A Fine Souvenir and my Best Desert Mule Deer

Desert Mule Deer is what we have in the Big Bend Region of Texas.  The scientific name is Odocoileus hemionuscrooki.  These deer are slightly smaller than their Rocky Mountain cousins, have a more washed out or paler skin coat that is light grey in their winter pelage.  The white rump patch and facial hairs plus the dark scalp patch are not as pronounced as Rocky Mountain mule deer.  They blend in perfectly with the drab desert landscape.  Those suckers are hard to see!

The stars really lined up for me growing up.  My dad started hunting on the Big Bend Ranch in 1966.  That ranch is now a State Park.  At the time, this property encompassed over 250,000 acres of extremely remote and rough desert habitat with bulking mountains, flat topped mesas and rim rock canyons.  The headquarters housed a group of men that hunted out of the central part of the ranch and there were at least three outlying camps on the fringes of the property that other groups of hunters worked out of.  My dad controlled Javalina Camp, which was on the southern portion of the ranch.  I later learned this was in the heart of what some maps show as the Boffocillos Mountains.  All that existed there was an adobe shack and a water well pump-jack.  Two ranch hands lived there all year.  One would watch the pump while the other rode the rusty water lines up to nearby saddles that held water storage tanks.  From those tanks water lines fed down via gravity into canyons and small water troughs for livestock.

Horses were provided by the ranch and Mexican guides mysteriously appeared each opening day.  My guess is we were in a straight line distance of perhaps 20 miles of the Rio Grande.  A horse cost $5.00 per day and a guide was $3.00 per day.  There was no long distance glassing looking for game.  We simply saddled up at daylight and started riding.  We had a canteen of water, a few cans of orange juice, sandwiches and cans of pork and beans in our saddle bags. At noon we would dismount, start a small fire to heat the beans and relax a bit.  The Mexican guide would usually have a tortilla wrapped in foil that he would simply drop in the coals to heat.

We did not use saddle scabbards for our rifles.   We either carried it across our backs by a sling or when our shoulders got raw from the rubbing, unslung the gun and let it sit across our laps behind the saddle-horn.

It is hard for anyone to imagine what a sure footed mountain horse, or especially a mule, would go. The first time I ever rode up to a giant canyon on horseback I almost swooned with vertigo.  The depths were hazy with distance.  Buzzards were sailing around beneath us!  I thought we were stopping just for the view but our guide made us dismount where he double checked all saddles, tightened the girts and we then started down an extremely steep and faint trail INTO the chasm.  It was so steep I was leaning backwards in the saddle and my head was perhaps two feet from the horse’s rump.

On the way down, I noticed an abandoned adobe house near the very bottom of the canyon.  When we got to the sandy bottom, I insisted we travel down-stream to investigate.  That was one lucky move on my part.

The house had the dank smell of dusty decay.  Outside were relics of the past such as small chips of blue and dark green glass, rusty bits and pieces of metal.  I found a couple of buckles that came off of a bridle or some sort.  The corral was long gone and broken down.  Whoever lived there had to approach from the Rio Grande since the way we approached was crazy.  Amazingly, a big section of the roof was still intact.  In an arid region such as this, it takes a long, long time for wood to rot.  In one corner, still leaning against the wall was my pay day – a model 1873 Winchester 44-40.  Rusty with faded wood on the stock and the hammer spring gone but was I proud.  There was a sweeping “J” initial carved in the butt stock.  I wish that gun could talk.  Wouldn’t it be cool to hear its history?  I cleaned it up the best I could and now have it hanging above the back door of my den at home.

That was my lucky trip.  The year was 1969 and I was a junior in high school.  The only way such a long trip could be made was due to the fact the opening day of mule deer season came on Thanksgiving weekend.  We arranged to take a couple days off from school and it cost me some basketball playing time for the Weimar Wildcats but I had to hunt!

The day I killed my largest desert mule deer it was hot.  I recall stripping down to my white undershirt and getting a bad sun burn.  It was in the middle of the day and we were near the time when we needed to make a circle and start back towards camp.  My guess was we were 12 miles SE of our camp.  I was hunting with the late Tim Strunk and his brother Henry (Butch) Strunk.  We were crossing a rolling grease wood flat where game is usually scarce and no one was particularly alert or expecting any action.

Right under our noses an old grandpa buck jumped from its bed.  Everyone dismounted from skittish horses, dropped reins, unlimbered rifles and went into action.  Tim was using a Winchester Model 100 semi-auto 308. He emptied his rifle, pulled an extra clip from his pocket and launched four more rounds at the bounding buck.  Butch had a Winchester Model 70 in 308.  He fired four rounds and never connected.  I was shooting a Sako 270 and emptied my rifle. All misses.  Sixteen rounds and not a hair hit!  You know what was happening, don’t you?  We were racing each other trying to beat the other guy to this big boy and not taking time to settle down and aim.

That buck was hauling it as fast as I have ever seen a mule deer run.  He was bobbing up and down, sailing over little rises in the terrain and disappearing into small depressions, jumping cactus and leaning in and out while passing ocatillo, he would cut left and right looking like a punt return man for Notre Dame.  We missed that deer in front, behind, above and over.  Dust and rocks spurting up around the animal made it look like a war movie.

When the deer got out to about 350 yards it stopped on a small rise.  He was rear to us but its head was turned to the side and I can still see its mouth agape and the deer panting.  Tim and Butch were reloading.  Instead of filling my rifle up like the Strunk brothers, I simply put one round in, got out of my kneeling position into a steady sitting position with my heals dug firmly into the gravel.  I wrapped my arm into a tight sling and settled the sight expecting about a 10” drop.  I was using hand-loaded 130 grain Hornady Spire Points at about 3,050 fps muzzle velocity.  I was sighted in for 200 yards and knew my drop at 300 yards was around 7”.  My guess of slightly over 300 yards was pretty close.  After squeezing off the single shot and after the time interval of the bullet traveling that distance, I saw the buck collapse and then heard the delayed “thunk” of the bullet striking.  I hit the animal just above the root of its tail and the bullet traveled forward into the lungs.

That was the largest desert mule deer I ever collected.  He was old, broad backed and deep chested.  He only had nine total points and he was not wide but the rack was tall with warty bases.  I did not mount the animal and wish I did.  Several years later we had a big party at our camp house near Columbus and one of the “guests”apparently  stole several of the best mule deer antlers we had hanging under a nearby shed.  His rack was one of the ones missing.  Even without having his antlers I will never forget him.

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