When you’re daydreaming it never seems like it ought to be all that difficult to get an arrow into a decent mule deer, but the fact is very few animals are what you would call easy with a bow and arrow. I shot a decent one a couple of years ago, but I have to say that was more luck than anything else, even though I shot him on the ground. Tree stands do make success with a bow easier, but I’ve been avoiding tree stands the last few years. Mostly, I simply prefer being on my feet as opposed to being in a tree stand. Tom and I have spent a lot of beverage time talking about that very thing. No question that hunting on the ground is a tougher way to go, and if you’re doing it with a bow and arrow, then it’s not even a reasonable question. Obviously, there’s an appeal to tree stand hunting and some fellas simply prefer it, but it always seemed to me that mule deer ought to be hunted from the ground, no matter your choice of weapon. And some of it has to do with the fact that a large part of mule deer country is very open with a minimum of trees, which makes tree stand hunting more difficult, plus there simply aren’t as many mule deer in most places as there are whitetails.

The Book Cliffs in and around Grand Junction and Salt Lake have been producing big mule deer since the WW II era, and if you know where to look, it’s still a pretty good place to be. But it is open, rugged country conducive to rifle hunting and long-range shooting, and picking the right location is important and getting the right location and access to it isn’t as easy as it might be. It was the second week of bow season when we rolled in near the Colorado-Utah border and set up my tipi. It takes some effort to get a tipi set up right, but for my money the tipi comes close to being the perfect hunting tent, no matter the weather or the time of year, and no matter what you’re hunting; deer, elk, bears, rabbits, you name it.

The land, and there was a lot of it, belonged to the Bromin family, now into their fourth and fifth generation of cowboy farmers. Good people and they pretty well stay back and let you do it your way. They weren’t sure they understood bowhunting, but they let us do it our way, mostly without comment. As usual, the first morning was slow getting started, even though we’d spent the previous evening shooting and getting ready. But there was a lot of talk and socializing, which kept us up way past bedtime for old guys. We’d seen a decent buck driving in and the question of which one of us was going to go in that direction come morning was a major point of discussion.

I had been shooting an old Black Widow I’d brought out of mothballs from years past; for what reason I wasn’t sure, and that had things somewhat up in the air about arrows and yes or no on a bow quiver. More than likely, I’d end the hunt shooting something completely different anyway, so it probably didn’t matter as much as it seemed to right then. A cup of strong black Sumatra coffee finally got me headed down the road toward the quakier patch below the old sheepherder’s cabin where I typically started my hunt each year. I was already sweating when I slipped into the top of the quakies, and I probably should have driven, but starting a bowhunt afoot sort of eased me into the beginning of my year and seemed to be how things should get underway. Deer usually fed into these trees from the bottom, and I usually, never intentionally, flushed them out of there, scattering them across the bottom and up into the thick sarvis that blanketed the side of the ridge.

I saw a couple of small bucks in the bottom that saw me first and wasted no time hurrying into cover, all the while looking back over their shoulders in my direction. I swung to the left thinking I’d get out in front of the deer but didn’t see them again. There are a lot of differences between whitetails and mule deer, and it seems that a lot of it has to be experienced more than once before it sinks in. After an hour and a half of way too much noise and more sweat, I decided that the head high sarvis brush was not the place to be for any kind of hunting and I worked my way back to the edge that pointed toward camp. From there it was more open than I remembered, and after wandering around making way too much noise, knowing I was accomplishing nothing that was going to work, I gave it up and turned toward camp staying on the edge, stopping every now and then and shooting a Judo® at an imaginary something. I wasn’t shooting all that great, telling myself it was the higher altitude and open terrain that was the culprit and not my lack of practice. I needed to make a point of shooting more this afternoon. Tom was probably already doing that very thing. He’s the shootingest fool I know. I like wandering around stump shooting with Judo® points, changing the shot, the distance, and the target on every shot. Tom shoots a lot of arrows at the same target at the same distance. He thinks his way is best and I’m sure mine works better for me. As you can imagine we’ve discussed that a few times.

