In a lifetime of deer hunting, I've come to expect the unexpected. Take my 1993 season, for example. Traveling to Alberta for a hunt, I came oh-so-close to shooting three different trophy bucks but somehow went home empty-handed. When I headed to northern Saskatchewan, a tough, bone-chilling hunt was looking bad until a 160-class 9-pointer changed everything by wandering beneath my tree stand on the fourth day. And later in South Texas, I spent almost a week chasing a single buck before I finally pulled the plug at the last minute and decided to completely change my tactics, locations, strategy and target. Just as time was winding down, I was rewarded with a beautiful 170-class 10-pointer.

But none of my hunts that year _ or any other year, for that matter _ could have prepared me for the week my friends and I spent chasing whitetails near my home in northwestern Montana. For my three visitors from Georgia _ Melvin, Stevie and Ed _ this was a much-anticipated hunt. So when we met at my hunting cabin in the hills west of Kalispell, I decided to do everything I could to help them get their bucks. As it turned out, I had no idea exactly what that would entail.

What follows is the day-to-day account, as recorded in my diary, of that memorable hunt _ a week, I might add, which marked the end of what loosely could be referred to as my "guiding career."

Thursday, November 18

6 a.m. After my two Canadian trips, it's good to be back to the "warmer" climes of Montana _ except that it's too warm for deer hunting. Highs are in the 50s and there's no snow. The deer aren't going to be moving much in this weather, but today is the traditional start of the Montana rut. That'll help. We're going to scatter out this morning, look around and try to get a handle on what's going on. 

12 noon It's quiet out there. Too quiet. I checked a cutover that was hot last year and saw four does and two young bucks at first light. After that, nothing. The deer are bedding down early in this warm weather. About 10 o'clock this morning, smoke from burning slash piles led me to a recently completed logging operation. I found good sign there, including some promising buck rubs. Deer here really flock to fresh cutovers, because they like to eat the moss on the downed trees. I'm going to look for some other logging operations right after lunch, and unless something better turns up, I'll end up back where they're burning. 

7:15 p.m. I found two more recent logging areas with encouraging sign. Neither were better than the cutover I found this morning, though, so that's where I spent the last two hours. Does and fawns started showing up right away. About 30 minutes before dark, a 130-class 8-pointer ambled in. He was more interested in eating than in the half dozen does around him. I even did some rattling within sight of him, and he hardly looked my way. There's not much evidence of the rut. At last light, a good buck moved through at the edge of my vision, but I couldn't tell exactly what he was. The other guys haven't seen much, except a wolf in the yard of the cabin. Interesting place, this Montana. 

Friday, November 19

6:45 a.m. If the weather report is correct, we've got a humdinger of a cold front moving in here tomorrow night. They're talking about up to a foot of snow and temperatures below zero. I'll believe it when I see it. It's plain muggy out there now. I hope they're right, though. That's exactly what we need to get these deer on the move and kick off the rut. 

After looking around yesterday, it's become obvious the bucks are bedding above the cutovers and coming down to feed. Hunting low is okay in the afternoon, but the best plan for morning hunts would be to get above the cutover and intercept the bucks as they return to bed. That's exactly what Ed and I are going to do this morning. 

12:10 p.m. We had some excitement but didn't quite connect. Not knowing the lay of the land very well, it was 8:45 before we found a good setup, which turned out to be a bald knob overlooking the high side of the cutover. Dense lodgepole pines, which make perfect bedding cover, stretched far up the hill behind us. We had just settled in when deer started filtering by. 

The first one was a spike. Soon after came a yearling 6-pointer. Next, a couple of does meandered by. At 9:20, a doe ran through an opening about 150 yards below us. I had my binoculars locked on the opening when a 140-class 8-pointer hurried across seconds later. If they stayed their course, their route would take them up a fairly open draw about 100 yards to the left. That's were I had Ed train his .308. Unfortunately, we had seen the last of that buck. I have no idea where he went. I tried rattling him in but managed only a forkhorn, our last deer of the morning. Stevie has to return to Georgia tomorrow so I'm hunting with him this afternoon. 

