The author with his last-morning Utah buck, taken at 100 yards with an open-sighted muzzleloader.
We slept in the 8,000-square-foot log lodge perched on a promontory that offers a postcard view of Sand Creek's colorful canyons. At 10,200 acres, with another 10,000 leased, Sand Creek Ranch qualifies as a Cooperative Wildlife Management Unit. The Utah Division of Wildlife approves hunting seasons that do not necessarily correspond with general seasons on public land and smaller private properties. In return for this flexibility and landowner tags, each CWMU must benefit both wildlife and hunters.
At ridgetop before sunrise on the opener, I prowled the adjacent Moon Ranch, property under long-term lease. Its bluffs and steep juniper slopes fall away into spectacular canyons packed with deer late in the season. But though the first week of November should have brought both snow and the rut, there was no sign of either that first day. Nor did I score the second, third or fourth. Delighted to have the mountains to myself, I didn't mind. A hunter who must kill to enjoy his day will have a lot of bad days.
The first hint of rut came mid-week, when a young buck ghosted through a draw below me, neck outstretched, behind a gaggle of does. Still, the mature bucks stayed hidden. I left lots of footprints looking for theirs.
Environment:
A decade ago, Doug, Larry and Danny Adams--majority stake-holders in Atlanta-based Outdoor Expedition, International (OEI), part land brokerage and part outfitting service--saw that most Western ranch properties were sold to developers or to augment existing cattle operations. "We buy land, improve it and sell it," Larry says. "We're not developers in the traditional sense. We look for relatively remote property with natural beauty and abundant wildlife. Our aim is to make it more beautiful and attract more wildlife. In doing so, we add value to the property.
"We survey each new purchase. We confirm water rights, grazing histories, ownership and disposition of adjoining lands. Roads get a lot of attention before and after we commit. All-weather access to remote areas is one of the features most in demand," says Larry.
"We also consult with biologists who help us give the deer and elk herds a boost, sometimes by reducing harvest or better controlling range use by domestic stock. Our mission is to make each property a wildlife reservoir," says Danny.
OEI doesn't just deal in big ranches. It also puts hunters in touch with landowners who have small tracts or hunting rights for sale. "We get lots of listings that offer sportsmen of average means a chance at private-land hunts," says OEI's Mike Disario. "Our service gives landowners a broader market than they'd find locally or with traditional brokers teethed on livestock operations and hobby farms."
Shrewd businessmen with the courage and capital to pioneer such ventures, the Adamses come across as the best of stewards. Deer hunting in the West is unlikely to return to the days only very old hunters remember. It may be, though, that OEI's land business will prosper deer herds in the way military call-up, predator control and changes in livestock practices delivered a post-war mule deer bonanza.
Two days later a snowstorm predicted to dump nearly a foot in the high Uintas fell apart at the last minute, and only a few wind squalls reached Sand Creek. I spotted several moose and some very big bull elk in their wake. But no big bucks.
The final day yawned hard before sunrise, wind keening through the porch rails of the lodge. I hiked east, through gray pre-dawn light. Powder snow curled over my boots as the icy gale sliced through my Filson. Up, up, I trudged, over a tall ridge, then down its lee side into a sweeping, sheltered basin.
Soon, I cut fresh tracks. Then I saw the deer--all does. Still-hunting alongside aspens marking the descent of the basin into a canyon, I entered a copse of cedars too fast. A doe pogo-sticked off to the west. When shadows behind her coughed up antlers, I struggled to free my mittened fingers. My response was slow and clumsy. The buck was quick and sure--gone in a wink.
Tracking was now my only hope. His prints led me upwind into oaks so dense I was forced to my knees. There the trails split. Now the buck was not thinking about his date. He hooked crosswind, around the canyon's head. Once he put me upwind, the game would be over. Frantically I glassed the bush ahead.
There! A dark patch against a snowy limb. In my 8x32 Leupold binocular, it became the nape of the buck's neck. But a thick latticework of branches barred my bullet. He knew about me. I'd have to get my chance now or concede the match.
By great good fortune, the buck broke cover and stopped on a small open knob just as I found a window in the oaks. I knelt, steadied the bead on his ribs and pressed the trigger.
Click!
It seemed the Fates had me in a half-nelson. I was out of second chances and out of time. Flicking the bolt in a last desperate attempt, I dealt the primer one more blow. Boom! White smoke obscured the buck, but when he re-appeared, his stride seemed labored. Then, just before the oaks swallowed him again, he stumbled. In an instant he was down, a flurry of snow erupting into a lemon sun.
Endings like this favor hunters who persevere when good luck seems to have gone on vacation. But your odds also improve in country that's cultivated for wildlife, where forage, cover, topography--and protection--attract and maintain robust deer herds. Sand Creek is a great example of what vision, work and a conservation ethic can accomplish.