His morning was as productive as mine, and we decided another pot of coffee might help. Grandpa Bromin drove in about then in his beat-up pickup with a stock-rack and a saddled horse in the back. His look, dress, and mannerisms put me in the mind of a Louis L’Amour character.

“First one of those tipis I’ve seen up close. Hmm, looks kinda nice…and you build a fire in it, huh? How do you keep from choking on the smoke?” It’s a common question, and I’ve learned over the years how to answer it to most people’s satisfaction.

“I’m gonna leave my truck here for a bit and do some looking around. Old Jace needs a little exercise every now and then and I come up here off and on to stretch both our legs, maybe keep the old man at bay a little longer.

“I tried shooting one of those things when I was a kid, but never could hit anything with it. You fellas do pretty good with them I understand. Maybe you can show me a trick or two before you leave.”

Tom had switched from shooting right-handed to left-handed because of a shoulder injury back in the spring and he was having problems making the change. “Some days I shoot pretty good, and sometimes not so good at all. It’s a long process. I switch back and forth and the shoulder feels good for a while and then it starts hurting again and I’ve gotta go back to left-handed. I’ll be going along pretty good and then it all goes blank and I have no idea where to point it or where it’s gonna go. I hate it. I’ll just have to go totally to left-handed and I don’t want to do that…just give up trying to shoot right-handed and going back and forth.”

“Sounds like the right way to go to me,” I said. Which was not what he wanted to hear.

We spent most of the rest of the afternoon trying to get his shooting stabilized and him feeling a little better about it all. I’ve always been a big believer in instinctive shooting, having taught classes and pushed the instinctive methodology going back to the 1960s when field archery was the big thing and the NFAA was promoting tournament shooting and any shooting technique that would put a bigger number on a scorecard. Tom had gotten caught up in all that and seemed to have a difficult time considering any other method than what he’d used back then. I’d never figured out how Tom aimed. He always labeled every target, hair, or paper, with a distance, although he always denied using the point of the arrow. And now with this right-hand, left-hand business going on, it could take some time. Neither of us ever seriously admitted the other was a better shot, and I’m sure no matter how much we thought we knew, we mostly kept on doing it the way we were sure worked the best and courteously listened when either of us explained it all. So, what’s so new, so different about that? My theory has always been to work from the positive. Always think about what you are going to do…NEVER start any action with what you are NOT going to do. That holds true in so much of what we do, and it sounds so simple. KNOW you are going to hit what you are looking at…NEVER start the process with what you are not going to do. Switching from right-handed to left-handed is a perfect opportunity to get things turned around physically and mentally. My answer is usually to pay attention to what you are doing and shoot lots of arrows.

Fred’s tipi set up in the Book Cliffs range on the Utah-Colorado border.

The next morning, I dropped Tom off at the gate and watched until he was out of sight along the fence line before starting down off the edge into the trees. A couple of years ago a really good deer had been taken out of an old tree stand which I figured was still hammered up in a cluster of pines along the cow path I was following. I just wanted to see if it was still there. I had no interest in climbing into a tree stand in any pine trees knowing I’d still be trying to get the danged pitch off me, my bow, and all my clothes a week from now. If it looked good maybe Tom would want to get in it. Ha! It’s good to have friends looking out for you. I followed the cow path along the ridge but didn’t see the stand. Later, I heard deer blowing on the other side of the bluff and thought I might see them coming my way. It was hard to know what the wind was doing down lower. I tucked in behind a couple of quakies and waited a bit before moving on when I could see the wind doing crazy things. A few minutes later a medium-sized deer appeared below me and off to the north about where I figured Tom ought to be. He kept looking back and then disappeared behind a patch of sarvis.

“Didn’t see him,” Tom said later at the vehicle. “Saw you a couple of times, but that’s all.” He seemed a little happier, so I figured his shooting was improving, which meant he’d probably spent part of the morning shooting at cow pies…left-handed I hoped. We shot some arrows in the sage flat walking along the road.

“I found a place in there where we should put up a ground blind,” Tom said.

“We’ve got nothing but time, let’s go back and do it.”

We turned and walked back down the hill; Tom leading the way back.

“It’s a good place, don’t you think?”

