like a boulder in a stream. As the wind passed over and around the land mass, eddies of wind whirl and collide. Never does the wind blow the same direction for more than a few moments. Lying there, he is unapproachable

For three long, hot days, we watch the buck and wait for the season to begin. Greg and I and plan our attack.

OPENING MORNING I climb through the sage and rocks in the dark, taking the long route to prevent detection. I want to be in position to strike at first light– if the conditions are right.

It is clear that I will not stalk this buck where he lives. He must move a quarter mile in any direction: then I can close on him.

Unfortunately, I can’t simply watch from afar and then make a stalk, because the terrain will not allow it. He will see me. My only chance is to position myself before daylight, a few hundred yards from the buck — close enough to his bed to capitalize on any mistake he might make, but far enough to avoid detection by his nose. In short, I must live on the mountain with him.

There is scant cover where I must lay, just a few wispy bushes. I settle in under the largest bush to watch and wait. The August sun is relentless.

To some people, lying flat out all day in the sun would be incomprehensible, but not to me. Life, as I live it, is lacking in discomfort. My life gives me little opportunity to be still, little opportunity for nonproductive thought and observation. My time, outside of hunting, must be filled with production, accomplishment. If other time is available, I have been led to believe I must fill it with entertainment.

It is good for modern man to be uncomfortable. It is good for him to be still.

Paradoxically, discomfort brings me peace. Lying here alone, away from the drone of the world, I find contentment. God is here.

As the hours pass slowly, I try, in vain, to ration my water for the 16 hours I will spend here.

I lay face up and watch the clouds build.

Occasionally I lift my binoculars to study the velvet antler tips above the brush, and each time, I experience a small surge of adrenaline. Good, I think, maybe it will be used up by the time the shot finally comes.

I roll over and lay face down in the rocks and watch the ants work.

By mid-afternoon my water is gone, and I feel the malaise of dehydration. This condition helps me to understand why people fast. My thirst makes my senses keener, feelings stronger.

In this enlightened state, I seem to understand that as my body now thirsts for water my soul has thirsted for nature. From this mountain hiding place I drink in vast creation; the valley, the mountains, the sky. This summer evening sky is luscious with color. My eyes are awed by the filtered beams, intense blue sky and pure, brilliant white clouds. I give thanks.

I wait for the moon to rise before moving off the mountain. Laying on my back and looking at the stars, intense in the thin, clean air, I feel overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe. I find my troubles less important than I believed.

Sun burnt, dusty and dry; I make the long hike to the trail. Reaching it I see Greg’s smiling face in the moon light. “He grew another half inch today while you were loafing. You keep dawdling and he’s going to get real big” Greg said.

The next day proves to be a repeat of the first. I find the buck in the same place. I lay on the same hillside. The sun is just as hot.

Today though, at last light, the buck moves. I make a lightning fast stalk, and blow the opportunity. I mentally whip myself. Patience! I silently scream to myself. Miraculously, the buck is still unaware of my existence. I am given a second chance.

On the third day, I spend another 16 hours painfully close to the buck. Being so close to him, unable to move, I imagine how a prisoner must feel as he looks out the window to freedom–and wishes. During the long hours of waiting, I pull together the scattered thoughts from the past year and try to sort them out. This time alone becomes my personal journey of discovery, a time for reflection and renewal. It would be perfect if I weren’t away from my family. They are the only reason I want to go home.

Long periods alone and away make me question myself, especially my ability as a father and husband. I miss my sons, Jacob and Levi. Does every father feel inadequate, not quite worthy to mold the lives God has given him, or am I unique in this feeling? Are all other fathers as self confident and competent as they seem?

I realize how much I love my wife, Tammy. Why do I love her more when I’m away than when I’m with her? I commit to being a better husband and father when I return.

The afternoon sky is cloudless, but I hear thunder behind the mountain. Suddenly, a rush of wind and water sweeps low over the ridge. I sneak to a boulder pile, out of sight of the bucks. I wedge myself under an overhanging rock. Lightning strikes so close I hear it as I see it. The boulders tremble. I shiver.

The Navajos call this a male rain; strong, bold and quickly spent. I lay face down and smell the wet earth. Goose bumps tell me I have gone from hot to cold in a moment.

The storm ends as suddenly as it appears. Hiding in my den, I watch it sweep across the plain towards the horizon, pulling a rainbow in its wake. I listen to water dripping from the rocks and smell the wet sage and juniper.

