10 Ring on a Coues Buck

Nicole Deshaw, age 12

Daughter of NAHC Life Member Bill Deshaw 

Arizona Coues Deer 3 x 4 Buck

Browning BAR Mk II w/BOSS - .270 Win

Burris Fullfield 3 – 9 x 40 scope

Remington Core-Lokt 130 gr.

437 yards – Bushnell Rangefinder

 (See 2 pictures in Hunting Brag)

  Nicole has more outdoor experience than most 12 year olds.  She completed Hunter Education when she was 10 and harvested her first elk that year.  She helps me and my fellow Hunter Education instructors with our classes on field days by doing shooting demonstrations, being a hidden hunter for the shoot-don’t shoot scenarios on the walk through, cleaning the range rifles and general gopher duties.  She has been to javelina, elk and deer camps and has harvested two elk and now a nice Coues whitetail buck. 

  In my opinion, the Coues deer is the hardest animal to bring home in Arizona.  They are smart, sneaky, small and fast. They thrive in country where everything sticks stabs or bites; places where it seems that you always end up walking uphill to get back to camp at the end of the day.

     On this day my partner Brian and I drove our hunters, his son & my daughters, a couple of miles from camp in his truck.  We showed them various campsites we’ve used over the years, a little lake to fish in, a couple coveys of quail, and then we walked a few ridges, threw a few rocks and kicked up some does.  At this point I offered to walk whoever wanted to go back to camp, through about 2.5 miles of draws, ridges and canyons that seem to get ignored by other hunters, pretty sure I could put somebody on a buck.  Brian’s 16-year-old son Eric, and my 15-year-old daughter Danielle, decided to ride the truck back to camp, only Nicole piped up “I’ll go Daddy”.  I told Brian to expect us in about 2 to 2 ½ hours at the reservoir below camp.  I had talked Nicole into leaving her .244 Remington, given to her by her Grandma, back at camp and packing my Browning because it would give her more range and had better optics.  She complained about the extra weight, but Brian had told her that she wouldn’t feel it at all if she got a deer and the rifle wouldn’t kick and her ears wouldn’t ring.

     We took our time, moving slowly through the mesquite, oaks, evergreens and ocotillo.  I would point the general direction and let her pick the path, occasionally suggesting changes and reasons why, like you can’t see to shoot from the bottom of a brush-choked draw.  Eventually we came out on the west side of a deep draw, our side too steep to walk down and covered with a thick growth of oaks, cedars, junipers, mesquites and the ever present mean bushes.  The other side was more open with mesquites, agaves’, sotol and, of course some more mean bushes, these particular ones are known locally as shin-diggers, you can guess why.  We moved north down the rim to an open area where we could stand side by side.  I picked up a couple of rocks and chucked them into the trees below.  After a minute I saw a deer at the bottom of the opposite slope.  One, two – the second one had a rack that I could see with the naked eye.  I had thrown the rocks up the canyon from us so the deer were looking the wrong way from where we were. 

I whispered as loud as I could “Deer!  You want the 2^nd one.”  A quick glance around showed no good firing positions so I flung my daypack to the ground, Nic took a prone position over it and racked a round into the Browning.  I suggested where to aim then let out a sharp whistle, the buck paused and glanced our way.  Boom!  She missed!  She lowered the rifle and reached for the bolt.

 “No”, I yelled,  “You are already loaded, it’s my rifle, shoot again!”  Boom! Went the next round, too quick, missed again.  The buck realized that the game had started and boy did he get moving now.  “Settle down, be sure, then squeeze.”  I said, “hold at the top of his back & in front of his neck.”  Boom!  Too much lead, miss number three.  But the bullet hit in front of him and caused him to make his mistake, he had been doing pretty good running across the side hill, now he turned and ran straight away from her.  Last chance, she only had 4 rounds. Boom!  Down he goes and up jumps Nicole.

 “I got him Daddy!  I got him!” she squealed.

 “I think so Kiddo, but I’m not sure”, I answered.  “I saw his buddy go over the hill but I didn’t see him”.  I had tied my binoculars to my pack strap, when I flung it down they went too, not one of my brightest moves. 

 Nicole was positive, “I got him, I saw him go down in the scope, I saw his tail by the tree and he never moved.”

     It took about 20 minutes to get over to the other side of the draw.  After orienting ourselves and lining up the trees we found the buck.  Clean kill, dropped him in his tracks, no visible sign of bullet entry or exit.  Yep, you guessed it, Texas head shot, Rock Springs heart shot, depending on where you live you probably have yet another name.  Right in the cooter, if dead center was the X ring, she got a 10, missed the X by ½ an inch.  The bullet went through the pelvic hole, broke the spine in front of the tenderloins and took out the liver and one lung.  I guess if you have to shoot something in the butt, dead center is best because no meat was ruined.  We took our pictures, tagged and cleaned him, then hustled to make our 4:30 rendezvous with Brian.  After meeting up with him, he took a few more pictures then we climbed in the truck and were able to take a ride up the last hill back to camp.

(This was a good year for us, Brian took out a 9 pointer, I took an 8 and Nicole brought home the 7 pointer out of the area we hunt in southern Arizona.  And yes, the older kids had a little more juice the next day, especially when Nikki wished them luck and rolled over and went back to sleep.) 

  Bill Deshaw

 (aka Nichole’s dad)