It did look good, and we set to work scuffing out a place and digging saws and trimmers out of our haversacks.

“Shot’s a little long maybe, but it’ll work, particularly if he comes from that direction,” he said, pointing. “It’ll be just right for a left-handed shot, and if he comes from over there and the wind is right, you’ve got a good shot regardless.”
We spent at least an hour cutting brush and digging a hole for his feet so he could turn without having to pick up his feet. Locating and building a ground blind needs to be done right. And if it is, they work better than a tree stand. I consider them the best way to ambush an animal when they’re done right. If they’re not, they don’t work so well. It’s a mistake to make them so the animal has to get too close, or worse, so the animal has to come toward you…which is really a major mistake.

Fred with a smaller buck that he took at the end of the hunt.

A heavy front rolled in overnight dropping dense cloud cover and pounding rain on the tipi for most of the night and into morning. Mule deer don’t move much in bad weather. I think seeing is a major issue to them. Gray and black clouds hung at tree top level for the next two days, bringing driving rain with it, and we watched and waited. The tipi is good in wet weather, but any time you’re in a tent in wet weather there are always concerns. Tipis are spacious inside…the ceiling being over eight feet high, which is great when weather has you holed up. Plus, having the ability to build a fire inside is wonderful. Tom got a little stir-crazy and must have drawn his longbow to anchor 150, maybe 250 times, wanting me to make sure he was solidly anchored each time (the right and left-hand shoulder business had his number for sure).

Rain and wind in the high country is different from bad weather in Illinois or Missouri. In the high country rain and wind are often accompanied by fog, cloud cover, and a sharp drop in temperature. Sleet in August or September is not unusual. And when that stuff rolls in, things can come to a standstill.

I wasn’t sure it was going to ever clear off enough for us to get out, but on the third afternoon it cleared somewhat, and we walked cautiously out, keeping one eye on the sky. Tom was sure it was a perfect time to go to his ground blind and figuring I could find a place somewhere in that area, we lit out…just glad to be hunting again. Getting there wasn’t so easy. My rig kept trying to slide off the muddy roads on a couple of side hills, but we got there top side up, hoping things would dry out a little before dark.

The roads did dry out somewhat by the time I got back to Tom a little after dark. He was standing in the road when I got there, which I figured was a good sign. But not so…

“I don’t know how I could have missed! It ain’t possible to miss that shot! But I did…I shot over his back… He was right there coming up from the creek…already on the level. Totally open! Just waiting on me to drill him…big SOB! I had all the time in the world! I remember at one point putting my right hand on the bow…and thinking that was wrong. And then trying to change it…and I’m not sure what I did. Hell…I’m not even sure which hand I used!”

Oh my…it was going to be a long night; I was sure of that…and it was. I felt sorry for him. But the second time I dozed off during the telling, I felt disloyal and maybe as bad as he did. Being able to “turn loose” of a bad shot mentally, when you know you will never forget that moment, is hard to do. I imagine a lot of us bowhunters have one of those awful moments locked in our memory.

The rest of the hunt stumbled along. I don’t think Tom ever seriously got back into the woods those last few days. He said he did, but he was always out there behind the tipi drawing, anchoring, and shooting every time I left or came back.
The deer seemed to have vacated the area, and I wasn’t seeing much at all. Walking back to camp a couple of days later, having not seen much for several days, I couldn’t resist a small buck that came out of a patch of snowberry and trotted hesitantly out in the open at half-speed. It was too much temptation right here at the end of a thin hunt, and knowing it was time to go, I thought about it for a second and came to full draw.

Fred Asbell held the titles of TBM’s Hunting Editor, Shooting Editor, and Contributor for the past 20+ years. He is the author of Instinctive Shooting, Instinctive Shooting II, Stalking and Still-Hunting: The Ground Hunter’s Bible, and Advanced Instinctive Shooting for Bowhunting. His wisdom and gift for storytelling will be greatly missed.

Since we had a few of his articles already in the pipeline before his untimely passing, we decided to publish them, as they are the last pieces he wrote. It is the honorable thing to do for such a dear friend of the entire TBM family.—T.J. Conrads and Staff