By Cory Glauner

We couldn't believe it when my wife Coletti drew a mule deer tag on "The Strip". Unit 13-B, is one of the hardest deer tags to draw anywhere. Awesome! In Arizona, there is a number that you can call and a recorded voice tells you if you drew or not. I called it three or four times just to make sure.

I did some scouting that summer, talked to a lot of different people and pinned down what I thought was our best bet. Opening day took forever to come around, and Coletti's Dad and her brother, Kale came down to hunt with us.

We set up a nice camp the day before the hunt and I went out glassing to try to find some deer. No luck. The first three or four days, we hunted hard and didn't see any deer. Not even a doe. Everybody was getting run down and frustrated. We did keep seeing huge tracks though, so that told us that there were deer around the area. It was just hard to see into the junipers.

While I was talking to other people who had hunted there, they all told me that we wouldn't see many deer, but when we did, it would more than likely be a big one. So I wasn't too worried.

The fifth day was miserable, drizzling rain and windy. Coletti and John stayed in camp to rest, and Kale and I went out to try to find something. I couldn't handle sitting around. We glassed all morning to no avail and were on our way back to camp for lunch.

We were cruising down a pretty major dirt road at about 45 mph and like I said, it was a really cloudy, gloomy day. I looked off to the right and there was a shaft of sunlight shining down through the clouds. As we drove past it, I thought I saw a big set of wet antlers shining in the sunlight with a deer attached. I flipped the pickup around as soon as I could and said, "Kale, there's a HUGE buck back there." He said, "calm down Cory, it's just a deer", but I knew it was a big buck just from the glimpse that I had seen.

We drove back a little more slowly and I told Kale where to look. As soon as he saw the deer he yelled, "Turn around. We've got to go get Coletti, that deer's huge!" and I said, "Calm down Kale, it's just a deer".

The buck was bedded down between two juniper trees, pretty much in the wide open. Other than those two trees, there was absolutely no cover and I was scared that some other hunters would see him before we could get back, but the way he was situated, you could only see him for a split second as you drove past. And even then, it was hard to see him. It was amazing how he could blend in so well even in the wide open. I bet he had used that hiding place for a long time. So obvious that everybody overlooked it. If it hadn't been for that shaft of sunlight, I never would have seen him.

We flipped back around and flew to camp to get Coletti, sliding around corners, bouncing over ruts and jumping bumps in the road, my little Ford Ranger never ran the same again. The only things that slowed us down were gates. It took 45 long minutes to get to camp, and I was getting worried. When we got there, Coletti and her dad were playing cards. We told them to hurry up, grab their stuff and jump in the pickups. We finally found a buck, and he's a doozy!

The ride back to the deer was just as crazy and Coletti started to get carsick and wanted me to pull over, but I just told her to puke out the window. Nice guy huh? We were almost there and a huge buck and some does crossed the road in front of us. I bet he was pushing 35" wide, but he was only a three-point. She wanted to shoot it, and I told her that I thought the other one was bigger, but it was up to her. She said, "Let's go after the big one". That's my girl! She didn't complain about being carsick after that.

We got to where the deer was and I was praying that he'd still be there as we drove by… he was! I was ecstatic and Coletti's jaw about hit the floorboard. We drove up over a hill from the deer, parked, and impatiently waited for John and Kale. It didn't take them too long to get there, but it seemed like forever. John stayed with the rigs (lucky for us, it turned out), Kale grabbed the video camera, I grabbed my binoculars, Coletti grabbed her gun, and off we went.

The plan was to circle above the buck and shoot him in his bed… simple, right? Wrong. So, we snuck up over this hill and I start to glass for the buck and I couldn't see him. It just didn't seem right, and we couldn't figure out where he had gone… he should have been there. Then, we see a pickup drive by one little draw over from us, put on its brakes and flip around. We were in the wrong draw, and that other pickup had just seen our deer!! Luckily, John was able to convince them that we were already working the buck and they left… close call. Anyway, we figured out that we were in the wrong spot and crawled up over the next hill.

I glassed and glassed and still couldn't find him. Now I'm starting to panic. Did he get up and leave? Coletti and I stood up and started sneaking down toward the two juniper trees. We got about forty yards from them, and I heard Coletti whisper, "There he is". I looked up and saw that the buck had stepped out into the open, and amazingly he hadn't seen us yet!

He stepped out, stretched, looked over towards us, and just as I see the surprise in his eyes… BOOOM!!! Coletti dropped him like a sack of potatoes. It was awesome! I picked up Coletti in a big bear hug and swung her around. I think I was more excited than she was. Kale even got most of it on video.

After our celebration, pictures, and caping him out, John was able to drive my truck right up to the deer and we loaded him whole. All evening long and into the night, I couldn't shut up and was jabbering on and on about it. I think they got sick of hearing how awesome the whole thing was. I just couldn't believe it, and I'd go out every few minutes and just hold the rack in my hands and look at it. He ended up scoring 211". Pretty good buck. I hope that someday I'll be able to draw a tag of that caliber and try to beat him. A great hunt for a great deer. We did get pretty lucky, but hey, you just take what you get right?

Species: Mule Deer Location of Hunt: Arizona Weapon: Winchester Model 70 30.06 Equipment: Leupold 3x9 Scope, Doctor 15x60 Binoculars, Danner Boots