Are you ready for that guided mule deer hunt?

Since I have heard all my hunting stories over and over again, it’s good to hear a few new ones. It is always good to get a few new hunting stories so they can be told over and over again through the years.

As I look back over the past ten years of being a mule deer guide, it has been good, no, ‘very good’. There have been those times when I have been frustrated over all the things that didn’t even come close to my way of thinking or the way I thought it would be, but then, that’s hunting! One of the hardest parts of being a big time professional guide is meeting up to ‘all’ the expectations in your hunters’ minds. The end result always being that if I’m paying you the big bucks, I’d better kill a big buck. (Boy, have I lost a lot of sleep worrying about that one!) Over the years of hunting, myself, and being guided by a few guides, it has done me good to just sit back and see how someone else thinks and handles everything. So, in the past ten years I have come to know what is and is not expected of me as a hunting guide. Not that I know everything, mind you, (that will never happen), but I have come a long way down that guiding road.

It seems to me that to most hunters know what they want and expect me to be and do, but they never think much of what I, as their guide, expect out of them and what they should be able to do. So, let’s go over a few things that you, the guided hunter, with dreams of a 30”, 7×8, heavy horned, hardest of all big game animals in North America to kill, (a big muley buck), should be able to do.

1. You should be in good physical condition. You need to be able to walk ten miles a day in rough terrain, even run up and down a steep incline to get that shot, if needs be.
2. You should have your mind set for a hard hunt with lots of room for adjustments and disappointments. Leave your job and work at home. Have the ‘eye of the tiger’ and don’t get discouraged and get ‘mind burn out’. Never give up and come down from your first day high because you are worried about what is going on at your work.
3. You should know your gun and be able to shoot off hand fast and accurate. Be able to hit a moving target out to three hundred yards. Ninety percent of all big muley bucks killed are on the move. So, have a gun you can pack all day (light), shoot off hand fast, and make sure you can shoot well. You will kill more deer hitting with a .22 than missing with a .300 Winchester mag.
4. You should have some deer savvy on land layout. When your guide tells you where to go and sit on a hill or mesa, you need to be there, in that spot, looking the right way with 110 percent alertness until your guide comes to get you or you kill old Mister Big. Don’t let your guard down and start picking your nose or drawing lines in the sand if you don’t see a big buck after twenty minutes or so. If a big buck doesn’t run exactly where you think he should or where your guide told you he would, you should be able to adjust to each situation as it unfolds.
5. You should know what kind of clothes, colors, shoes, and pants you need. Each state and place you hunt has different laws and rules. Be familiar with all of them. Don’t expect your guide to compromise just because you are not prepared. If you need to have something special for your health or need special treatment, let him know so he can adjust his way of hunting.
6. You should always do your best and be at your best around camp and other people. Don’t expect to have everything done for you all the time. ( I don’t like to baby sit when I’m hunting.)
7. Be a good listener and carry out the things he tells you to do, even if you don’t always agree with him or the way he’s thinking. After all, that’s why he’s there, (knowledge)! If he’s worth his pay, he won’t lead you too far wrong. ( However, I always have an open ear for any good hunting comments or ideas from anyone, anytime.)
8. You shouldn’t expect your guide, to always get you a big muley buck. As I’ve said, ‘that’s hunting’ !! Most good guides will try hard to get you what you want.

If you will do your part in this team effort and trust in the knowledge of your guide, chances are you will be successful. The big Muleys are out there—smarter than ever, fewer than ever, harder to see than ever, but they are out there. We just need to be better than ever to get ‘Old Mr. Big’.
Yours in the Sport,
Dennis Wintch

Are you seeing what you are looking for on your hunts?

Case in point…sometimes I travel from state to state and each state does things a little different. The traffic lights in Utah are all overhead so as the years have gone by, my eyes (like a reflex action) look for lights in the middle of each intersection I come to. However, if you put me in a state, or a place where all the traffic lights are on the side of each intersection, I’ve been known to run one or two. I just don’t see them until it’s too late. You can, and must, train your eyes to see all things around you. One of the big advantages I’ve had over most hunters is the ability to scan a side hill, shadow, sagebrush flat, oak brush, dark timber, PJ’s, or a rock basin and in the wink of an eye, I can usually spot whatever I am hunting.

I remember a few years ago, my dad and I were hunting together as we have done so many times over the years. I was driving down a back dirt road quite fast (I always drive faster than most people on a dirt road and most hunters who have ridden with me can tell you that “that’s a big 10-4”). Anyway, I bogged on my brakes, leaving two deep runts in the sandy road and I said to my Dad, “look right up there. Right behind that cedar tree there’s a little buck. Keep your eyes open because there might be a big buck with him.” For two or three minutes I tried to show him the buck’s eye, part of his nose and half of his horn through a hole in the tree, but he couldn’t see the buck. Finally he got out of the truck and walked around to my side to get a different angle. Nope, he still couldn’t see that deer. Finally, he said, “there isn’t a deer behind that tree…no way!” So, I got out of my truck and walked up the hill toward the tree and guess what? A nice 15-inch willer-horn three-point (a Utah trophy) came running out and up and over the hill. I still remember my dad saying, “heck, no wonder you always kill a big buck. You can see them standing behind a tree at 50 miles an hour.”

