The Grey Ghost

story by Scott Holden

We were hunting in an area south of Rawlins Wyoming on the last weekend of the hunting season. My dad had drawn a special tag that year which bordered the area where this deer was killed. A creek ran the border on the south end of my dads unit. While hunting with him one day along the creek bed, which is made up of mostly tall sagebrush and desert terrain, we spotted this deer on the opposite side of the creek. Since the deer was pretty content with where he was, we had no intentions of crossing the creek. My dad and I watched this deer intently for five days, hoping that he would cross the boundary. With that not ever happening my dad ended up shooting a pretty good 175-180 class deer later in his season.

With the area that this deer was hanging around in being a public general area I figured that I would go after this deer with my general license. For five different days I watched as this buck as he went to the creek everyday to drink and then disappear in the tall sage. Each and everyday I began to learn his routes and habits.

By opening day I was ready and prepared to spend the amount of time which I knew this deer would require. On six different days I made long hard stalks on this deer only to watch him vanish almost in thin air in front of my eyes. No wonder this deer has gotten so big! He knew the right escape routes and was well aware of his surroundings. I must tell you that it began to get frustrating watching this deer not make a move for three hours only to vanish once I positioned myself where I thought I had the best chance on making a shot. Not wanting to scare this deer from the country I was very reluctant to make any shot that was not perfect. Many times I bedded him down for the afternoon sun and made my move only to find him gone minutes later. The area had very little cover and being very open country I could not believe he would just disappear. After two weeks of hunting this deer the final two days was upon me.

Friday night I was contacted by one of my good hunting buddies. He wanted to go hunting but was unsure of where to go. If you have ever hunted around Rawlins you know that there are very few secret hideouts or very few places that one can go that has not been just hammered with hunters. I told him that if he could keep a secret then I would take him to this place where I had been seeing this deer. The place where this deer is hanging out is a very non-traditional area that receives little if any hunting pressure due to the fact that it is so open and sparse cover. After swearing him to secrecy we were off. I really did not know where to start looking for this deer this day because he was not where I had normally spotted him. Where I began looking for him was actually about 1/2 mile from his bedding grounds, just to not scare him from the country.

So after about three hours of hunting aimlessly we were in my truck driving to a different sage brush draw where I has spotted two four points that were worthy of a better look, we were just driving over the top of the draw where I normally lost sight of the big deer. When I needed to make natures call. I stepped out of the truck and the next thing I heard my other buddy that did not have a permit began yelling at us that there was a big deer standing about 50 yards to my right. Being that this friend was not much of a trophy deer hunter I was skeptical about his words. But after seeing the deer I knew right away this was the big dog. After two weeks of watching and hunting this deer, there he was; 50 yards broadside. By the time Andy and myself could grab our rifles this deer was busting out of the country. I knew this would be my last chance so although he was about two hundred yards by now. I just had to try. There was no time to find a rest so the only shot I had was a two hundred and fifty yard quartering away dead run shot. Needless to say the first shot was high. The next thing I know I went to shoot again and I watched this deer go head over heels down the hill. What had happened, did I actually hit him with my first shot? No, my friend Andy had hit the deer right in the vitals, off hand at a dead run. I could not believe it I finally was going to get to see this deer on the ground. After walking up to the deer I realized he was a beautiful animal with absolutely no ground shrinkage. He is the most symmetrical deer I have ever seen, with only about 1 and 1/2-inch deductions. He is just shy of the 30-inch deer coming in at 29 and 7/8 wide. He is heavy and deep forks. After the drying period this deer scores 186 and 5/8 net. Not the biggest deer ever taking but for the particular area they just don't get much bigger than that. Plus after all the hard work for this deer he was the most welcome deer that I have ever had the chance to pursue.

Andy has a passion for mule deer like I do and had yet to kill a big deer. I have killed two or three deer similar to this one in scoring terms but I have never had the opportunity to see such a symmetrical deer. With the deer in south Wyoming growing more trashy and usually not this wide, this deer has got it going on. Just an all around good deer.

The funny thing was after the deer was cleaned and loaded my other friend (Cale) began telling us on how he actually spotted the deer. While I was making natures calling, Cale looked to the right and saw something move out of the corner of his eye. When he turned to look this deer was bedded about 10 yards to the right of a small group of aspen trees, not in the trees mind you, and when the deer saw Cale make eye contact the deer simply laid his head down against the ground in order to conceal himself better. But when he knew that we knew he was there; he jumped up and Cale began yelling for us to shoot because he was big.

buck taken by Andy