8:40 p.m. Frustration. We had him . . . almost. Stevie and I started the afternoon looking for some new areas and checking the other cutovers I'd found earlier. We didn't find anything we liked better than that first place, so we headed there at 3:30. About 300 yards into the cutover, a very good buck walked nonchalantly across the trail 75 yards in front of us, right at a logger's loading deck. With any luck, I figured we could catch him standing in the bald open. We eased slowly forward, Stevie with his rifle at ready and me with my 10X binoculars poised for duty. I was delighted by the prospects of pulling a last-minute trophy out of the hat for Stevie.

When we reached the edge of the loading dock, we inched forward and peeked around the last bit of brush. The buck was there, 60 yards away on the far side of the opening. Binoculars weren't necessary to see he was a shooter. Before I even raised my glasses, I issued the go-ahead to Stevie, who was slightly behind me and to my right. The buck was quite a sight through 10-power magnification. Quartering away, his thick neck bulged as he looked back at us with growing concern. His rack was very tall but not that wide, maybe 18 inches. On the strength of those 10 long points, he'd score better than 150. 

As I studied the buck, it dawned on me that Stevie should have already fired. "Shoot him, Stevie," I whispered. Precious seconds passed. "Shoot him, Stevie!" I said again, with mounting urgency. Then came a response, but not the one I was expecting. 

"I can't find him in the scope!" 

I snapped my head around to find Stevie wiggling the rifle barrel in small circles, his left eye tightly shut. "Open both eyes," I instructed, "look at the deer and then point the rifle at him." Stevie did so and immediately said he could see the buck . . . just as it bounded off. I'm not sure which of us was more disappointed.

Saturday, November 20

6:15 a.m. Something's astir with this weather. It's warm and ominously overcast _ like the calm before the storm. The weather forecast is still calling for a major change tonight, and they could be right. Stevie's gone home. Too bad he didn't get his buck. 

Melvin, Ed and I are going to hunt a remote basin this morning where I saw several good bucks last year. I've held off hunting there until deer activity picked up because it requires a two-mile hike over a steep ridge to reach it. But if it snows as much as predicted, we might not be able to get there later. Besides, with a front of this magnitude coming in, the deer may be moving in advance of it. Ed's going to accompany me this morning. Melvin will parallel us by a couple hundred yards. 

2:45 p.m. We're some tired troopers. We must have walked 10 miles this morning, seemingly all uphill. But things are heating up in deerdom. We were late getting to the basin because we got hung up in a herd of about 20 mule deer as we topped the ridge. We got to where I wanted to hunt about 9 o'clock, and Ed and I quickly rattled in a young 8-pointer and a second unidentified buck. A couple more rattling sequences yielded nothing. 

We then began slipping through a huge area of open timber that had been thinned two years earlier. This is a favorite feeding area and is seldom disturbed because of its remoteness. As a result, deer frequent this area during all hours of the day. Patches of thick cover scattered throughout the open timber offer just enough concealment to attract big bucks. Ed and I had just rounded a bend on a logging road in one of those thick patches when a dandy buck appeared 30 yards in front of us. He didn't wait around. I regretted blundering into him, but I was encouraged to spot a mature buck on his feet; it's something we haven't seen much of the last two days. 

An hour and a handful of does later, we walked up on a buck standing watch over a doe some 100 yards away on a sidehill. Ed wanted something scoring at least 140, and a quick check with the binoculars told me the 10-pointer just made the grade. I gave Ed the thumbs-up at the same time the two deer, which had also seen us, started up the hill. But by expertly utilizing every shred of cover, the two whitetails were able to slip away, denying Ed a clean shot. Truthfully, though, I had mixed emotions about that buck getting away. After all, the nearest road was two miles away over a not-insignificant hill, and Ed still had several days of hunting left. 

