I spotted the 4-by-4 muley at first light and decided to make a move. There was snow on the ground and it was 13 degrees. The closer I got to the buck in the bottom of a draw laced with tall sage brush, I realized I couldn’t get within bow range. The ground was crunchy in the still morning air, and there were six does with the buck. Too many eyeballs and noisy footsteps forced me to abort.
I moved on but didn’t see another mule deer all morning, so at midday I returned to where I’d seen the buck. He and does were gone, but I picked up their tracks and followed them in the snow for a quarter
