I've hunted this region of Nevada for about 14 years, and this is the third or the fourth time I've drawn this particular area - first 14 years ago, then 12 years ago, in 2007 and then again in 2008. The State of Nevada has a super deer-management program right now. They go into each unit and perform fawn counts each year. This way, they either give more tags or take tags away from certain areas, depending on the number of deer they see. Right now, Nevada is handling their deer-management program as good, if not better, than any other state in the country.

I knew this spot pretty well. My friend, Todd Brasman, a local hunter, drew a cow-elk tag this year. We met Brasman the night before the hunt, and he gave us good advice on where he'd seen nice-sized mule deer in the area he'd scouted for elk. I gave Brasman a Hunter's Specialties' Fight'n Cow Elk Call and a Hunter's Specialties' Bull Hooker Cow Elk Call. In about 10 minutes, I taught him how to properly use these two new calls.

The next day, opening day of elk season (August 1, 2008), Brasman called in his first cow elk using these new calls. Although he shot over the elk, he was so excited about calling in his first elk that he told us all about it. He also told us he'd found and bedded-down about seven mule deer bucks. Since Brasman had knee surgery earlier this year, he said, "My knee won't let me chase after these big mule deer, so I'll tell you where these mule deer are located and how to reach them."

The next morning, Jimmy Estes, my cameraman, told us he'd found the place Brasman had mentioned. We walked right into the middle of the deer and had all seven bucks bedded-down from 13 to 21 yards from where I stood at the ready with my bow. The only thing we could see on many of the bucks was their racks. There was one little Christmas-tree-looking pine tree I couldn't see behind, but I knew there was a mule deer behind it. I finally heard a deer stand-up and then saw this monstrous mule-deer buck walk from behind that little Christmas tree. He saw us, snorted and blew out of the area, taking the other seven bucks with him. That was the first day of the hunt. Every day we glassed and filmed big bucks.

The last morning of the hunt, we spotted the same big buck and watched him feed across the entire face of a mountain. We saw him go down in water. I wanted to run down, get in front of him and take a shot. But Jimmy said, "Let's wait, let him bed down, and then put a stalk on him." The buck went back up the mountain, almost to the top before he bedded-down. Before we started the stalk, Jimmy and I sprayed down with Scent-A-Way spray. We left most of our gear there, except the camera, the batteries, my rangefinder and my bow. We knew we had to reach the top of the mountain to the bedded buck before he got up and wandered off. We covered 1 to 1-1/2-miles of rough terrain in about 20 minutes. When we arrived above the buck, he'd risen and started to feed. I ranged him at 48 yards, drew my bow, locked into shooting position and released the arrow. The arrow dropped right into the buck's heart, and he didn't run 100 yards before he dropped.

Because of our Leupold binoculars and spotting scope, we not only could see the buck, we also could see where he was going, and what he was doing. So we were able to get into position to make the shot. Because we had a homemade solar shower, we could take a shower every day after hunting, wash down with Scent-A-Way soap, wash our clothes in the creek and spray them down with Scent-A-Way spray. This way, we were as scent-free as possible. The weather was extremely hot (85 to 100 degrees), and without the Scent-A-Way sprays and soaps, we wouldn't have seen as many mule deer as we did.

Next Week: Al Morris' Secrets for Taking Monster Mule Deer