It is October 22nd 2015, and it was my first deer hunt in Zion, Utah with my friend and hunting menor, Bill. We stayed at his friend, Chris’ house which is part of a gated resort community just east of Zion National Park. Chris has this amazing mansion that he calls the “Cabin” which he rents out to people on vacation visiting the park. It is a huge place that has enough beds for a large family reunion or friend’s retreat, complete with a game room and home theater!

This hunt was originally planned to be with at least 2 other friends (making us a total of 4 people), and we still would have been way “overhoused”. Unfortunately they had to back out at the last minute, which left just Bill and I staying in a 7 bedroom/6 bathroom house that accommodated up to 35 people!!

The first few days were really rough. It rained every day with average temperatures in the mid 40’s. Up before dawn and hiking around until around 11am for the morning hunting session, we spotted plenty of deer, but they were all does (and we only had buck tags). We didn't spot any bucks at all! We would go back to the house for lunch or if it was raining too hard. Then we would go back out around 3 or 4 pm until a little after dark. Hiking to higher vantage points, sitting and glassing the countryside, it was beautiful landscape, but rather bleak. I rarely spotted any other life besides some scrub brush and the occasional mesquite tree.

 

 

 

Our second night, a thunderstorm blew over our location, treating us to an incredible lightning show and pounding thunder!! It got a little unnerving sometimes, especially when the storm was what felt like directly overhead!! This trip was an incredible sampling of Utah’s back country and all of nature’s grandeur.

 

Our third day, we spotted a herd of antelope (also known as American Pronghorn Sheep) which didn’t even mind us getting within 50 feet of them while we were in a truck!

 

 

But the consistent factor throughout was the rain and the cold. I ended up breaking out my snow pants to stay dry, but they were definitely designed for contemporary snow travel and not hunting. With each step, my pants legs would rub against each other, making a zipping sound that was in no way a natural sound in the woods! It was amazing to notice how such an innocuous sound when walking around other humans at the ski resort was like a blow-horn while trying to stalk deer in the woods!! --That was another item of gear to add to my growing wish list for hunting--hunting rain pants!! Bill dealt with it as best he could, but I’m sure it annoyed him, because if he could hear me zipping through the woods, the deer definitely could hear me too. I ended up taking the position of the person who flushes game when I was wearing the snow pants--due to my inability to camoflage my movement. I kept having to put on and take off the pants, depending on how much rain would come down. This is how it went for four days, and we had actually decided that if we didn't catch anything that day, we were going to leave the next day, cutting our trip short by a day.

So, the morning of the fourth day, Bill ended up shooting a nice 3x2 buck!
For the majority of the trip, we had been heading out every day, spotting and hiking through same area. Sometimes ending the evening by splitting up and canvassing parallel sides of the same valley (depending on whether I was wearing my snow pants), but that morning, Bill and I had separated to hunt completely different, but adjacent areas to cover more ground. As Bill was covering his section, he had happened to glass over to the section where I was and he saw about 50 deer ahead of me. Deer seem to do this silent migration, moving just ahead of a hunter on foot. It can be very frustrating to think that as one walks through an area, trying to spot and track animals, they are just perfectly camouflaged, silent and surrounding you as they double back on your position. I remember visually spotting about 20 does and fawns, but didn’t realize that there were so many more that I hadn’t seen. Unfortunately, I didn't see any bucks in that lot and just moved through the area trying to figure out their movements and set up shooting lanes for myself.

Frustrated and cold, I headed back to our rendezvous point empty handed. Bill pulled up in his ATV with a buck strapped to the cargo rack and big grin!
After that morning hunt, I helped him process his deer and then I decided I was going to go out by myself for the afternoon. I thought it'd be kind of cool to try and find deer by myself but honestly, I did not think I was going to catch anything on my own. Also, after seeing Bill process his deer, I realized that was a lot of work!! I was happy that Bill had gotten his deer, but I just wasn't dead set on harvesting anything anymore. After all the wet, cold weather, I was really just contemplating on going home.

