You tend to get better trophies when you are willing to put your coffee cup down.
Very true and the day after Tom shot his deer I did just that. As a matter of fact I put my coffee cup down, polished off 2 bowls of oatmeal, 2 cups of hot chocolate, some leftovers that were lying around, stuffed some dry cereal, candy bars, granola bars, raisins, peanut butter crackers and an extra bottle of water in my back pack and headed out across the prairie before the rest of the crew were even out of bed. I left instructions for them to come and look for me if I wasn't back by sundown and told them what general direction I was headed. You see the evening before when I was helping Tom get his deer to the truck I spotted a buck feeding on a hillside nearly a mile away. Even in the waning daylight I could see the antlers without my binoculars. I showed him to Tom and he said that I should go and get him to which I replied that there was only about 40 minutes of daylight left and he was in a very difficult spot for a good stalk. Of course Tom being much younger then me says that 40 minutes is plenty of time to get over there (damn kids) I sighed and not wanting to look like I couldn't do it immediately took off in the deer's direction. Covering a mile in short order doesn't seem like much of a problem until you throw in small canyon, a few ditches and 3 steep hillsides. Well I made it to the spot that I preselected before I took off in 35 minutes only to find that the buck had fed his way down the other side of the hill into the darkness of the next hill. There I stood sweat pouring down my face, heart pumping like crazy, a dark moonless night fast approaching and faced with a tough decision. Do I follow after the buck and maybe shoot him or do I back out and leave him in peace to continue feeding? I decided on the latter choice and headed back to other hunters waiting by the truck. Upon my arrival back at the truck I found out that the other members of the group had also found some luck and all tagged a buck. I had a rather sleepless night trying to hatch out a plan for the next day, I really wanted a shot at that buck. In the morning while having breakfast that's when I made up my mind, it was a tough decision not to take Tom with me but I decided that if I was going to be successful in finding that buck again I had better go it alone. Besides one of the other hunter's buck was still down at the bottom of a steep ravine and they could really use his help in retrieving it. So off I went with my trusty Guide gun and a pack full of goodies, it took me all morning to get to the other side of the ranch having to skirt north of the uranium mine that is now controlled by the Russians thanks to Hillary (but that's another story). Now all I had to do was hike another mile north to the rough hilly area where I spotted the buck and hope that I could locate him before he sees or smells me. On my last leg of my hike I came across a pretty little spot on the side of a hill, out of the relentless wind, quite sunny and very grassy it looked like the perfect spot for some lunch. I removed my pack and my jacket, hung my jacket over a sagebrush bush to dry the sweat out of it, ate a lot of junk food for lunch and woke up a half hour later. Feeling very refreshed after my unintentional nap off I went headed into the pasture next to the area I was headed for. Followed the fence for a half mile or so, slipped across a cattle guard and now at 2:45 PM I'm where I wanted to be, the problem was the wind had shifted and now was blowing squarely on my back. To make the best of a bad situation I decided that I would move as quickly as I could and let my scent proceed me into the ditches, mule deer are curious creatures and a lot of the time when alerted to danger will climb higher for a look before fleeing. With that logic in mind I started moving along the top of the first ditch ( a canyon to most of us easterners) I only covered a few hundred yards when I caught movement down in the ditch. It was him and a smaller 3 pointer coming up out of the ditch for a look at what they were smelling, instinctively I grabbed for my binos, I immediately dropped them thinking to myself what an idiot. Dropped to one knee raised the rifle just in time to see them disappear back into the ditch, seconds later they were on the opposite hillside and climbing toward safety. At 200 yards or so already I felt as though I had no time to wait for them to stop, finding him in my scope I was looking at the entire length of his back, feeling confident I squeezed the trigger. His reaction to the shot was unexpected he immediately turned and ran back down into the ditch at witch point I ran forward for a better vantage point. I could not believe my eyes when he ran out of the ditch and straight up the steep hillside on my side of the ditch maybe 150 to 200 yards ahead of me. I found him in the scope lead him up the hill and fired just as he decided to hit the brakes and head back down the hill, I was sickened to see my bullet hit the dirt just inches in front of him. As he disappeared into the ditch yet again I ran forward and got off another shot as I saw him rounding a big bend heading out into a huge open area just ahead. My heart sank but I rallied and ran as fast as I could to the top of the hill that he just rounded, reloading as I went hoping to see him one more time. I reached my destination high up on the hill cursing myself and praying for one more shot at the same time. From this high spot I could scan miles and miles of open territory, nothing anywhere except for a few antelope a mile or so away. More praying, more cursing, decided to move slowly back along the edge of the ditch staying high enough to keep the top and bottom covered. After a few hundred yards the smaller buck came busting out ahead of me and went right out over the top. I stopped waiting straining to see if the big one was going to follow, nothing, more praying, moved down the hill for a look into the ditch and saw a deer rump and tail sticking out of the sagebrush. I sat there for maybe 10 minutes starring at him through my binos watching for any sign of life, when I was sure of his demise I took stock of the situation. Somewhere during those few minutes of pure adrenaline rush, running, reloading, throwing myself to my knees for shots I some how tore my right pant leg almost completely off and my right shoelace had snapped in the middle. So there I was 8 or 9 miles from camp, my right knee out thru my pants, my right boot barely hanging on to my foot, only a few candy bars left, a big dead deer in the bottom of a very steep sided ditch and no cell service, I could not have been any happier. After marking the spot with some flagging tape I made my way to the top of the hill and found enough cell service to call the rest of the group for assistance, in the mean time I tied my bootlace back together the best that I could and made my way back down to my buck. The crew showed up about an hour later and I had him all ready to go and after a bunch of photo taking we headed up that steep hill to the truck, what a relief to have him up and out of that ditch. And it felt even better having him hanging up in the barn.