A Buck For All Seasons

What was supposed to be a one-time deer hunt in the Nebraska Sandhills turned into a years-long campaign that finally ended last December, with the whitetail of a lifetime

- Colin Kearns

He emerged early, when the light was dim but legal and the December frost made ghosts of his breath. He ascended a mound toward a cut cornfield, then we began our approach. One hundred yards away, he stood—head down, left shoulder broadside—in a wind that did his kind no favors. This was all working out too well.

My last two hunts out here had kind of conditioned me to failure: I’d had high hopes that were dashed; I’d made decisions that haunted me. This time, in the last chapter of what had evolved into a three- season journey, I arrived with simple goals: to hunt hard and to hunt with a friend. But now, only 45 minutes into day one, with the muzzleloader stable on the sticks and the crosshairs settling over vitals, the former was an afterthought. I hadn’t exactly hunted hard on this trip—I hadn’t had the chance—but I did hunt hard to get here.

“He’s a good buck,” my guide said. “But it’s your call if you want to shoot.”

CH.1 THE RIFLE SEASON

NOVEMBER 2013

FOUR YEARS AGO, IF YOU’D ASKED ME WHAT ANIMAL

I most wanted to hunt for the first time, I would have answered mule deer. I can’t say why, exactly, other than I was just enthralled by the animal. And it was that desire that triggered an invitation to western Nebraska, courtesy of my buddies Chuck

Smock and Joe Arterburn, from Cabela’s. They’d been given access to hunt a cattle ranch near North Platte, Neb., and asked me to join them. The place was supposed to have lots of deer—muleys and whitetails— and we’d have it all to ourselves. I was in.