When Roy Jessie opened the trunk of the old, four-door Chevy, lifting out a silver, worn .38-40 Winchester lever gun, I was wide-eyed in awe. Roy had promised he’d borrow a gun for me on this, my very first buck hunt. Up until that moment, I had no idea what it might be. I handled the heavy rifle, imagining its great power and long, deadly reach. No 13-year-old kid could have swelled more with pride.
Since that memorable buck hunt in the late 1940s, I’ve hunted mule deer across the American West in dozens of places under vastly differing conditions of weather, terrain, cover and elevation. One thing that has always struck me about the big deer is how well they adapt to so many different habitats. As you might expect, the tactics for hunting them in the three most common types of country they inhabit—high country, mesa lands and high deserts—are as distinctly different as the terrain.
HIGH COUNTRY
Mountain country and the elevation that goes with it is always spectacular.
