AN ANSWERED PRAYER

By Arlis Hanson

I was awoken by my alarm buzzing at 4:40am September 7th, 2020. Just a short time after, I would have the coffee started while I quietly geared up for another day.

I was out the door and on my way as soon as there was enough daylight to make out the trees across the road, then I’d hit the highway and head east. This is how I had been spending my mornings with the exact routine patterned every day for a week. COVID19 delayed school and it would give me a week to hunt archery Mule Deer before classes started. A full week of mule deer hunting was like a dream come true for me! I had 7 days with 98 hours of daylight to cut a tag before summer ended and I knew I would have to make every moment count.

I hunted hard and made a four hour stalk on a giant, velvet typical a few days into the season. However, once I closed the distance and waited for this big brute to get up to present an ethical shot, a whitetail doe and fawn walked straight towards me. They turned and passed me within a few feet but then circled around and caught my scent. Busted! The doe snorted and puffed to alarm the others. I knew I couldn’t shoot my mule deer because he was still 35 yards away and only his horns poked out of the tall grass when he stood alarmed. “No dice,” I thought as he slowly backed out and trotted away confused, leaving me with nothing but a long walk back to the truck after I found my shoes.

I spent the next few days in search of the same deer but the thing is they don’t get big by being dumb, and this one was too clever to be found by me again. A few more days passed and the rain begun to fall making it miserable for scouting, leaving me on my last few days of hunting. Finally, the sun came out on my last day before school started! I was up and at it extra early with high hopes I could still cut that tag on a velvet deer that I had always wanted. I took the long way around to see if I could find this deer in a new bed someplace that I hadn’t checked yet. The road was peppered with tracks too big to be deer and to my surprise, a small herd of elk met me as I climbed the hill. I took a few pictures and went along my way as those big critters grazed in the draw, I covered more ground in search of that big mule deer, or any bucks at this point. Not long after 10 O’clock, my eyes locked onto a set of fuzzy horns only a few hundred yards from the road. When he turned his head I instantly knew this deer was special, he had a third main beam sticking out 20 inches off his left antler, not to mention the other extra points and character this old fella carried. The problem was he and his two other buddies were just heading back into the slough from feeding on the crop to bed down for the day. I glassed him for about an hour while I snapped a pile of pictures of him. My cousin Kenton and Uncle Barry were also hunting the area, so they made their way over to lay eyes on this

king too. No matter what, we had to give them a few hours to settle before planning a stalk to make the kill shot. So, after seeing his bed and watching his horns disappear among the grass, I put the truck in reverse and slipped out. After cruising home, I grabbed some lunch and fed the calves but then I had only one thing on my mind, hoping that the deer stayed where we left him.

I didn’t get back out till five and I knew I would be cutting it short on time. Soon the deer would be getting up to go feed for the evening. Sure enough, through my binoculars, I could see all three deer standing in the grass looking around. I grabbed my bow and snuck down the fence line. My mind burst with frustration as I bumped a little fork horned buck on the fence and watched him bounce towards the big fella. However, for some reason, that little buck stopped halfway to the other deer and stopped in the grass giving me

“I had 7 days with 98 hours of daylight to cut a tag before summer ended and I knew I would have to make every moment count.”

“When he turned his head I instantly knew this deer was special, he had a third main beam sticking out 20 inches off his left antler, not to mention the other extra points and character this old fella carried.”

another chance. I tiptoed around the slough closing the ground between me and the deer. At 70 yards I had to really start being sneaky not to cause noise walking through the tall, dry grass. I took my shoes off at 50 yards to minimize my noise. When I looked up, there he was again. That little fork horned buck had circled downwind just like that doe did a few days prior. Only this time without making any noise the small buck headed away from both me and the big fella. I couldn’t believe my eyes. When the wind stopped, and I could see the jumbo set of horns twitch through the grass I knew that he could smell a rat.

This old fella was suspicious of my presence. I ranged him at 30 yards but knew I needed to cut that distance in half if I were to get a good shot in these conditions. I prayed for one more chance, hoping that I could close in and my arrow would fly straight and stay sharp. Soon it began to rain, not heavy rain, but drizzle with some small hail. In my favor, the hail made a tremendous amount of noise on the grass, allowing me to sneak like a cat right into 15 yards of this big velvet non-typical. “This is the stuff I live for,” I thought!

There I sat with my arrow knocked cold, wet, nervous and full of excitement! Another hour passed of torture, waiting until I could seal the deal. I was so close I am sure he could hear my pounding heart. I could hear him grunt, chew his cud, and sometimes even catch his breathing. “Good things come to those who wait!” I told myself. Then for some reason, it all stopped. He just sat there frozen and then all at once sprung onto his feet. I had a bad feeling because where he was, I didn’t have a shot and I knew that he would likely bounce off. That’s when I realized that Kenton was sitting on the hill across from the slough with his friend watching this story unfold through their binos. It all made sense now, the big fella must have caught their scent and so he got up to check things out.

He locked his eyes on me for a moment, but my heart froze and I remained still as a rock. He let his guard down and made a few steps towards Kenton with his head up trying to piece together what was going on. There he was, perfectly broadside through a little bit of grass at 15 yards. I drew back and sent my G5 Montec broadhead right to the kill zone.

Down he went. He did not take one step, just dropped like a bag of potatoes. I got another arrow ready to go as I walked up to the deer of my dreams. Good thing I was as close to him as I was because I must have hit some grass sending my arrow off course, this ended up breaking his neck and instantly paralyzing him. After getting the truck and cutting the tag on my first velvet muley we noticed that my buck was so old that he only had a few teeth left! Hard work pays off when you put the hours in, and I couldn’t be happier to take this unique, old king of a mule deer!

“Allison Huppertz tagged a tremendous Alberta whitetail at 15 years old!”