Mustangs Rule
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- Feb 4, 2021
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- 761
For 28 years I had a horse ranch overlooking the Mojave Desert. It was halfway up a 9,000’ mountain that had heavy winter snow. One of my two available deer tags I usually filled very close to home and the second somewhere in the desert.
At home and in the Pinyon Juniper zone of the high Mohave Desert the deer were Rocky Mountain mule deer, dark in the winter.
In the western/southern parts of the Sonoran Desert, mostly in Mexico, but coming over the border in some areas, were the large, big eared, huge antlered Burro deer. That area got more ocean rain.
Lastly, in the extremely hot and dry eastern Colorado desert, the deer were smaller, but very long legged to make huge treks for water.
They were light golden colored in the winter, and simply called the Mexican Deer, or Los Buros. These were often the deer of the huge cactus tangles. I thought them to be elegant and often I used my second deer tag to hunt them.
So much of this territory was BLM wilderness. Here I could be undisturbed and go on solo tracking hunts day after day.
When it got dark, I would sleep at night under a sky full of stars so close and bright, I felt I could touch them.
At dawn I would eat lightly, best for long treks, then pick up the buck’s trail and track on.
In fine hard-pan sand it was quite easy to know if I was following a buck or doe.
The does hips are wider than her chest, for the birth canal. Thus, her hind hoof would always, in a walking gait, land on her front hoof about a ¼ inch to the outside. Bucks, which are wider in their chest than their hips, would be the opposite.
A solo tracking hunt demands real patience. Once seen, or smelled the game is over and a day or days of effort can be lost.
On one desert hunt, I saw the tracks of a buck go into, then down one of two canyons that would meet and form a “V”. Moisture collected there and offered some fresh green plants. I waited until the sun got strong to warm the canyon and send the thermals rising. I checked with my squeeze bottle of ashes and the grayish white dust gently moved up.
Thinking it was safe I followed him and began going down the canyon. Around a big bend, however there was a nearly ¼ mile of boulders and cliffs that were still in the shade and held the nights cold.
I checked with my squeeze bottle of ashes. The air was still cold and carrying my scent slowly down the canyon where the buck had gone. I began to jog quietly in my ankle high Desert Chukka boots with super soft gum rubber soles. I hoped to outrun my slow-moving scent.
No such luck. At the “V” where the canyons met, there were deep tracks from maybe 7or 8 deer in which the moist earth was oozing back into the tracks. They left just seconds before.
I had been on this buck's trail for the entire previous day, then slept in a dry sandy wash covered with a thick Austrian surplus wool blanket. I got up, ate some cooked dried peppered meat wrapped around dried fruit and nuts, then picked up the buck's trail again that morning.
Always a single buck’s trail will lead to does and yearlings.
There was no point in going in direct pursuit of a fleeing herd that feared they were being hunted.
The soil at the junction of the two canyons was moist enough for me to get out my small gardening shovel and dig several holes off to the side about 8 inches deep and just big around enough so the moist earth did not fall back in. I carry several “drinking stick- purifiers” with me on a tracking hunt. With time each hole would offer a cup or more of water.
Tracking hunts are not linear. Unless totally spooked, and these deer were just first stage careful, the hunt pattern is meandering, rambling, up down and around. I was never more than 3 to 4 rough miles from my truck.
At most an hour and half’s walk, but in going back there the spell of this hunt would be broken as soon as I left the wilderness boundary.
Quads and 4x4’s might well be buzzing around. There would be campers with smelly dogs, target shooting and lots beer. All the things these secretive deer had learned to avoid.
No, I would not leave the wilderness boundary and return to my truck until my hunt was over, having got a deer, or run out of time. And when I did get a buck, I brought him back under the cover of darkness so nobody else would be the wiser!
Once, I know what desert hunt zone I have a tag for, I will drive out before the season begins, best when cooled by summer tropical monsoon rains, do my deep scouting and stash some small glass bottles of water with a few drops of tincture of iodine in each. Plastic bottles or even cans are not rodent proof.
