One summer, a long time ago, I watched a group of bucks in a basin, kind of a desert country

basin in southern Utah, and there was one who was just distinctly more impressive than the rest.

He was just a three by four on his mainframe and he didn't have any

extra tines. I don't like the term trash. You hear people toss that term out.

We've got a bunch of trash on his antlers. I ain't trash. That's pure a cool, when you've got some extra tines, cheaters, whatever you want to call them.

We kept tabs on this buck. My brother and I and a buddy named Mike all summer long. Now this was

when it was starting to get a little harder to get deer tags and my brother and I didn't have a tag, but Mike did. We started hunting,

there were two or three other pretty nice bucks in that bunch, and Mike kept passing on them because we couldn't get a clean shot at that big one.

And we were actually pretty surprised because Mike had always been kind of a meat hunter and we thought

he'd just shoot the first nice buck he saw but I'll be darned if he wasn't determined and

he held out until we got a crack at that big deer. When it happened he was about 150 yards away and it was picture perfect.

No rush, Mike was, if I remember right prone over resting over his day pack and he center punched

The big buck broadside in the crease behind the shoulder, or even just a couple inches in front of

that, so it caught a little bit of shoulder muscle.

He was shooting a 7m. Remington Magnum loaded with 175 grain nozzler partitioned bullets and we all saw it.

My brother and I were with them and we saw that tough to hair pop where the bullet impacted and the way the buck

jumped and kicked in response and we knew he was one dead deer. Well he went full throttle down the

side of that Mesa that

and we kept watching and thinking he's gonna go down, he's gonna go down, he's gonna drop,

and he just kept on going.

My cat another cartridge in and was ready to shoot if need be, but the buck was actually angling toward us and coming not just closer to us all the time but coming closer where he'd be easy to carry out, right?

So he just let him keep on coming.

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