Many times when I’ve been out in the field with my good friends, I’ve stopped and said, “Wow! Look at that big buck standing right there!” “Where?” They’ll say. “Right there!” “Where? I don’t see a big buck.” Well, I’d really have to be your good friend to just sit there and not shoot him first and wait until you see him, and let you shoot him. Besides, by the time you see him it will be too late. He’ll be gone and all we’ll have to say to each other is, “Wow, did you see how big that buck was (and still is)?”

One time my good friend Mike Liddiard and I were out scouting the day before the hunt started. Mike had not hunted deer for ten years or so. After showing him 20 deer or so (me seeing everyone first), he said, “I’m a little rusty seeing deer in the trees.” But in only a few days, he was a lot better at seeing deer. Just last year I was guiding a good friend of mine when I spotted a huge buck standing straight on in the shadows. He was about 80 yards looking right at us. Boy that was a good buck. After 30 seconds of looking, my friend finally sees him. One shot. The big boy was hit but not down. He ran down the hill and stopped in a grove of trees, standing broadside. I said, “Put another hole in him.” “Where? I can’t see him.” “Right there. Shoot him.” “I can’t make out a deer at all.” Not until he ran again and he shot seven more shots did we finally bag ‘Old Mr. Big’. We were lucky. If only he could have see him standing there. I could have, and would have, taken him on the first go around and in the first second I saw him, all because I could see him.

Most of the time when it comes to trophy-sized game, you don’t get a second chance. They see you first and are gone before you even have time to react. There are so many times that I’ve been hunting and my eyes (my trained eyes), have given me that extra second or two to react to the given situation and come home with another big buck.

There is no way that I can count or even remember all the times that my eyes have given me the great success in hunting that I’ve had over the forty years I’ve been out and about. But I do know if you have good trained eyes, that can pick out parts and pieces and put the puzzle together in a hurry; you my friend, will have an edge in hunting that is unequaled.

Hunting Tips – Some of the things you can do to improve what you see and to see faster are:

1. Spend more time in the field looking at game. Different land layouts and types of cover. Seeing game in all different backdrops.

2. Try to train your eyes to move fast over the layouts that are before you. Try to see parts and pieces of any animal at different angles.

3. Know the limitations that your eyes have. If you need glasses, get them. If you have to go slow and take more time to see or pick something out, go slower.

4. Never compromise money for buying good optics. A good scope on your gun and a good pair of binoculars around your neck in the world of hunting is a big must.

5. If you’re not sure what you’re looking at, don’t shoot first and then go see what it was. When in doubt…Don’t!

6. When you come to a good place where you can see into a big basin, canyon or side hill, take more time to look it over and see if you can see old Mr. Big before he sees you. If you can, you have just upped your odds 50% of putting him in the deep freeze to feed your family.

7. Keep your eyes looking up 80% of the time and down on the ground 20%. Most hunters look where they are walking 80% of the time and only look up 20% of the time. Once again…you can’t shoot what you can’t and don’t see.

8. Don’t drink alcohol or smoke. Red, blurry eyes from drinking and smoking are big minuses for your eyes and what they can see when you need them most.

As a new year of hunting is here, try and up your odds by seeing what’s there to be seen. Our eyes are, in my opinion, the best gift of all. From a man who loves this world and all that Mother Nature has to share with us, as I have said before and I’ll ask you again, ”what do you see?”

In the Dec/Jan 2009 Issue of Hunting Illustrated, bowhunting editor Jim Burnworth talks about Tips for Better Shooting. Jim is an accomplished archer, and has done extensive testing on bows and has filmed many sessions with special high definition cameras. Here are just a few examples of Jim’s video footage of slow motion video clips.

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I can’t get enough of southeastern Montana. This would be the eighth year that I had hunted with Craig Hueter of Trophies West Outfitters. The amount of deer that I see each year is amazing. I have taken six mule deer over 170-inches, my best was a 5×7 that scored 190. However, I could count the amount of bull elk that I had seen over the years on one hand. This was the first year that I would be hunting in September. The muley bucks were still in bachelor groups and the elk were in rut and bugling. There are not many elk in this part of Montana, but you can run across occasional pockets of elk. These herds have great genetics and don’t get hunted like they do farther north.

Tim Hite with his 407 Archery elk from Montana

Unfortunately, there was just too much open space between us and the bull. We pacified ourselves by getting some video of the bull and watched as he pushed his cows up into the timber. We hunted the rest of the day and ran into a few more bulls, but nothing that I wanted to try to take on the first day….

Read the Rest of the Story

See this bull’s image featured in the 2009 King’s Bull Elk Calendar