ON LEAD - A Wyoming Rifle Mule Deer Hunt

You know, so you guys want to do something like the equipment breakdown and then we'll go straight to whatever you tell us, cool, let's do that, let's go to the garage yourselves, okay? Lucha llama has an old chair and this bungee, this is how you connect them pretty simply and basically when you weigh the saddlebags, we always touch the back when you're done, we make sure there's nothing to bother them, take care of your lawn how you take care of yourself when you're hungry. They're hungry, here they are, so there, look when you're tired, they're tired, so they spin in a bucket of pellets to eat up there, yeah, big day, obviously, big gain, even though it's about 365 pounds, so he's kind of tall and thin, he's one of ours. higher flames, so Chris let's go ahead and grab a couple of these while I'm big.

I don't know, it took me a second to get used to it. I grew up in California and I didn't grow up around it. I like cattle and I have very little experience or with horses, I definitely won't come, don't do it, don't do it, he's testing the waters, he's going for it, this isn't something I grew up doing or anything like that , a very serious

hunt

er. No, I'm not a complete rookie, but I'm definitely not anywhere near a Brady stalwart. Wait, now it's comforting to go with someone of his experience level. My goal was to simply listen and not get in his way.

Boy, Donny Mark Funneh wants water. Hey friend. God playing hard to get oh no bro let's kick it for eight days man can you talk to me? Taking the llamas was very beneficial for Porter, wanting to go on a backpack style

hunt

like this because you know he's not one too. experienced, you only have one other hunt in the field beforehand, so this was a way to get Porter back there and make him feel comfortable because he could have all the comforts of home. You know, a good sleep system if you could have some really amazing food.

I'm not going to lie, this is the first time I've had tortellini and pesto every night, tons of sausage in the backcountry, like that stuff I don't take on a backcountry hunt, so it's a nice aspect that Porter came and we had you call just so we could enjoy all those other amenities when we left the trailhead looking up, you know, the blue skies and the weather, the last weather update we got, they were calling for any bad weather, you know, not really we could see how. There was a lot of snow at the top as the mountain was and we got there and I was a little nervous in the back of my mind, like well, what did I just throw?

I just want to make a fun hunting reporter and we threw it straight right at the Wolves right away. Something is going on with someone's receding putter looking for another one, so a little worry that was triggered at the end of the season, not sure what's going on, not yet, but try to figure out what it is. Parker lost admitted that I was rolling face-first in the snow, literally to the bottom because I really want to do porn. I see even those trees, yes, for Mike, a little bit there, that's what you see now, no. isolation the events of the night haven't worked out too much you know my gear in the morning and then they head back to camp let's go and pack up enough vegetation I definitely need to move we have some food but it just changes no special dog dock here my monday night Italian evening sweet sausage tortellini with some fresh basil pesto, get ready for the tough day we had today, think hard about that jet, no, oh yeah, where do you want to go up on this ridge?

It's behind, I can't, I don't want to go to the ridges. finished, yeah, wait, but I thought there would be a buck in the snow, it doesn't look very giant, although the first somewhat decent buck of the trip wasn't good, you saw 15 helps, you've seen three or four screws today, we basically saw everything except what were the the conditions are perfect the bugs are warm kick ass I told Brady he was probably going to teach me a lot of things in the field, but I teach men to eat right I don't want to be negative, just don't plant I'm a planner mom is not good if it's a big business ronzo where it starts still hunting the wood it doesn't feel like the density is very good up here no, the dota numbers are good Demming decent, please, you don't see many of those that are see a lot of twos in that group yesterday 9 toes on a hillside yeah gimme they might not shoot it down early no tomalak like winter Gil there aren't enough hunters up here so you can't shoot anything or see anything, yes, it has the good. little torch Oh, TP time, Oh, GP time, you want me to sing Brady J.

I sang the song about TP, it makes me think you're singing a song about going to the bathroom, no, we're on TP, bro, get your head out from the ditch. THINGS, where are you planning for tonight? I think we're separated, which I don't like to do, but the washout this morning, so we can't cross the river this morning, the little blizzard supporters will go there. I'm going to go up to where we were last night and go beyond Basin and grab it in the snow still like I'm going to go really deep in there and try to pick it up to be part of the team to see if we can find it and complete it. regroup and figure the Bucks are ahead tonight, hopefully, and the honor sounds great.

I saw five bucks and about nine or eleven, some eleven doze a 4x4, another one looks like a pretty big 4x4 breeze about a mile away, that's the buckaroo, move tomorrow. looking up really sucks. I will be honest when I hunt with people and try to tell them where we want to go. I definitely downplay a lot of what's going on. I don't know if it's really my intention right away if I speak calmly. We'll be calm and go with the flow and understand that you know what I'm doing is still safe and we'll still make it there.