Still, I like to get water from natural sources whenever possible, such as the natural hollow bowls in rocks that store water from late monsoon rains, or from the holes like I just dug in moist earth.
I decided not to follow their tracks directly and chose to trot a big “C” and go around hoping to intercept them. Before doing that I climbed to a high point to use my 6 x 30 binoculars and saw a greenish hue on some distant hills.
A few weeks earlier some thunder heads came up from the tropics. Before this desert hunt I had been paying close attention the weather there. I was now hunting in the usually harsh Colorado Desert and not terribly far from the Mexican Border.
Coming around some boulders I could see a fresh green-up on some hills.
For all my hunting I use old 6x30 binocs made in post WW2 Japan. They are well made, have decent lenses, cost so little, offer such great depth of field and can stay focused from up close to infinity. They are so simple. Do not have a central focusing mechanism. Just focus each eyepiece to your eye and tape them locked. So fast to use.
I also bring a fixed 20 x Leopold spotting scope which is a great glass, light and just a little bigger than a coke soda bottle. I attached it to my homemade shooting sticks made with three 5/8’ x 48” oak dowels held together by super strong rubber bands I cut from a motorcycle tire tube. These shooting sticks double as my walking stick. In their tips I drilled in some screws and cut off tips for a super stable “bite” into any surface.
Laying right out in the open, maybe 150 yards away, on reddish hill half covered with fresh bright green up, with the morning light still coming in low, was this golden deer which seemed to have small white forked antlers just behind his ears. I will never forget this beautiful image.
I brought out my spotting scope and set it up on my shooting sticks. The ears of these desert deer have a very bold white outline along the edge. It was a doe.
I saw her and she became curious about me. I was a bit careless about my dark silhouette with the rising sun behind me. I thought she might be blinded by the bright light behind me. Wrong!
Twice this doe looked towards me with her ears pointed so sharply right to me, then she looked directly back where the herd had come from with her ears still pointing towards me.
I began trotting back fast where I had just come from.
There were new fresh tracks going back into the “V” where the canyons met. They went up the other side where I had not been.
I stopped. Moist mud was again oozing back into the deep tracks I turned around. By now the thermals were rising stronger. For sure if I went up that canyon, he would get my scent.
I went far away from the tight walls of the canyon and caught my breath and rested. This was 17 years ago. I was 60 years old then.
Way up that canyon there was a grove of mesquite trees and this was the time of year when they would be bearing sweet seed pods. They are the smallest member of the locust family of trees. Think “Honey Locust”. If not pressured the buck would stop and feed, there.
I did another “C” hike staying away from the canyon, except to peek into it with my binoculars. The buck was feeding in the Mesquite grove. I went up and came down the canyon with the wind in my face. I got close enough to see his antler tips moving and shaking the tree. I could taste the venison.
These seed pods are a rodent's delight. So many of them. Getting close I passed a roost tree for small desert owls. They flushed. I saw the buck running up to the ridge. The only shot he offered was risky and could get messy. Not good in such warm weather.
I wished him a long life.
The next day I tracked a smaller buck for an hour after sunrise. I went to high point for a look, and there he was eating the leaves of a Palo Verde tree.
It was an easy shot with my Remington 722 in 257 Roberts. with an old Weaver 3x scope. I was using 117 grain round nosed bullets. They are slower and kind to meat. It was a perfect double lung shot.
Not far away there were some huge boulders that never saw sunlight. I gutted and skinned the little buck, then sprayed him down with citric acid and hung him in a crack between those cold boulders. The past night had been in the mid 30’s. I covered the opening during the day with my wool blanket to keep the cold in.
I did some more scouting, came back and slept in the wash covered with my wool blanket. The small buck really chilled down. About 1 or 2 AM I cut him in half and made two easy trips in the starlight to my truck. I wrapped the cold halves in that wool blanket to keep the chill in and drove drove home.
