The wind was straight in my face, so I plastered the 400-yard bar of my TDS reticle on the buck's shoulder and tracked it as it nibbled its way up the drainage.

The author's buck was killed just before a light snowfall warned of an impending storm.

"He's 407 yards--401 yards, Greg. He's going to stop now. He's 397 yards. Can you take him?" Clink asked.

I locked the reticle on the 5x6's shoulder and focused on a good, steady trigger squeeze. The shot felt good, and I recovered from recoil fast enough to see the buck collapse though my scope. I could tell the buck was down for good, but Clint's whoops and hollering were reassuring nonetheless.

I was anxious to wrap my hands around the antlers of the biggest mule deer I've ever taken, but I needed a minute to savor the moment and let my knees quit knocking. After listening to Clint's play-by-play a few times, we headed down the hill to admire the deer. As we walked to the buck, a shot in the distance broke the silence and brought a smile from both of us, for it meant my client, Tony Godinez, had just scored, too.

Clint and I have been outfitters long enough to know how rare it is to pull one out ahead of Mother Nature, so Tony's buck made our photo session an especially festive affair.

Good optics and a flat-shooting rifle are essential in mule deer country. Rodriguez used a Hill Country Rifles rifle in .300 WSM, Winchester XP3 loads, a Kahles scope and Leica binoculars during his mule deer hunt.

Back at the skinning pole, the sound of a vehicle distracted us from our chores. Tony tried to look sad, but his "cat-that-ate-the-canary" smile was a dead giveaway.

"I shot your buck, Greg," he said. I rushed over to see for myself and, sure enough, "my buck" was wearing Tony's tag. He shot it about a mile from where I shot mine, in a canyon Clint and I would have checked at some point in the day. The bedded buck happened to stand up to stretch its legs just as Tony and his guide rounded the bend. It died where it stood.

I couldn't help but admire the heavy tines and kickers on Tony's buck, but as the snow began to fall, I couldn't help but be proud of my buck, too. Its twenty-five-inch-wide rack is my best ever, and I took it the hard way--on foot, in the mountains, from the jaws of defeat. It doesn't get any better than that.