Dane Hancock's 3A/3C rifle velvet mule deer

This year I was able to take my younger brother on his deer hunt.  My dad (Mike), Daniel, Dane, and Myself had spent many days scouting for Dane and our clients and had come up with quite the hit list of bucks.  The unit was looking more promising than the past two seasons with more deer and more mature bucks.  Dane and myself were looking for two bucks in particular, The wide heavy four and a narrow tall four point that we had seen for the past three seasons while hunting elk but had eluded us during the past deer seasons. 

I drove up Thursday night and headed into where the two bucks lived to glass.  I ended up not seeing any deer but saw around 100 head of elk.  Opening morning came and Dane and I were headed out to drive in to start still hunting down through some burned cuts.  We were sitting in the truck talking about our game plan and waiting for it to get light enough to start walking up the ridge we were going to work down.  Grey light finally approached and we were getting our stuff together to take off up the hill.  We had made it 50 yards from the truck when two bedded bucks stood up out of a stand of jack pines at 175 yards catching both of us off guard.  We were still getting stuff situated and hadn't had a chance to get the shooting sticks ready.  I told Dane to get ready as I threw up my binos to see what the bucks were.  The buck in the front was our "Wide Heavy Buck" I thought would be 185-190 range.  Both of the bucks were still in the velvet which was odd for the time of year.  I told Dane to get on him as he was moving away up the hill with the other buck.  I ranged him at 215 yards and told him to take him if he could, as he was having to shoot offhand.  As Dane's 300 win mag rang out I watched as the big buck kept moving up the hill and the second buck hit the ground.  He had walked in front of the big buck at the wrong time and took the bullet intended for his buddy.  We made our way up the hill to find that Dane had caught the buck right at the base of the pedicle and shot a horn off.  The hunt ended up lasting about two minutes total after leaving the truck.   Although it was short it was nice spending time with my brother in the woods doing what both of us love to do.  Congrats to Dane on a nice buck and thanks for letting me be a part of the hunt.

Dane's velvet buck



Some bucks from the same area



Potential looks good for next season