You know we started moving in that direction early in the morning and we ran into a couple of dollars past a couple of dollars no, this was literally born like six months ago, what do you think? I think and we keep rolling and rolling and rolling and I remember saying something like Brady, hey, how much further around, oh, just around this bend, oh, just look. that this is on the top of this ridge right here, we would just hit that crest and roll up, he said like four ridges in a row and we had left it at dawn from camp, we ended up not getting to the actual place where he wanted to be like the 3 :00 in the afternoon it's almost like he hardly thinks rationally up there it's just that he's so focused on the end goal I think in his head he knew what that day would entail, he was so confident that we were going to kill a dollar, I mean, He had seen it the night before and it's just a matter of realizing it, we got there and everything seemed perfect, we saw a pile of dough very close to us below.

We had all night to sit there on the glass. We are close. We can make plays from here as if everything points. Okay, this will just wait. Glass does it. You know we do it better. And the

deer

will come out when the

deer

comes. because now we're in the area that seemed like the country was perfect for deer, it's the newly picked pines, you just find out that yeah, let's go to the bass pickup, it's pretty wide now, is it a boy? But come, look, try to see if I can. calm down, the touch of belonging, go to that knob, you're too low, right, yeah, you won't bill, see you, I don't know if we can talk quietly like this, it's like, what is he doing now, you're looking at a mouse or something. let's say a decent Bock, yes the masses, what school does mom use?

She takes him everywhere like what is he doing right now. Oh, Lily hasn't moved, she doesn't look, she's chewing, no, I see, she can grow if there can be a really strange truth. yeah, there it is good, good space, that's a big growth, it seems to be talking, can I hear the definition, honey, that's the jaw, it's supposed to be a straight line, it's all weird, yeah, 778, one for 14 ,7, install it here, can you grab one right now? At this altitude it's now moving into September, you have to weigh them to see if it comes back to light, Mr.

Idiot, one shot, oh yes you got it, oh God, it took forever for eNOS to sweat smoky. I work very hard and I know how good data is. There are two days left and we've seen probably six bucks the entire trip and it's all been very, very small. I love Wyoming. These Muellers make you work for it. Oh yeah, we dragged your debt back here. All the time it's like noon and I was like. I'm one more basin on one more basin on you buddy, alright tonight, we'll shoot the deer tonight guaranteed, guaranteed, I just kept saying I think you're really good for you, man, he ain't very fat, well, thin I guess that this growth is hurting.

He's eating We have a long way to camp We went down too much elevation It's going to get dark Yes I think we'll take him to the lamas instead of bringing them here My body hurts so much I'm pretty sure I slept past noon and I could having slept even more as if exhausted as if the body was destroyed. I remember we were going like 10 or 15 feet and then we had to stop and then 10 or 15 feet and then stop. We're two hours away from 500 yards, maybe today was a lazy day when you proposed making a fire and just posting up for the night, yeah, that's when I thought, huh, and my headlamp was already out like a ladder and we are worried. about your lighthouse dying and then what we do we don't have headlights we didn't have batteries with us extra batteries silly yeah there are some lessons there they day in paradise Wow, that's how tough it is out there beautiful guys eh yeah, we're just a good game beautiful yes visibility is about 20 yards, blowing about 40 EP boost with so many rocks, yes something with our fire, I'm not doing very well, it's a little snow, we may have to wake up every two hours tonight so I can go shovel the Lamas' food. little bit of omelette on the stove top there are a lot of combinations you can make an omelet so I'm going to show you one so with this one you just get that omelet with a nice warm pesto and then you pile it on with a bunch of salami and a little pesto. salami panini we've had a lot of good mental breaks today collecting your thoughts breaking wood eating I'm not going to do this one hunting lick can you imagine being a deer right now called no last night we better connect mom on the last day so these conditions are going to be No matter how good they get the deer, we got snowed on all day, the morning hunt shouldn't be as good as it should be the best day we've ever had, so we're going to hunt it hard, so I said we'd call.

If we're having a bad morning, we'll call him and head out that afternoon to meet up. I really want to stay as long as I can as long as we can help or kill Buck because this is like his biggest hunt in the field, that's all. What I want to do is give you a dollar. The good news is that we found our eighth drift buck. The bad news is that he's in, so we have to do it. We have two points that act as if they are turning the direction at the top of the deeper tub.

Nasty posture is not good, at the same time, you know we didn't see many deer, so ultimately you know it might have been the right decision to pack like those friends, the first time we had

mule

deer in the field in the mountain, very safe laugh. I killed it, there's nothing better than getting soaked, but I could still hear a beautiful backdrop. I'm lucky to be able to go with Brady so he shares so much knowledge with me and has 20 years of experience in the field. I mean, I asked him probably 120 dumb questions. I tried to absorb it like a sponge.

Yes, I wish I had killed the deer, but I was walking out of there with my head held high. Porter, after this hunt, is a guy who will take on any type of mountain hunting situation. Be able to excel at it. I'm normally green before, but he basically saw every type of fight you could have on a hunt in nine full days. Now, in the future, he will be a much better hunter. He is mentally stronger than I think. I even knew that he would come out of the hunt because it was great to see Seema Bal throughout the hunt from the beginning of the day to the end of the hand, in total he was a totally different person and now I know it.

Going on his future hunts, he will be in love with all of them.