Fifteen Days

A long hunt leads up to an amazing 4 seconds.

 

Every year I look forward to hunting in Old Mexico. Although the obvious reason is because of the monster bucks that live south of the border, the not-so-obvious reason is that I really enjoy hunting with my good friend, Thomas Baker. Tom always gives a 110% and we always end up hunting hard, hunting long, and never giving up. This year seemed like it was going to be the same routine, however, just before my December hunt, Mother Nature decided to treat us with rain, rain, and more rain. In fact, it came down in buckets for three straight days. During the first few days of my hunt, Tom and I were seeing deer - not a lot, but a few. Unfortunately, it seemed as though with each passing day, we were seeing less and less. On top of that, we noticed that the bucks were leaving the does very early in the morning and it didn't seem like the rut was even close. Therefore, in an attempt to catch the bucks before they separated from the does, we decided to be on top of the knolls, glassing at first light. As most hunters will attest, big bucks are smart and our attempts in catching one of them before they hit the thick palo verde and ironwood thickets proved a little tougher thank we had anticipated! However, after fifteen hard days of searching, one big old buck finally made a mistake......and we took advantage of it.

With barely enough light to glass, Tom found a group of does that were feeding on the edge of some heavy cover. Moments later, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Yes, it was a buck! However, he was heading in the opposite direction that the does were going and we had to act fast! In Mexico, you normally don't have time for the perfect shot and up to this point, all I had seen was a silhouette of the buck running through the brush. I could see enough of his rack to tell that it was extremely tall and very, very deep. With roughly a four-second window before he was out of my sight, I made the decision and pulled the trigger.

The next thing I heard was Tom yelling, "You hit him! You hit him!" But even with Tom's reassurance, I wasn't so confident in the shot. However, as we approached the area where we had last seen the buck, I was extremely happy to find that he was stone dead! I could not believe my eyes - this buck had one of the tallest and deepest racks that I have ever seen. In addition, Tom said that the buck had the biggest body that he's ever seen on a Mexico deer......and believe me, Tom has seen a lot of bucks.

After the celebration, we couldn't wait to put a tape on him. We were amazed to find that his G2's were both 21 inches, his 3's were 13 inches and his 4's were 16 inches! When those numbers are combined with his beams, inside spread credit, and mass, the final gross score is 210 inches! What a beautiful buck! I would like to thank Tom for everything he has done for me - he's a good friend and a good hunting partner. Although I was fortunate to come home with a giant buck, the truth of the matter is, it took 15 days of tough hunting to get it done!


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