We saw only one more buck, a 125-class 10-pointer hot after a doe, as we topped the hill en route to the truck about 2 o'clock. Elk sign was everywhere on the ridge, something I need to remember next October. 

9:00 p.m. The predicted storm is upon us. The wind is blowing, the snow is falling and the temperature's dropping faster than the '29 stock market. It's already in the high teens. Rutting activity can't be far behind. 

This afternoon, I went alone and hunted an isolated, timbered hill surrounded by a big area of various-aged clearcuts. On the way up the hill, I spied a 140-class 8-pointer lying with a doe. I watched the pair for several minutes from 40 yards away, wishing that Melvin or Ed were with me. The two deer finally got tired of the audience, stood up, stretched and walked off. 

My destination was a high saddle I had found the previous spring while looking for sheds. A small pond rests at the top of the saddle, and an alder-lined drainage runs down the hill from the pond. The area had many impressive rubs last spring. One of the hills forming the saddle is open on top and makes a perfect ambush point. With daylight running out, I was in a hurry to reach the hill and my haste may well have cost me a huge buck. Just as I was breaking out of the cover next to the open hillside, I noticed movement at the very spot where I had intended to position myself. I looked up to see a buck with a wall of tines trotting leisurely over the hill! I'm still kicking myself for my carelessness. 

Sunday, November 21

6:30 a.m. Talk about cold . . . and snow! Ed just struck a pose for the camera next to the thermometer on the deck. It reads a cool 28 below! Judging from what's on the truck, over a foot of snow fell. I'm really in no hurry to get out there, and not just because it's so bitter. I just don't think the deer will be moving early in this kind of cold and after so much snow. When the sun warms things up later this morning, the deer should start stirring, and I hope they have lovin' on their minds. I also hope the trucks will crank. Ed's out there now trying mightily to open the truck door, which seems to be securely frozen shut. 

12:15 p.m. Thank God for wood stoves. We may not warm up again until next summer, although my blood was running pretty hot about an hour ago! Melvin and I teamed up this morning and returned to where I saw the big buck last night. We spotted very little sign there and started looking around for some activity. One of my favorite tricks after a fresh snow during the rut is to cover a lot of country in search of running deer tracks, figuring that those tracks will have been made by a breeding party. When I've found tracks like that in the past, I've had extraordinary luck at trailing up the breeding party or rattling bucks into view when I get near the party. The ideal setting is hilly country with relatively open cover, where the deer can be seen from a distance. Melvin and I were in that kind of place late this morning when we came across running-deer tracks _ with the hooves still in them! 

When we spotted the tracks, we were coursing a clearcut that had been replanted in widely spaced lodgepole pines, four to five feet tall. After studying the area briefly, I visually traced the likely route of the breeding party up the hill and suddenly found myself staring at two does and a whopper buck standing 150 yards away. The buck was alternately tending one of the does and casting glances back at us. No judging was necessary; this was a shooter. I told Melvin to take him. My binoculars had just settled on the buck when I heard the shot and saw a cloud of snow erupt in front of the deer. "You missed," I yelled. "Shoot again!" 

In lunging bounds, the big buck was plowing through the deep snow at a slight quartering angle to us. Melvin touched off another 160-grain Nosler from his 7mm Rem. Mag. and again kicked up snow, this time off the buck's bow. The sound of the striking bullet apparently confused the buck and he stopped momentarily, partially obscured by a small lodgepole. When Melvin fired the third shot, I didn't see where the bullet hit. For the first time, I thought he might have connected. But, that hope dimmed when I saw the speed with which the buck covered the last 25 yards to the top of the ridge. Pale and exhausted-looking, Melvin turned and said, "I had to have hit him!" 

He hadn't, as our search soon proved. We followed the bounding buck, which had split off from the does, for a quarter-mile and found no sign of a hit. We returned to camp in considerable despair. 

I'm not sure exactly how big the buck was, but I did notice he had an unmatched tine on one side, suggesting that he was probably a 9 or an 11-pointer. I'm guessing a nine. Either way, he was big _ wide, heavy and tall. If he's an 11-pointer, he's book-class. If he's a nine, he'll score in the 160s. It hurts to miss a chance at a buck like that.