Bill let me take his truck for the afternoon session and I went to start at an area nearby where I was that morning, adjacent to the area Bill and I spotted all those does.

Within the first 10 minutes walking through, I saw two does followed by another deer. I kept trying to stalk up to them, but they kept moving further away. As I got closer, I noticed that the last one had darker ears and...Antlers!

So I am like, "Oh my god!! Oh my god!!”--I’m a getting an adrenaline rush and trying to breathe calmly, so I can line up a shot. After finally scrambling to get out my shooting sticks (which I borrowed from Bill) I was probably about 90-100 yards away. The buck was facing me so I didn’t have a clean shot. I had to wait for him to turn, otherwise my bullet trajectory would risk ruining a good amount of meat. I had him in my sights for what seemed to be an eternity, waiting for him to turn, trying to keep my breathing calm, my hands from overly shaking, I decided to make some noise to prompt him and as soon as he started to turn, I shot!!

At first I thought I missed because I didn't see where I hit, being focused on the image in the scope, and he didn't drop right away. As quietly and calmly as I could (with my heart beating out of my chest and in my ears) I went over to where I had shot him and looked around. I didn't see any big splattering of blood or anything that I expected from watching movies, so I thought, “Damn! I missed!!” I questioned myself and thought maybe my scope was off or something. My first thought was disappointment in my marksmanship skills and regret that I hadn’t spent more time training at the range. As I calmed myself down, I realized that this was the first buck I had seen in four days, so I should track it, and maybe get a second shot. So I decided to track the group, because when I had taken my shot, all three deer had run off in the same direction.

About 20 yards down, I start to notice some pink stuff on the sand. I thought, “Can that be blood?” but it seemed too watery so I assumed that it was just colored rock or darker pink sand. As I continued to track a little bit further, I found what was definitely dark blood on the leaves and stems of the ground level plants. I thought to myself, “Damn, I shot him, but my must not have placed very well because he was still moving around. God, I can't let this animal go and die and in pain, and be wasted!” Again, having first impressions from movies and not knowing how tough these animals are, I assumed the worst! So for a while, I just kept following tracks and blood. Within the next 50 feet I noticed a significant splattering of pink, frothy blood on the ground and suddenly the deer is jumping out in front of me and bounding off!! After catching my bearings, I noticed that where he was laying down, was a bloody mess. After talking to other hunters and doing more research, the pink frothy blood was indicative of a lung shot. That is second most ideal place where you want your bullet to hit (the first being a lung and heart shot so the animal drops faster). What I failed to realize was that shot animals should be allowed some time to succumb to their injuries before being tracked. Putting pressure on the animal to flee was just driving the animal further away and running the risk of over adrenalizing the meat. It is recommended that one exercise restraint and wait at least 30 minutes or more depending on the types of blood, tallow and fur patterns for each type of shot, as well as where the shot was placed on the animal. Even with a lung shot, if it only hits one lung, waiting 6 to 8 hours after being shot is recommended.

Not knowing all of these smaller details and being highly adrenalized myself, I continued to track the deer as he jumped down into a dry streambed with a 20 foot drop into the ravine, and he still climbed up out of the ravine another 50 feet downstream. At the other side of the ravine, I thought it might have lost sight of his tracks behind a bush. I stepped around the bush within 10 feet of the edge of the ravine as he startles me again-- the deer pops up, jumps over the next bush, and starts running again!! I should have learned my lesson, I’m thinking to myself, “Oh my God he's got so much energy!! I must’ve just wounded him and he might not die from my shot, so he might die a slow, painful death! I'm going to end up tracking him forever!!” It is incredible how quickly the mind can go in such varied and difficult directions!!

So as I’m negatively obsessing, I take a breath and gave myself a pause. I suddenly remember some YouTube video I had watched last year, and realize that usually when people bow hunt, they stop after the shot and wait some time to let the animal die. Rifle and bow shots are best to the lungs and heart, and since these animals are pretty hardy, it sometimes takes a significant amount of time for them to bleed out and die. With this new realization, I thought I should wait as I didn't want to keep tracking him, pressuring him to run and jump, and all the while getting him further and further away. As I got my bearings, I noticed that we were actually getting closer and closer to the road.

