I have been lucky enough to hunt in Mexico the last few years for coues deer. I had a chance to lease some ranches, about 80,000 acres, for some of the best coues hunting around. Throughout the years we have taken many coues in the 95-114? range with my personal best of 108? gross. My friends and I have seen a few large deer over the years but have never got a shot and usually the big ones only gave us a view one time. The larger bucks were hard to find after the initial observation. During the rut we would see some good deer and that was usually when we would harvest the larger deer. I have rifle and bow hunted the ranches. There are many days down there when you will see 25-50 bucks per day.
This December I went down with the task of helping some bow hunter friends of mine and when I had time I would glass for ?The Big One?. I had a friend of a friend there that got a nice 98? bucks with his bow on the third day and I was showing him around the ranches glassing some good deer along the way. We were on our way back to an oak grove to check on another friend when I spotted a buck about 600 yards up in a saddle above some rocks. The first thing I did was get the 15X60s on him then noticed more deer up the hill in the cut. As I went from deer to deer they kept getting larger until I glassed the big one. He was by far the largest deer on the hill. I have seen some great deer in the past but this guy was wide and had great mass. When he turned and I saw his tine length there was no doubt that I had to have this deer. I put the spotting scope in him and it solidified any question. Frank, the other hunter and I started around to the backside of the hill leaving Jose to watch the deer through the spotting scope. After getting into the saddle from the backside we came up and through the grass saw one of the bucks feeding. We videoed and watched this buck making sure that it was the 4X4 not the big 5X5. Even the 4X4 was a good 110? buck with long tines. We then dropped back and stalked to a higher vantage point where we thought we would be able to see the front side of the cut. When we looked over the edge we couldn?t see any deer. Then in a flash they were running. I didn?t see the big deer. We quickly followed the deer over the top and around the hill and were able to glass them as they crossed a wash heading into the mesquite. We still never saw the big 5X5. After leaving the hill and getting back to the truck Jose had the rest of the story. The big buck had bedded down and when the other bucks ran up and over he snuck around and down the hill.
The next morning we were on the next hill glassing all around looking for the deer. There were deer all over in the openings of the mesquite. Then we saw the group of bucks back on the backside of the hill. The larger three bucks were nowhere to be found. We thought maybe they would be back in the cut on the other side so we headed to the top to look over and see if we could find them. They weren?t in the cut so we went to the edge of the hill and looked down into the flats only to see all three deer about 250 yards away sneaking into an arroyo. The desert floor was all cut up with arroyos. We started glassing the arroyo they went into and out the corner of my eye I saw movement to my right about 400 yards away. It was the big buck all alone sneaking from arroyo to arroyo. He was all by himself just like the day before. I was confident that if he came out again I could get a shot. He did but when I shot I hit him in the leg and knew that I had not taken into consideration that he was still walking away.
Now the race was on. He had dropped back into the arroyo and we quickly scrambled to the truck to try to get to him before he hit the mountains. As we neared the mountain he was headed for I saw him already going into a cut in the hill. There was no time for a shot so we headed to the spot he went up and looked in the cut for about an hour. I went up the mountain as Jose went around and after looking for a while realized that he was not hurt bad enough to have to lie up. We worked the hill over for a while then Jose dropped down and went around to the other side. After I dropped down Jose came back and said he had located the deer. We went up the other side into some mesquite thickets and lost the deer again.
It was now around noon and I had to go check on a friend that was in the acorns to see if he got a deer that morning. He hadn?t shot a deer so we left him there and ate lunch then climbed the mountain next to where we had lost the deer. After glassing for 2-3 hours we had narrowed the search area down to three mesquite thickets that I couldn?t see into and I sent Jose over to push the mesquite thickets. As soon a he reached the first thicket the deer ran out to the next thicket. I was a little worried that the deer may run back up and over the mountain but luck was in my favor. The deer ran out of the second thicket and stopped on a ridge to look back. I was able to take him with no problem. This was by far the largest bodied coues deer I have seen and we couldn?t just throw him over our shoulders and carry him down. We rigged a drag and drug him down the hill and all the way to the truck. It had taken from 9am until 5:15 pm to get him. To say that I was excited would be an understatement. I have been hunting coues deer for 7 years and finally took a great buck. We scored the buck at 122 ?? gross and 114 7/8? net. I finally got my B&C Coues Buck.
Steve