8:20 p.m. Melvin and I tried it again this afternoon. Getting these guys a good buck is becoming personal now. We checked several clearcuts and cutovers. If we had been moose hunting, we would've had some action, because we saw two cows and a fairly good bull. It was bitter cold. We couldn't stay away from the truck heater longer than an hour at a time. 

Once again, fresh running tracks helped us out as we found tracks from two different parties. The first set led us to a 120-class buck chasing a doe high in a clearcut. The second tracks eventually guided us to a stand of timber that was too thick for us to effectively trail the deer. Instead, we rattled at the edge of the thicket and coaxed out a small 8-pointer, possibly a satellite buck from the breeding party. Some rutting activity is definitely going on, but the extreme cold seems to be hampering their movement. We rattled three or four times unsuccessfully. We ended the afternoon in the clearcut where Melvin had shot at the buck this morning, hoping lightning would strike twice. Only a couple of does showed, but I have a strong suspicion they are the same two does we'd seen with the big buck. We'll be there at daybreak and see if the buck has rejoined them. 

Monday, November 22

7:15 a.m. It's 22 below. The trucks barely cranked. Melvin and I are starting late this morning. I don't want to go into the clearcut where Melvin shot at the buck until we have shooting light, or we might blunder around in the dark and spook the deer. I hope Ed sees something good today. He's hunting hard but can't seem to come up with anything. 

12:30 p.m. What a morning! No buck, but it's not from the lack of opportunity. We got to the clearcut just after shooting light and slipped around the corner so we could see the hillside where the buck was yesterday. To my utter astonishment, the very same buck and three does were standing in exactly the same spot as before. Melvin didn't need me to tell him to shoot. He moved a few feet to my right and knelt down for the shot. The buck was standing and staring at us, maybe 125 yards away. I locked my binoculars on him. 

The buck was, in fact, a 9-pointer, but what a 9-pointer! He was very heavy and about 24 inches wide (22 inside). His brow tines were a long seven inches, his G-2s were approaching 12 inches and his G-3s were only slightly shorter than that. His wide, square rack guaranteed long main beams. If his left antler had a six-inch G-4 to match the right antler, the buck would have booked. As it was, he was a 165-class 9-pointer! During the six to eight seconds it took me to size up the buck, no shot came from my partner. "Melvin, shoot!" I pleaded.

Back came all too familiar words. "I can't see him!" cried Melvin in obvious desperation. I looked his way and immediately saw the problem. "You're behind a tree," I told him. "Move this way." 

Melvin slid over and quickly fired his first shot as the buck started walking toward the does. The whitetail immediately leaped forward and stormed up the hill. The volley commenced. By the time the echo from Melvin's fourth shot faded away, the buck had disappeared over the ridge. In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, "It was d‚j… vu all over again." 

There was really no need to check for a hit, but we did anyway, with the same results as the day before. I felt profoundly sorry for Melvin. He's a capable hunter, but seeing huge bucks can do strange things to people. I speak from personal experience. 

With hardly a word spoken, we got after them again. During the next two hours, we saw only a moose and a couple coyotes. By late morning, the bright sun had warmed the temperature to a balmy 20 degrees, and I felt certain some deer were moving. We just had to find them. At 11 o'clock, we returned to one of the fresh cutovers I had found earlier and saw deer before we'd even parked the truck. We had just pulled up to the edge of the cutover when a good buck trotted from right to left in front of us, obviously trailing something. I grabbed my rattling horns, and we hurried about 125 yards to where we'd last seen the buck. There, we set up to rattle. 

Taking no chances on a shooting snafu this time, I positioned Melvin behind a big log that would serve nicely as a rifle rest. I began the rattling sequence, first rubbing brush and lightly tickling the tines together, then shifting to an all-out thrashing of the antlers. I kept this up for about a minute before dropping the antlers to the snow. The wait began. 

