Best $50 I Ever Spent

Ryan Smith, 2007 Super Hunt Winner

It all started with phone call from my brother, Dallas. "You lucky SOB, your name was drawn for the Super tag," my brother told me. I couldn't believe it - best $50 I have ever spent.

Idaho Fish and Game gives away 40 Super Hunt tags in two drawings - one in June and the second in August.

After the initial shock wore off, it was time to start scouting for the "WOW" buck. I decided that I was going to hold out for the 220"+ mark. This is probably crazy from a guy that hasn't even broken the 200" mark yet. But my mind was made up - 220 or tag soup.

Fortunately, my brother lives right in the middle of the units where we were planning on spending the bulk of our time. My scouting trips consisted of my son Kody and me heading out on Friday evenings and returning home on Sunday. My brother and I both video taped many different bucks. Some of those bucks were real bomber bucks, let me tell you.

Now it was time to find the "WOW" buck. We spent many days hunting the units we had scouted so hard during the summer. We saw many great bucks and at least three bucks that would have gone over the magical 200" mark, but fell short of the 220" mark.

Business obligations kept me out of town the last week of one of the premier units that I was hunting, and my brother was a bit irritated, to say the least. I told him that if a monster showed up to get a hold of me.

I didn't mention the trip that I was leaving on was deer hunting trip on Catalina Island, California.

November 2, I was in my second full day on the island when my cell phone started receiving messages. I had one from my dad and five from my brother all telling me that I needed to get back home because a monster had shown up. Turned out a good friend of ours has a ranch that is located in the middle of some of the best late season mule deer country there is.

Earlier in the season we had run into Lou Anderson, and I told him that I had been fortunate enough to draw the Super tag. He said that if anything showed up around his place, he would be sure to get a hold of me.

Well that time was now.

So after some explaining to my boss and customers that it was a life or death situation, it was time to figure out how to get off the island and back to Idaho.

With some quick goodbyes, I was off to catch the last boat back to Long Beach, and from there I caught a one hour cab ride to Los Angeles. Unfortunately I had missed all of the flights out of LA to Boise that night. So I found a hotel and made arrangements to fly out the next morning, and I arranged to have a friend pick me up at the airport in Boise.

Saturday morning I got on the airplane and arrived in Boise without a hitch. Then it was off to meet my brother, and Chuck and Jesse Shenk - these two folks were soon to become my new friends.

We arrived at the ranch and immediately started hunting and glassing, looking over every piece of landscape possible. I was yet to see a good picture of this buck or the buck at all. After pushing some brush patches and only seeing small bucks, I was wondering if what they were calling a monster buck was really a monster.

Around 3 p.m., Chuck drove up and said that his wife had made some fresh apple pies, and would we like to go and visit for a bit and make a new game plan. Well we got to the ranch house, and Jesse hadn't just made apple pie. She had an entire meal laid out for us. Awesome is the best way to describe it.

After enjoying the great meal and pie and lots of great hunting stories, we decided to head back out and glass for the evening. If that didn't work out, we would make plans to meet up the next morning before light and catch the buck moving from his feeding grounds to his bedding area.

As we were leaving the ranch house we decided to glass the surrounding sage hills that bordered the corn fields. Within a couple minutes of glassing, Dallas had spotted the buck. It had just stepped out of a patch of Russian olive trees and was heading into the corn field in hot pursuit of a doe.

The stalk was on.

My brother and I jumped into the empty ditch that skirted the corn field the buck was in. I couldn't believe this was how it was going to end, after putting miles and miles of walking sage and lava flats, I was going to shoot my monster muley in a corn field.

So after coming up over the bank and getting the camera and myself set up, I finally took a good look at this monarch of a buck. Wow! Shouldn't have done that. For the first time since I was a kid, I started to get a bit of buck fever. I told my brother that I needed to take a second and gather myself.

I took about five seconds and turned and squeezed the trigger. For security I put a second shot in him, even though it wasn't needed -- he was on his way down. I couldn't believe it; I had finally gotten my "WOW" buck.

The buck unofficially scored 220" B&C, and is 34 1/2" wide.

The state record score for a typical mule deer is 215 5/8, and for a nontypical it is 320 4/8. The Boone and Crockett world record typical mule is 226 4/8, and nontypical is 355 2/8.

Now it was time to celebrate and take pictures.