At home, I smiled taking my leather Chukka Desert boots off. When leaving, those yellowish gum rubber semi-translucent soles were all dark and dirty. After my desert tracking hunt, my soles looked clear, clean, almost sparkling. Same for my soul too,
MR
At home and in the Pinyon Juniper zone of the high Mohave Desert the deer were Rocky Mountain mule deer, dark in the winter.
In the western/southern parts of the Sonoran Desert, mostly in Mexico, but coming over the border in some areas, were the large, big eared, huge antlered Burro deer. That area got more ocean rain.
Lastly, in the extremely hot and dry eastern Colorado desert, the deer were smaller, but very long legged to make huge treks for water.
They were light golden colored in the winter, and simply called the Mexican Deer, or Los Buros. These were often the deer of the huge cactus tangles. I thought them to be elegant and often I used my second deer tag to hunt them.
So much of this territory was BLM wilderness. Here I could be undisturbed and go on solo tracking hunts day after day.
When it got dark, I would sleep at night under a sky full of stars so close and bright, I felt I could touch them.
At dawn I would eat lightly, best for long treks, then pick up the buck’s trail and track on.
In fine hard-pan sand it was quite easy to know if I was following a buck or doe.
The does hips are wider than her chest, for the birth canal. Thus, her hind hoof would always, in a walking gait, land on her front hoof about a ¼ inch to the outside. Bucks, which are wider in their chest than their hips, would be the opposite.
A solo tracking hunt demands real patience. Once seen, or smelled the game is over and a day or days of effort can be lost.
On one desert hunt, I saw the tracks of a buck go into, then down one of two canyons that would meet and form a “V”. Moisture collected there and offered some fresh green plants. I waited until the sun got strong to warm the canyon and send the thermals rising. I checked with my squeeze bottle of ashes and the grayish white dust gently moved up.
Thinking it was safe I followed him and began going down the canyon. Around a big bend, however there was a nearly ¼ mile of boulders and cliffs that were still in the shade and held the nights cold.
I checked with my squeeze bottle of ashes. The air was still cold and carrying my scent slowly down the canyon where the buck had gone. I began to jog quietly in my ankle high Desert Chukka boots with super soft gum rubber soles. I hoped to outrun my slow-moving scent.
No such luck. At the “V” where the canyons met, there were deep tracks from maybe 7or 8 deer in which the moist earth was oozing back into the tracks. They left just seconds before.
I had been on this buck's trail for the entire previous day, then slept in a dry sandy wash covered with a thick Austrian surplus wool blanket. I got up, ate some cooked dried peppered meat wrapped around dried fruit and nuts, then picked up the buck's trail again that morning.
Always a single buck’s trail will lead to does and yearlings.
There was no point in going in direct pursuit of a fleeing herd that feared they were being hunted.
The soil at the junction of the two canyons was moist enough for me to get out my small gardening shovel and dig several holes off to the side about 8 inches deep and just big around enough so the moist earth did not fall back in. I carry several “drinking stick- purifiers” with me on a tracking hunt. With time each hole would offer a cup or more of water.
Tracking hunts are not linear. Unless totally spooked, and these deer were just first stage careful, the hunt pattern is meandering, rambling, up down and around. I was never more than 3 to 4 rough miles from my truck.
At most an hour and half’s walk, but in going back there the spell of this hunt would be broken as soon as I left the wilderness boundary.
Quads and 4x4’s might well be buzzing around. There would be campers with smelly dogs, target shooting and lots beer. All the things these secretive deer had learned to avoid.
No, I would not leave the wilderness boundary and return to my truck until my hunt was over, having got a deer, or run out of time. And when I did get a buck, I brought him back under the cover of darkness so nobody else would be the wiser!
Once, I know what desert hunt zone I have a tag for, I will drive out before the season begins, best when cooled by summer tropical monsoon rains, do my deep scouting and stash some small glass bottles of water with a few drops of tincture of iodine in each. Plastic bottles or even cans are not rodent proof.
Still, I like to get water from natural sources whenever possible, such as the natural hollow bowls in rocks that store water from late monsoon rains, or from the holes like I just dug in moist earth.