The first indication of a response to my rattling came when I heard the snap of a limb. But, it didn't come from the direction the buck had gone, and where Melvin was looking. Instead, it came from behind us, toward the truck. I turned my attention that way but didn't say anything to Melvin, not wanting him to give up his shooting rest just yet. A full minute passed before I saw the buck _ a wide 10-pointer _ walking no more than 10 yards behind my pickup! I grabbed Melvin by the coat and whispered for him to move to another log that would provide a rest for shooting the buck. Then, I told him something I knew he would find hard to believe. 

"Mel, there's a good buck behind the pickup. Aim toward the truck and when he walks out, shoot him. And Mel," I added, half in jest, "don't shoot the truck." 

He promptly set up on the log and we waited. I could see the tension in Melvin as he squirmed into a better position and clung to the rifle with a white-knuckled grip. Glassing, I caught a glimpse of movement through the truck's windshield. As strange as it seemed, the buck really was right behind the truck. "Be ready, Mel. He's there." 

"Are you sure?" Melvin responded, showing the first sign of doubt. 

The buck abruptly answered that question by walking out from behind the vehicle. "When I whistle, he'll stop," I told Melvin. "Then, you shoot."  

At the sound of the whistle, the buck came to a halt and casually looked around. I knew _ or thought I knew _ we had him. When the shot shattered the stillness, the buck, instead of falling, simply looked our way. Melvin turned to me with a disbelieving look on his face and blurted, "I couldn't have missed him!" 

The buck, figuring things were getting a little weird, started walking briskly away. "Shoot him again!" I yelled.

He fired another shot, the net result of which was to speed the buck on his way. Melvin hung his head in despair, while I felt dazed by the whole series of events. I refused to believe that buck wasn't dead. Telling Melvin to try to cut off the deer, I  hurried to the spot where it had been standing when he shot. On the way, I heard Melvin call. I looked back and saw him pointing feverishly in the direction the buck had gone. He was mouthing the words, "There he is." 

"Shoot him!" I yelled, which by now had a very familiar ring to it. 

Melvin raised his rifle, then lowered it, ran a few steps and raised and lowered it once more. Then, he took off at a run, the buck obviously having departed. I continued on toward the buck's tracks. Any sign of a hit would have been easy to see in the deep snow, but there was none. I followed the tracks anyway for a couple hundred yards. While I was doing so, I could see Melvin tracking something off to my right. As it turned out, he was on the trail of the other buck he'd seen after we parted, and it was not the buck he had shot at! Apparently, a second buck had answered our rattling. All in all, it was one of the wildest mornings of my hunting career. 

8:15 p.m. Ed and Melvin just put on a fine feed for dinner _ a good ending to an eventful day. Melvin and I went out together again this afternoon, after checking his rifle, I might add. Melvin was clearly disappointed to discover that it was right on target. The afternoon, though quiet compared to the morning, was actually fairly productive. We found a new area where a couple of selective timber thinnings had recently concluded. There was a lot of sign in the fresh cuts, and we saw several deer, including some in two chases. A forkhorn and a 120-class 8-pointer were among the participants in the first chase. I just caught a glimpse of a buck in the second one, but he looked good. We're going to check out that area in the morning. 

Ed is seeing some deer now but nothing shootable. He's a good hunter, though, and something should turn up. He did see that same wolf again, about a mile from the cabin this time. 

Tuesday, November 23

6:45 a.m. It has warmed up to zero. We've got an inch of new snow, which will be perfect for locating the breeding parties. Melvin and I are heading to where we left off last night. Time is running out for both him and Ed. 

11:30 a.m. We got our buck. More accurately, I got my buck, though I didn't entirely mean to. It happened this way: Melvin and I reached the cutover we wanted to hunt about daybreak. Easing along slowly, we had seen only a couple of does when we came upon two sets of fresh tracks that had all the earmarks of being a buck and a doe. The tracks led downhill to the left, away from the bench we were on. We slipped up to the edge of the bench and peered over. Standing 60 yards away was a doe. She was slightly hunched with her tail stuck straight out, which is the standard posture of a hot doe. I knew the buck was near, and it didn't take long to find him. He came trotting out from behind a blowdown to the left of the doe. I could tell immediately that he was a 10-pointer, probably scoring in the 150s. Once again those familiar words rang out: "Shoot him, Mel!" 