As I waited, I took out my jacket to keep from getting chilled and checked my pack. I fidgeted as I waited a little longer. I had decided that I would wait 15 minutes but found it incredibly difficult to wait 10 or 12 minutes! When I couldn’t wait any longer, I continued to follow the tracks. I noticed that this last time the deer had really went for a full-out run, with increased gait and stride between tracks-- I followed the track for a good 100 yards, cautiously walking and looking, walking and looking--trying to extend the time. Finally, I heard breathing up ahead of the tracks. A hard, labored, heavy breathing. I slowly walked up until I spotted him on the ground. He started moving as he saw me approach, but didn’t run. I realize he’s just too weak but still wary-- the instinct to survive strong, but hindered by such loss of blood. I thought I should finish him off, to put him out of his misery as quickly and painlessly as possible. Unfortunately, up till now, I didn't know where I had shot him earlier. The way he was lying on the ground covered up the wound. Earlier I had aimed for the heart and lungs just underneath his right shoulder blade. Obviously I had missed, but I thought maybe he was gut shot so I decided to take another shot. Unfortunately being only about 20 feet away, the view from my scope was totally blurry and I ended up shooting low, into the dirt and breaking his front left ankle. Within a few minutes though, he moved around and finally let out a rough gasp, and died. He still let out some shakes and shivers that kept me wondering, but after picking up his head by the horns and checking for breathing or pulse, I knew he was dead.

 

 

Once the pressure of having to track and euthanize the deer was over, I realized that I was so amped, I had no concept of time. I was so fully present in the moment and focused, I did not feel the cold temperature or think about the work it was going to take to get my harvest back to the truck and finally to the cabin to process.

I proceeded to gut and field dress the deer. Surprisingly for my first time doing this by myself, I was totally able to do this clean and methodically, not getting any blood, feces or urine anywhere on the coat or meat. It came surprisingly natural to me, almost instinctual, like I had done this all my life! He was pretty big guy (about 140 lbs gutted out), and when I got the gut pile out, I carefully removed the heart and the liver, putting them in a separate ziplock bags, then into a cotton game bag and gently into my pack. I made sure to cut the notches in my Deer Tag and fixed it on his antlers. Once he was ready to transport, I dragged him to the nearest tree that stood higher than the brushline (about 50 feet away from the gut pile where I field dressed him) and I put my orange vest up on the highest branch of the tree that faced the road. This was so that I could easily see it once I came in from that direction with the truck. Before heading out, I digitally marked a waypoint in my GPS as a backup.

I made a beeline straight over to Bill’s truck using GPS to move in as straight a line as possible, got in the truck and navigated to the road nearest the deer. The best, most direct route ended up being a little four wheel drive road in sand and so I parked to the side off the road, part way in the bush. I bushwhacked back to where I could see my orange vest up in the tree. In all it was probably a half of a mile from where I parked the truck to the deer. I planned to drag the carcass until I had to carry it over any obstacles, but a relatively clear but circuitous path presented itself through the brush. I dragged him by his antlers through the brush which was surprisingly cumbersome--It was just dead weight!! Even though it was relatively flat, but with lots of scrub brush and sand, it still took me six sets of dragging him for five minutes, then taking a rest, then dragging again for about five minutes, and again catching my breath. About 40 minutes later, I finally reached the truck.

Once I finally got him over to the to the truck, it was a serious pain in the neck to get him raised up and into the bed of the lifted truck!! I first tried to haul him in the same way I was dragging him: by the antlers, but without any support in his neck, I couldn’t do a straight lift up into the bed without the rest of his body pulling him down and flopping out. I finally figured out the best way was to take his back legs into the bed first, so most of his weight was resting on the tailgate, then to climb into the truck bed and bring the rest of him up into the truck.