I have hunted this buck for three days now, and watched him for three more. He seems to have grown. He is still unaware of my existence, and I am doing everything possible to keep it that way. But will the opportunity ever come. Self-doubt begins to whisper inside me. Am I hunting well or just wasting time? I don’t know.

I would like to see all things future and past, the way God sees them, so I could truly enjoy the hunt instead of fretting over the outcome. But then, I tell myself, the anticipation is part of the hunt. If I knew the outcome, the essence of the hunt would be gone. The possibility, the not knowing, is the hunt.

If nothing else, maturity has taught me patience. Ten years ago, waiting days in the sun for a buck would have been unthinkable. What has changed in me over the years? I wonder. Analyzing my behavior, I conclude it is the contentment to be in the moment, the enjoyment of the journey rather than the headlong rush to reach the goal, the end.

The next morning, two hours before dawn, we hear a pickup idling on the little road beside our camp. Jealous and possessive of our buck, like a hound dog with a bone, we suspect foul play. Is someone going to try to follow us to our deer?

We hear a voice in the darkness. “Anybody home?” It turns out to be a lost hunter looking for his partner’s camp. We invite him to breakfast.

As he leaves, I joke “If you don’t find him by dark, come by for dinner.”

“I just might” he says “What are you having?”

“Back straps.” I yell prophetically into the darkness.

For three days, the buck and I have lain in the sun, never more than an arrow’s flight apart. Surely, the fourth day will bring more of the same.

But the buck is gone.

I try to reign in my emotions. Did he detect me? Has he moved into the thick cover? Will we find him again?

We expand our search.

We find him later that morning, a mile away, with his companions, bedded at the base of a pinyon tree. He appears as if in a painting, velvet antlers framed tan on green, timeless, and massive. Majestic.

He should not have moved. Instinct must have told him as much. But he has, and for this I have been waiting these many days, patiently. Relief flows over me.

Then acute anticipation strikes. My time has come. The next 2 hours will fulfill my 35 year dream. Or crush it.

DROPPING INTO THE BASIN where the buck now beds, I make a two-mile loop that brings me to the lee side of the small ridge where he lies. Shoeless, moving without visible motion, I crest the ridge while telling myself, with each step: you cannot make another mistake with this buck.

I spot a bedded buck through the trees 50 yards to my left. Though he does not see me, he has me pinned down.

I stand motionless for a long time, the buck finally rises. Three more bucks, including the big nontypical, materialize out of the grass and start feeding towards me. I am unable to draw my bow for fear of detection. All eyes face me. Now they are close, very close.

Being near a big buck never gets easy, the feeling is so intense that during the experience I want it over with quickly. Yet it is this feeling that draws me to hunt with a bow. You can’t fully appreciate a heavy-beamed mule deer buck at rifle range, you must experience him within bow range, close enough to hear him chew. It is the difference between seeing a woman and touching her.

The bucks turn and slowly move away. I creep along behind like a cat stalking a bird. I watch the 4 bobbing velvet racks intensely, when one stops moving, I freeze. If all are bobbing, I creep forward.

Slowly, I close the distance. I wait for the big buck to turn broadside. When all eyes are hidden, I draw. I do not shake. All those days spent close to the buck have depleted my adrenaline.

As the arrow strikes, the buck jumps, but unaware of the direction of the danger he trots towards me. Then, as if bedding, he slowly collapses. The other bucks, only momentarily disturbed, feed on.

He lies at my feet. The cloud filtered sunlight haloes his velvety antlers, tall, heavy and handsome; the tips are still blunt, soft, unfinished. Twelve heavy points grace each antler. Is this a dream? I kneel down and touch him and try to believe.

Arriving from his rocky vantage point, Greg joins me a half hour later. He has watched it all through the scope and is still visibly shaken. Without a word I offer my hand. He grabs it, pulls me close and wraps me up in a bear hug.

He backs away, looks me in the eye and says, “We’re even.”

Even we are, I just a little more even than he.

Notes: My buck’s nontypical antlers unofficially measure 242 gross inches, 234 net. I want to thank, once again, everyone who hunted with me: Greg Krogh; Greg’s wife, Debbie; fellow hunters Jim Rufh and Jerry Dollard; and buddies Todd George, Darin Cooper, and Doug Bodhaine.

I hunted with a Hoyt Ultratec equipped with Simms Vibration Lab Accessories; Easton AC Super Slims arrows; Winner’s Choice Bowstring made from BCY 8125 material; Golden Key-Futura Mirage arrow rest; FUSE sight, stabilizer, and quiver; Cabela’s Microfleece clothing; and Rocky Mountain Extreme Broad heads.