Arizona Outdoorsman / AZOD

Two Canadian Youths Bag Trophy Mulie

by Larry Warwaruk AZOD Contributing Writer

Cousins, Allan and Kyle Ylioya engage in their first hunt for a mule deer buck in the heart of Saskatchewan’s Coteau Hills. (Canada)

Bow season opened Monday and Allan’s been out every day after school. The land around the farm teems with deer, but so far all he has seen are does and fawns. On Friday, his cousin joins him. In Kyle’s ‘86’ Ford truck they drive down Niskala Hill to Karvonen Springs, place-names of early homesteaders.

The dirt road trails south along the west bank of the valley. Purple chokecherries hang in heavy bunches, the air dead calm and warm. They spot several antlerless Mule Deer across the valley, running up hill and out of sight. A large buck remains at the bottom, standing in trees at least two hundred yards from the boys. They drive ahead to a dip in the road, out of the animal’s view, and they leave the truck. They walk until the deer comes into their view again, still where he was in the trees, now fifty yards distant.

There’s not much daylight left, and they crawl single-file, Alan with the bow, Kyle with the deer-call, and binoculars. They are on their knees on a deer trail, crawling through bush, and they can’t see a thing; they don’t dare stand up, in fear of scaring the buck. Twenty yards away, they hear the snapping of twigs. The deer has trotted a bit further away. Allan draws his bow and watches. The deer watches too, then trots over the hill and out of sight.

Kyle has set the alarm for five, but Saturday morning Allan wakes to sunlight shining through his bedroom window. He looks at the clock; it’s after seven. The alarm was set for five p.m. No time for breakfast, they hurry back to Karvonen Springs with hopes to see the buck again. But there’s only does and fawns. Nothing to do but go back home for breakfast and back to bed.

Over toast and chocolate milk, Allan remembers the bucks he saw in the spring on the field he was cultivating for his dad. He saw them again when he drove the truck taking water to the sprayer. Again while hauling grain during harvest. Why hadn’t they been going there? Allan had been going to the valley only because he was used to hearing his father talk over the years of hunting at Karvonen Springs. There’s been a change of plans; he and Kyle will drive four miles west of home to Mclean’s...land his dad had just taken up renting this year.

By nine-thirty they are driving around dry sloughs, and the day is already getting too hot for comfort. Nothing stirs up. One tiny slough-bed remains, and just as they approach, four bucks stand up. For two minutes the boys stare, and the animals stare, until finally the deer trot off to the south, across wheat stubble, over a rise and out of sight. One of the bucks was huge.

“He could hardly hold his head up!” Kyle says. “Did you see its rack bobbing up and down while he was running? And the way his rear-end swayed back and forth? We should put him out of his misery!”

They leave the truck and follow the tracks. The big animal’s footprints are easy to tell apart from the others...deep into the dirt, and wide across. They walk half a mile to a gentle rise, their shirts wet with sweat. Over the rise the tracks separate, two deer running east into the wind, and the other two, including the big one, continue in the direction of a large meadow, another quarter-mile to the south.

They see stubble fields and summerfallow in every direction around the meadow. No trees, the landscape flat and open. The meadow itself is three hundred yards across, bordered with poplar bushes to the east, and on the north edge facing the boys. Rimming the south end of the meadow is a sharp-rising hillside covered with sagebrush. Willows edge to the west. A lush growth of five-foot high canary grass fills the meadow. Allan and Kyle think that the Mule Deer buck and another one are somewhere down there in the canary grass.

The boys know nothing better than to continue walking towards the meadow. With rifles it would be like shooting fish in a barrel; but two boys with one bow, who knows what can happen? When they enter into the poplar bushes, as quiet as they try to be, they can’t avoid the crack and snap of dry twig deadfall. From here they see the big buck for the second time. It stands up in the canary grass, the smaller one with it, one hundred and fifty yards away in the middle of the meadow. The boys sit down and hide. For ten minutes the two deer stand motionless. Finally they lie down. The boys wait half an hour more, deciding what they should do.

They retreat back to the stubble field, then slink far back to the east and around to the south hill. Pure luck appears to be with them; a stiff breeze blows from the east, yet the bucks have not stirred. The boys are in the path of the hot wind, and they wonder whether they should have circled from the west instead.

They make it to the hillside, luck intact, but then something happens. A spike buck bolts from the sagebrush, not fifteen yards from the boys. The deer in the canary grass stand again, one hundred yards away. The boys freeze, and in five minutes their luck holds as the two animals in the center of the meadow bed down yet again.

For close to an hour the boys wait on the hillside; there is no room for mistakes. Kyle will stay on the hillside, hidden in the sagebrush. Allan with bow and arrows will swing back around further to the south and work his way west. From there he will sneak forward into the canary grass, into the wind, towards the Mule Deer bucks.

Allan keeps low, moving on cue from Kyle’s hand signals. He’s gone in about thirty yards when he hears a crashing through the grass. His heart skips, to think that all is lost. But from the hillside, Kyle has seen that it’s only another spike buck jumping away. Kyle motions for Allan to keep down. For the third time the two Mule Deer bucks stand up in the canary grass, this time though not bolting, they move ten yards further away from the spike buck’s bed and Allan. Here again after nervous minutes, they’re down again.

Allan stays very low, peering through the grass stalks with his own binoculars. He moves hardly at all. The wind is in his favor. He makes out what he thinks is an antler just below the top of the grass.

Kyle has seen the small buck rise and walk closer to the large one, grunting once, and then again.

Allan hears the grunts. He has an arrow out of the quiver, in place on the bow from when he first entered into the grass.

From his vantage on the hillside Kyle sees the small buck lie down. He sees the glint of sunlight on the arrow’s metal tip. He signals for Allan to draw. He holds the plastic deer-call to his mouth, his hands shaking. He blows it three times.

Allan pulls back as he stands, as the big Mule Deer buck stands broadside to Allan, ears twitching, facing the sound of Kyle’s call. Allan releases the arrow.

The buck takes off. Allan again thinks that all is lost. The buck jumps then disappears. Surely he’s hit, but he did run away.

Kyle races down the hillside. He’s shaking.

Allan shouts, “Did it get to the field? Did it get out of the canary grass? Through the trees? Is it gone in the field?”

“You got it! You got it!”

But now both boys are worried that it might be down and only wounded. It must be somewhere close in the canary grass.

“I’ll go for the truck,” Kyle says. “You stay and watch.”

Allan stays put until Kyle gets back. Several minutes they search through the grass. And then Allan spots the antlers. He reaches out with his foot and taps a prong with the toe of his running shoe. Taps again to make sure the deer is dead. He examines the body; his Mule Deer has been hit in the chest, the arrow right through its lungs. -AZOD-