LESSONS I’VE LEARNED HUNTING MULEYS

The four-by-five Eastern Washington mule deer I killed last October sits in the bed of my truck. If there’s such a thing as ground shrinkage, then I experienced ground gainage walking up to the buck after downing it, so surprised was I by the size of its antlers.

(ANDY WALGAMOTT)

Sitting on my butt all day last fall led to my biggest buck yet, the culmination of past seasons’ observations and kills – and, yes, luck.

By Andy Walgamott

Just a lucky lazy deer hunter or a learned one?

I’m still wondering where I fall on the spectrum after tagging my biggest-antlered buck yet.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m extremely grateful to have harvested the Okanogan County deer, a gift from the wild. I vowed to it that I would always work to protect its herd and habitat. But prone to overthinking things like I am, my question has vexed me since the middle of last October.

I killed the four-by-five muley (five-by-six counting eyeguards) in midafternoon on Washington’s opening day of rifle deer season after sitting in one spot for five hours.

Five … very … long … hours.

It was only my second stop of the day on that steep forested slope too.

I sat in the first spot for about two and a half hours before slowly moving a couple hundred yards over and sitting. And sitting.

And sitting some more.

In past seasons I would have hiked 8 miles all the hell over by that time of the afternoon; or checked on a halfdozen favorite spots and seen a dozen or more deer; or been up the mountain for the morning, back to camp for a sandwich and coffee at lunch, and back at it again for the late shift.

YES, THERE WERE short stops along the way to my spots, but I essentially planted my butt cheeks in all of two places – a rocky perch in the trees and a spot in the dirt underneath the bushy lower branches of a Doug fir.

Lemme tell you, seven and a half hours is a long damn time to do not