Mark Taylor-Arlington, Texas

Ask any hunter in Texas this year and they will tell you the hunting was tough. It was no different for me and my buddy Mike. We had a great hunt in Colorado this year with both of us taking a muley. My youngest son shot his first whitetail this year but I wasn't seeing any deer.

When the local weather station said that it was going to sleet and be in the 20's we thought it would be a great chance for us to see deer moving. It had been warm up till now and being the last part of November we thought the bucks might be rutting so we packed our stuff and took off for Comanche Co.

On the way I stopped and bought a deer lure I had never tried (Tom Miranda's deer lure). I wanted to use a scent while I called on my grunt call.

We got to our camp after dark and it was already sleeting on us. The gentlemen who lives on the land asked us about 10:30 that night if we wanted to stay in his house. I still don't know why but we said no. With that we turned on our weather radio and went to sleep. When we woke early that morning on November 28, 2001 it was white outside from the sleet and very cold. I was ready and so was Mike (for a little while).

I went to my stand about 6 and Mike also at the same time. I got to my stand and put my scent out and started calling. It didn't take long for me to see my first buck of the morning. He darted by really quick and stayed in the woods where I could barely see him. He slowly moved away. About 30 minutes my second buck came out from the same place and did the same thing. This buck looked bigger but I couldn't get a shot off. I am glad I couldn't. Around 7:40 I was looking toward a pasture in front of me.

As I was looking at the pasture in front of me, I saw my third buck of the morning come out from the river bottoms to my left. I caught a movement and grabbed my gun. I slowly turned toward the buck and saw his rack was out past his ears so I decided to shoot this buck. I never put the scope up to this buck's rack. I had already decided take this buck so when I found his shoulder I shot. After I shot, the fourth buck of the morning jumped out and ran in front of me. I already had my deer though. My buck went down about 30 yards from were I shot him. I still had no idea about how big this deer was. When I got close enough to see the rack I put my gun back on him really quick. He didn't move so I went to look at the buck of my lifetime.

After tagging this buck I ran back to camp to find my buddy Mike sitting in his truck with the motor running. I was jumping up and down and asking him what was he doing. He was cold and didn't think he would see anything. I let him know how many deer I saw and I told him I shot a 18 pointer he jumped up and down with me. I took him on my 4 wheeler and took him to my monster buck. He recounted and let me know it was a 19 pointer and there was a chunk broken off his palmated side. He wanted to be mentioned to let other hunters know you can't shot a deer sitting in the truck. A trophy 10 pointer was also taken this year from this lease--all free range deer.