September was done and over, with elk in the freezer.  Most archers had already filled muley tags during the month, but I held out, to spread the archery season and hunt later in the year. For the past decade or so I have been hunting the Late Plains Archery season in Colorado, which gives the archer most of October, November and December to target a deer, be it muley or whitetail. That means I get to hunt the rut!

Living close to my hunting unit gives me the advantage of monitoring the herd nearly daily. I constantly scan the herd, observe their patterns, and watch for new bucks moving in. I had been watching since the first of October with a couple of decent bucks in the mix, but nothing to make my heart beat faster. With nearly three months to hunt, it was best to hold out and keep watch. Nearly 30 does were in the herd, which meant the bucks WOULD show up!  Like clockwork, in November, it started to happen. Bucks began sparring and small chases were taking place. My brother Brandon and I did have a tree stand set, but most of our encounters ended up on the ground due to the lay of the land. As fate would have it, on the afternoon of November 5th, as I pulled in to quickly glass the property, a unique buck with good mass was chasing does. He had never been on the property before.