“El que porfia mata venado”

by Rafael Quevedo

There is a saying in Chihuahua that goes “el que porfia mata venado”, that means ” the one who persists kills deer “, this came true for me.

Had a very restless night and a gut feeling, so I got up at three in the morning and took off to my ranch, got there at six a.m. and went looking for a deer I had spotted earlier on august, then missed it on Dec. 31. Anyway, after a three mile hike, I sat down, and started glassing for about an hour but saw nothing, decided to go a little further and ended up going one more mile but nothing, again.

Then started grunting and rattling but with very little hope, all the time I kept looking over to my left, to the north facing slope, when I was about to leave, turned to my right and saw a doe looking straight at me, took my binoculars an noticed another three deer, and one appear to be big, by then they were moving up the mountain with the big one leading the way, it all happened very fast, I rested my 22-250 against a rock, aimed at the buck that was very close to jumping over the other side, it stopped briefly, and I knew that was a very far shot so aimed about 10 inches over the shoulder, held my breath, and possibly my heart beat and pulled the trigger.

For a split second I lost sight of it, so I took the binoculars again to see if I could find it, but only saw the other three deer going over after one stared at its side for a moment. I really thought I had missed, but I had to make sure, to this day I have been fortunate enough to never loose a wounded deer, took the range finder that I could not use before and read 553 yds.

It took me almost 40 minutes to get there, I started combing the area, and there it was, dead, right where I shot it, it did not move at all! I was excited in disbelief, turned it over but could not find the shot, later when I was field dressing I found it behind the right rib cage, it shattered its liver. That was the longest shot I have ever taken, and my biggest buck.

Thank God for this amazing hunt, the buck scores 120 5/8″ with a spread of 13″ and very nice mass.

Tagged 120-130", hunt stories