Parker, Dale, and I headed up to the South Ridge at dawn. Immediately we spotted two great big mulie bucks heading up from the sagebrush into the trees. Dale took the stalk and positioned himself to intercept the bucks. Parker and I headed further up the ridge and spotted two bucks (above photo) and a lone 4 pt (below photo) however we passed all of these up in search of a trophy deer.

Dale's stalk did not pan out so we continued to look for more deer throughout the day. Parker spotted a group of five bucks in the sage below us. We spent some time glassing them and figured out quickly that these were the same five I had hunted yesterday - including the big P&Y buck. It took me an hour to belly crawl and at one point a group of antelope ran right into me. The large pronghorn buck stood 10 yards away - glaring at me. I remained motionless until they ran off. Thankfully, they did not spook my deer. I continued on to where the deer were bedded and eventually picked out the big buck's antlers among the sage. My problem was I could not find the other four deer. I knew they were in here somewhere. Instead of pushing the situation - I opted to hold tight and perhaps the deer would move - giving away their position. Another hour later three of the deer got up to feed and then bedded right down. Great! Now I knew where three of the five deer were bedded. Where were the other two? I ran through my options: wait them out until they began feeding, or move on them in their beds? The three bucks were in a great position for a stalk - it was very windy so my movements and sound would be masked. I was also downwind of the bucks. Everything was ideal. I chanced it and moved slowly towards the three deer. Suddenly one of the other two deer that I was unable to locate picked me off. The little rat was facing me the entire time but because his horns were so small I never noticed him. He got the other four deer to their feet but they paid little attention to him and carelessly fed up the hillside and out of sight. My stalk was blown but at least I hadn't educated them.

We found a few more deer the rest of that day (like these above) but only one was big enough to stalk and it was Dale's turn. The weather has turned very cold and the forecast is calling for up to 10" of snow. It's coming down hard as I write this update here at 10:30 PM and it will be interesting to see what this weather does to the deer hunting.