The buck had picked up his doe and was quickly escorting her to a quieter honeymoon suite. I was watching him through my binoculars and urging Melvin to shoot. He was behind me and to my right so I couldn't see him, but I did hear some commotion. Time was running out. The buck was just a few yards away from thick timber and looking bigger by the second as the shoot-him-before-he-gets-away syndrome sapped my will power. This time I was armed, and even as I urged Melvin to shoot one last time, the rifle was coming to my shoulder. 

"Go ahead and shoot him!" Mel shouted. 

I did, after which it slowly dawned on me what had happened. My Montana deer season was over. I could only hope that the pent-up frustration and the excitement of the moment hadn't caused me to make a mistake. Happily, when we reached the buck, I saw that he was indeed a good one _ a 20-inch 10-pointer scoring 155. I've killed bigger, but I don't recall one that brought more relief and satisfaction. 

7:30 p.m. Upon Melvin's insistence, I hunted with Ed this afternoon. Ed has put forth the effort but hasn't had a crack at anything good all week. It didn't happen this afternoon, either. We managed to see only two small bucks, a handful of does and another moose. There was, however, a lot of sign in the area where I shot the buck this morning. We'll be there at daybreak. 

Wednesday, November 24

6:15 a.m. I've got to go home at noon today and take care of domestic affairs; namely, try to help my wife and two daughters get their bucks. The Thanksgiving hunt has become quite a tradition in our family and is zealously protected and fostered by my lovely wife, Debbie. Ed and I are getting an early start this morning because this is our last shot at a buck. Conditions are perfect, though. It just stopped snowing after dumping another inch. Any deer sign we see will be piping hot. 

11:40 a.m. If "close" counted, we'd be happy hunters. But it doesn't, so our morning ended with yet another sad story about the buck that got away. It wasn't Ed's fault, though. If anyone's, it was mine. Ed wanted something in the 140s, and being from Georgia, he's had little experience judging whitetails of that caliber. Consequently, I told him not to shoot until I gave the go-ahead. Unfortunately, Ed minded a little too well.

The action started just after first light. After slipping past two does and a yearling buck, we came upon several sets of running-deer tracks. The snow told the story clearly. We could see where the hot doe would stop, then lunge forward as the buck hazed her. Outside the main chase were a couple sets of sizable tracks, undoubtedly belonging to satellite bucks hoping to cut in on the big boy. Most encouraging of all, prints from the tips of some very wide antlers were clearly visible in the snow where the doe had urinated and the buck had lowered his head to sniff. We took up the trail immediately, knowing we were right behind them. 

Only a 100 yards down the trail, we came to a sidehill overlooking a stand of young lodgepoles and larch trees. As we looked down the slope for the breeding party, a 115-class 8-pointer darted excitedly through an opening about 125 yards below us. Several more minutes of watching yielded nothing. We could have pursued the party, but I was hesitant to give up the great elevation and sightlines we'd found there. Instead, we'd try to bring them to us, or at least make them show themselves. I positioned Ed to my right behind a small lodgepole and began using my rattling horns to produce the sounds of fighting bucks.

The 8-pointer we had seen earlier responded immediately, bounding straight for us. Ed quickly got into shooting position, but I told him to hold off. The buck was too small. When that deer lost interest, I began rattling again. A minute later, I saw a buck of unknown size coming through the larches to my left. I told Ed another buck was coming in and turned to face the advancing whitetail. I heard Ed shifting behind me and assumed he had also turned to face the deer I was watching. I was wrong. 

The buck broke cover about 50 yards in front of me. I was disappointed to see he was a yearling 8-pointer. At that moment, Ed whispered urgently, "Tell me something! Should I shoot?" 

