Mule Deer Fanatic

You don’t want to miss our DVD titled Amateur Velvet.  On a recent trip to Southern Utah, my son and I stopped at a local convenience store run by Mr. Quinn Howe.

Among other things, Quinn is an elk rancher, with ranches near Price and Monticello.  And, it was a pleasant surprise to see about a dozen mule deer mounts hanging in his store.  I asked if I could video tape his shoulder mounts and was kindly told that I could.  I asked Quinn if he killed all of the bucks in the store.  He said they were all killed by members of his family, beginning quite a few years ago.  I asked if the huge bucks were killed in Colorado.  He said they were all killed in Utah, but most amazingly, he said that only the small ones were hanging in the store.  The “big bucks” were at home.  On the store walls were two non-typicals that netted about 230 each.

After Quinn got our adrenaline pumped up, we headed up the mountain to film some high country mule deer bucks.  I have been hunting this area for 22 years (every time I can draw a tag).  I have never seen so few deer.  It seems that the deer herd just keeps getting smaller and smaller.

The does were in the process of birthing fawns, and the coyotes were eating them about as fast as they hit the ground.  It is such easy pickings for the coyotes.  We could have caught several fawns, so the coyotes would have no problem doing so.

I have also never seen it so dry.  The roads were beat to powder, as were the game trails.  The deer were very definitely staying near water.

All that said, we did find a few trophy class muley bucks.  Filming these bucks caused us to go a little muley crazy.  The bucks we filmed were not yet completely formed, but some of them showed real potential. You ought to see what we saw.  Stay tuned, and get Amateur Velvet for yourself, as soon as it becomes available.