It had taken me eight long years, but I was finally fortunate enough to draw a mule deer tag on the famous Kaibab Plateau of northern Arizona. There was just one problem, although I had hunted mule deer before, I had never hunted the Kaibab. In fact, the truth be told, I had never even been to the Kaibab; I had only looked at it from the south side of the Grand Canyon. Therefore, I immediately started asking other big buck hunters about reputable guides, however there was no luck there. Then one day, out of the blue, I received a flyer in the mail from Duwane Adams of Arizona Big Game Outfitters. I contacted him right away and immediately after speaking with him, I knew this was my guide.

When Fall finally arrived, I couldn’t have been any happier as I had been anticipating this deer hunt for the entire summer. I arrived in camp along with four other lucky hunters who had also drawn tags. I was paired up with one of Duwane’s guides, Gary Lane, who had experience hunting the big bucks in my unit. Gary and I set out to scout that afternoon and we immediately started seeing some pretty big mule deer. It didn’t take long before I began getting excited. However, Gary told me of a particular big buck that he had found during the previous three days of scouting. He was a true trophy mule deer and our plan was to go to that area on opening day and try to track the monster buck down.

The next morning of the deer hunt, we were in position before daybreak. As it began to get light, there were no mule deer in sight and unfortunately, we were shut out on the first day. As the week progressed, we hunted the mule deer hard in other areas and, in fact, we came across numerous mule deer. However, nothing was what we considered a trophy buck. As the week began nearing the end, all the other hunters had filled their tags and I was the only one who had not yet killed a monster mule deer. I was determined to come home with nothing but a Kaibab big buck, but deep-down, I really thought my luck was going to run out and I might not harvest the monster mule deer of my dreams.

On the evening before the last day of the deer hunt, I sat down with Duwane and Gary and discussed where we should go for the big bucks on the last day. With my deer hunt almost over, we decided to go back to the same spot where we had hunted on opening day. It would be one last effort to see if that big buck would show himself.

We were in position well before sunrise and as it started to get light, we could make out the silhouette of one mule deer, 600 yards away. Although easy to determine that it was a buck, it was just a little too dark to tell how big he really was. In the cover of the last predawn darkness, we moved down the hill to 400 yards, all the while hoping the buck would not move. As we peeked over the rise, luckily the big buck was still in position, and I quickly prepared for a shot as the buck began turning broadside. Once settled, I pulled the trigger. And with that one shot, the big buck fell dead.
 
It took us another ten minutes to get to the big buck because of where he went down. Gary was the first to get to him and he immediately started shouting. We had killed the monster buck he had seen before the season opened! Finally, I had my Kaibab trophy mule deer! We got back the monster buck to camp and we had a short celebration before heading home. Let me tell you, it was a great trip back to Phoenix, after harvesting the mule deer I have waited so long for.