I was surprised he couldn't tell the buck was just a yearling. "No,"  I answered. "He's smaller than the first one." 

Ed responded quickly, this time with even more urgency. "No he's not. He's big!" 

The realization probably hit Ed and me at the same time _ we were looking at different deer! I turned toward Ed as he was spinning my way. We both saw each other's buck at the same time. Ed shouted in a low voice, "Not that one!" 

Even as the words left his mouth, I was blurting out, "Shoot him, Ed, shoot him!" 

Ed had completed his pivot back toward the buck, which was facing us at 20 yards, and was just shouldering his rifle when the 22-inch 8-pointer wheeled around and vanished into the thick lodgepoles. Ed slumped as though someone had let the air out of him. I was stunned. I tried to make sense of what had just happened . . . not only at that moment, but indeed during the whole week. There were no answers. 

Ed and I gave it the old college try the rest of the morning, but to no avail. I sure wanted those guys to get a good buck, but now their trip is over. And also over, I've decided, is my unofficial career as a hunting guide. I just can't take it anymore! 

Author's Note: The day after, on Thanksgiving, my daughter, Jennifer, killed a 130-class 8-pointer with one shot. The next day, my wife shot a 9-pointer scoring 135, also with a single shot. I could hardly bring myself to tell Melvin, Ed and Stevie. 

Areas with fresh timber harvests can be deer magnets, especially in northern big-woods settings where there are no other competing food sources. Heavy snow only increases the appeal of these areas. The best spots have enough cover remaining in them to provide deer with a sense of security. 

Even when the time is right for the rut, unusually warm weather will suppress the ritual rutting activity that we hunters depend upon. Cold fronts, on the other hand, will normally trigger rutting activity. However, if the temperature falls too far below what is normal for that region, rutting may not pick up until temperatures begin to moderate. 

There are two keys to finding deer quickly through a scope. First, if you're using a variable scope, set the power reasonably low, such as 3X or 4X, especially in tight cover. This allows you to see a wider field of view. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, keep both eyes open and concentrate on the deer as you raise the rifle. It's just like instinctively pointing your finger at a distant object, only the rifle barrel is your finger. Never close one eye and try to locate the deer by moving the rifle around. The off-eye should be closed only after the deer is in your sights. 

A breeding party consists of a hot doe, at least one buck and whatever entourage may be accompanying them. Often, more than one buck will be in the chase after the hot doe, and it's not unusual for a couple of other does to join the festivities. Fresh snow during the peak of the rut offers a great opportunity to locate these breeding parties. The telltale sign is two or more sets of running tracks. Breeding parties often circle or mill around the same general area. Plus, because they are absorbed in what they're doing and are far less wary than normal, they are easier to approach. 

Chances to take big bucks are rare, and a serious trophy hunter must be able to take full advantage of the few opportunities that come along. This means being able to make the shots _ not just the easy ones but the hard ones, too. In my opinion, the two major keys to good shooting are trigger control and the use of a rest. They can be mastered only by practice, practice and more practice. Never jerk the trigger, and never take a shot without using a rest if one is available. 

Buck fever is real, and it has devastating effects on some people. As simple as it seems, the best way to combat this malady is the age-old technique of taking two or three slow, deep breaths. That is, of course, if the hunter can think clearly enough to do it. 

The use of rattling horns is a key ingredient in what might be termed "aggressive hunting," in which the hunter tries to make something happen that otherwise would not have occurred. Besides calling in an aggressive buck, they can be used to stop a moving deer, make a hidden deer expose himself, move a partially obscured deer enough to allow a shot, pull a buck out of cover you cannot effectively hunt or even mask a deer-alerting sound that was made by mistake. 

Before you ever take to the field, determine what kind of buck you want to shoot and know how to recognize him. Don't wait until a buck is standing in front of you to begin your deliberations. If you do, you run the risk of losing critical seconds, and you may make your decision based on adrenalin rather than reason.