So after getting him into the truck, getting all my stuff accounted for (except for Bill’s shooting sticks-which I realized later), I finally get the truck started. As I start forward, I notice it won't go. The front left wheel had ended up digging into the sand and getting the front end stuck. I placed the truck into four-wheel drive low, but still couldn’t get traction in the front wheels. At the time, not being familiar with Bill’s truck, I hadn't realized that I needed to first shift the truck into neutral to have it engage four-wheel drive low. So I search through the back of the truck tools and find a small shovel to dig into the sand and clear the path for the front wheels. I also try to use branches and debris to assist the front wheels for traction, but the wheels keep spinning and kicking up sand. Realizing the front end of the truck was just high high centered, I kept trying to manually dig myself out.

Luckily a family of hunters pulled up in their truck and offer to give me a hand. First we try a come-along that was in the back of Bill’s truck to attach to their truck, but Bill’s diesel truck is way too heavy and the come-along breaks!! Fortunately I kept looking in the cab of Bill’s truck and find a tow strap that we use to yank the truck forward and get me out.

As we’re putting the tow strap away, we end up talking about hunting the area. He explains that his mom had harvested a deer earlier in the week, and that he was going out with his nephews and his mother-in-law but they had not seen any bucks yet. So I tell him that I got one and I go over to the bed of the truck and show him. Interestingly enough, as soon as I said that I shot a deer, EVERYBODY in his truck gets out to come look: his mother in law and two nephews came out and looked at my 3 x 2!!

I made my way back to the cabin and Bill helped me unload the deer out of the truck and into the garage. We got him lifted up onto a gambrel and I went through the process of skinning the deer. Once I removed the hide, I carefully folded it into a plastic bag and put it in the refrigerator. I was hoping to make it a rug or throw, or do something with it. I then separated the head and sectioned off the meat into quarters
.

Taking the major cuts (quarters) took hours to separate into useable cuts that could be wrapped, vacuum sealed, labeled and placed into the freezer for transport. Luckily Bill had brought his whole meat processing system, so we had a vacuum sealer, bags, plastic wrap, knives, etc. Bill showed me his method of packaging the meat and preparing it to freeze.

As we were processing the meat, Bill showed me the backstraps and how to effectively cut them out. There was a little bit left on the carcass and we cut a small piece out and just ate it raw!! The backstraps have been the best cuts of meat I have ever had on all wild game. Extremely lean and the most tender cut of meat, they are not usually understood as a specific cut of meat unless you are a hunter. The backstraps are a set of long, tubular muscles that run parallel to the spine. A mature deer is still much smaller than cattle. Compared with beef cuts, the backstrap on deer can be multiple cuts to a butcher. When taken from the bone, the backstrap is a ribeye. Left on the bone, it is the prime rib. At the point where the ribcage ends there is still a few inches of meat left which is the sirloin, or a NY strip.

For dinner, Bill made liver and gravy with the fresh liver from the deer I harvested just a few hours before. It was freaking amazing!!! So soft and flavorful!! I had always liked liver when my family prepared it in the past. The classic liver and onions recipe with a little soy sauce on a calf liver is what I was raised on. Bill recommended pre soaking the liver in milk to remove most of the blood from the liver, but having it fresh without any soaking or prepping was still amazing and tender!!

This experience was amazing!! I can't believe that I harvested my first buck and I did it all pretty much myself. I know I have been hunting now for about 4 years, but have always gone out with someone who has guided me. I have so much respect and awe for those who have had to learn many of these things on their own, and I am so grateful for the kindness and mentorship of my friend, Bill and other people who have introduced me to this way of life. This hunt is the first for me, to have gone out by myself, found game, stalked it, decided to harvest it, killed it and carried it back to camp all on my own!!

So I probably have about 60 pounds of meat and an amazing experience, and an incredible story to tell my kids!!

UPDATE 12/12/15:
I have encouraged my daughters to learn some of these skills as they have grown up, helping to raise and harvest our backyard chickens, helping keep a garden and growing edible crops and herbs. So it was not a far stretch to have them help me process the meat when I got home and to help me prepare the hide for stretching and tanning. As some of the pictures and video in the included gallery will show. I am hoping that they carry on this tradition and may want to some day hunt with their Dad!!