I decided not to follow their tracks directly and chose to trot a big “C” and go around hoping to intercept them. Before doing that I climbed to a high point to use my 6 x 30 binoculars and saw a greenish hue on some distant hills.
A few weeks earlier some thunder heads came up from the tropics. Before this desert hunt I had been paying close attention the weather there. I was now hunting in the usually harsh Colorado Desert and not terribly far from the Mexican Border.
Coming around some boulders I could see a fresh green-up on some hills.
For all my hunting I use old 6x30 binocs made in post WW2 Japan. They are well made, have decent lenses, cost so little, offer such great depth of field and can stay focused from up close to infinity. They are so simple. Do not have a central focusing mechanism. Just focus each eyepiece to your eye and tape them locked. So fast to use.
I also bring a fixed 20 x Leopold spotting scope which is a great glass, light and just a little bigger than a coke soda bottle. I attached it to my homemade shooting sticks made with three 5/8’ x 48” oak dowels held together by super strong rubber bands I cut from a motorcycle tire tube. These shooting sticks double as my walking stick. In their tips I drilled in some screws and cut off tips for a super stable “bite” into any surface.
Laying right out in the open, maybe 150 yards away, on reddish hill half covered with fresh bright green up, with the morning light still coming in low, was this golden deer which seemed to have small white forked antlers just behind his ears. I will never forget this beautiful image.
I brought out my spotting scope and set it up on my shooting sticks. The ears of these desert deer have a very bold white outline along the edge. It was a doe.
I saw her and she became curious about me. I was a bit careless about my dark silhouette with the rising sun behind me. I thought she might be blinded by the bright light behind me. Wrong!
Twice this doe looked towards me with her ears pointed so sharply right to me, then she looked directly back where the herd had come from with her ears still pointing towards me.
I began trotting back fast where I had just come from.
There were new fresh tracks going back into the “V” where the canyons met. They went up the other side where I had not been.
I stopped. Moist mud was again oozing back into the deep tracks I turned around. By now the thermals were rising stronger. For sure if I went up that canyon, he would get my scent.
I went far away from the tight walls of the canyon and caught my breath and rested. This was 17 years ago. I was 60 years old then.
Way up that canyon there was a grove of mesquite trees and this was the time of year when they would be bearing sweet seed pods. They are the smallest member of the locust family of trees. Think “Honey Locust”. If not pressured the buck would stop and feed, there.
I did another “C” hike staying away from the canyon, except to peek into it with my binoculars. The buck was feeding in the Mesquite grove. I went up and came down the canyon with the wind in my face. I got close enough to see his antler tips moving and shaking the tree. I could taste the venison.
These seed pods are a rodent's delight. So many of them. Getting close I passed a roost tree for small desert owls. They flushed. I saw the buck running up to the ridge. The only shot he offered was risky and could get messy. Not good in such warm weather.
I wished him a long life.
The next day I tracked a smaller buck for an hour after sunrise. I went to high point for a look, and there he was eating the leaves of a Palo Verde tree.
It was an easy shot with my Remington 722 in 257 Roberts. with an old Weaver 3x scope. I was using 117 grain round nosed bullets. They are slower and kind to meat. It was a perfect double lung shot.
Not far away there were some huge boulders that never saw sunlight. I gutted and skinned the little buck, then sprayed him down with citric acid and hung him in a crack between those cold boulders. The past night had been in the mid 30’s. I covered the opening during the day with my wool blanket to keep the cold in.
I did some more scouting, came back and slept in the wash covered with my wool blanket. The small buck really chilled down. About 1 or 2 AM I cut him in half and made two easy trips in the starlight to my truck. I wrapped the cold halves in that wool blanket to keep the chill in and drove drove home.
At home, I smiled taking my leather Chukka Desert boots off. When leaving, those yellowish gum rubber semi-translucent soles were all dark and dirty. After my desert tracking hunt, my soles looked clear, clean, almost sparkling. Same for my soul too,
MR
