2020 Arizona OTC Archery Coues Deer

Spot & Stalking the Grey Ghost

Written By: Stephen Miller, Bowhunting AZ

After a long opening to my 2020 OTC archery season, I experienced many ups and downs over just a few weekends. Hunting often from Friday morning to Sunday at dark. I had been fortunate enough to squeeze off two shots in two separate instances on coues bucks. We were getting action from both mule deer bucks and coues bucks during our hunt but I had my eyes set on a coues. I like the terrain they inhabit and the overall challenge behind the spot and stalk of a coues. It's no doubt an extremely difficult task and often revered among the archery community if you’re lucky enough to harvest one.

After being unsuccessful for those several weekends, I convinced my wife to let me hit the hills just one last time for the closing day of Arizona OTC archery season. At 1 pm I clocked out and hastily jumped in my Nissan pathfinder and booked it up north. I grabbed a quick chicken salad sandwich at the local bagel shop and was on my way, feeling indifferent about how the season would close out for me. On one hand, I felt extremely proud that I had two successful stalks onto some coues bucks and I managed to pull off a shot, even if I did miss. The first time my arrow clipped a small overhang of juniper leaves. The second time I shot at 73 yards and my arrow landed directly between the front and back legs of the buck, barely a few inches below him. So after these two encounters, I felt slightly successful. However, I desired that completed harvest. Being a father of 3 and a husband I never truly know what life will allow me to do when it comes to hunting. August may very well not be an option to continue my OTC Archery hunt. Not to mention that in 2019 I hunted in the August heat and let me tell you, never again! It's sweltering, to say the least.

Once I reached my destination, the first thing I did was pray. I’ve seen the power of prayer work many times no matter what the request is! “Father I know you’re my provider and lord I’m asking you to provide a buck for me today. Please allow me to tag out so I can be at home with my family and concentrate on them, Lord. These deer are your creation and you ultimately decide whether I take one home today or not.” I hopped out of my pathfinder and pulled a quick superman style change that I decided to dub, "from scrubs to shrubs!" I threw on my bino harness and immediately began scanning the hillsides where we had seen 3 coues bucks grazing in the mornings on a very routine basis. At first, I honestly didn't think I would see anything at all. "It's 2 pm so anything you're looking for is going to be bedded". But low and behold, there it was! A coues deer with a buck-ish looking body standing out in the open plain as day, grazing on the hillside. I couldn't believe my eyes. I'm pretty sure my heart skipped several beats at that moment. I'm still not 100% sure this is the deer that I harvested, but I never ended up seeing any other deer that day.

It was a little big in the body to be a doe. I couldn't identify antlers right away either, but I knew the bucks were traveling in a trifecta together so there had to be a good chance that they were all over there. After spotting this coues I made several mental notes on the lay of the land, strategizing my approach and where I'd go to get as close as possible. One method I've been utilizing more is that I will range the exact location of the deer in question, then I'll take that yardage and mark it with a distance line on my GPS maps from where I'm standing to where the deer should be standing. If the line I draw on my maps matches the yardage I just ranged then I know I'll be able to keep tabs on exactly where I need to go once I start my stalk. I began to make my stalk and dropped off the backside of the ridge I was on in order to conceal my approach from the deer. I made it over to the beginning of the ridge that the coues was on and started my summit up the first knoll that created the saddle. This knoll was fairly flat on top and had sparse landscape which made stalking much more difficult. I leapfrogged rock after rock. A technique that I've found to be pretty darn good in terms of stalking, as long as the rock is stable. I took things very slowly, it was probably 4 pm by the time I was in the middle of the flat on top of the knoll. I knew I had to be only a couple hundred yards from where I had last seen the coues deer. Every so often I would pause for a good 15-30 minutes tucked under a juniper and glass my eyes out. Glassing as you go is so essential on a stalk. If the deer move or become bedded your only inkling of their whereabouts might be a tine just barely sticking up out of the grass. So give it your best effort and pay your due diligence by being patient! This is something that I had to force upon myself this time around as I like to move a lot and cover distance.

The colors of the sun started to change and I knew the time had to be getting close to around 5 or 5:30. I had one large gap of zero cover to cross and I felt hesitant about it. But, I finally managed to push myself out into the open and cross without making any noise. I had reached the point right above where the buck had previously been. I felt as if at any moment I would crest this little rock ledge and see him standing there, broadside for a shot. As I crouched and got closer to the ledge I pulled an arrow out and nocked it. Just as I had done this, some sort of glistening object caught my attention out of the corner of my eye, almost directly behind me. I slowly did a 180-degree turn, in an almost robotic fashion. There he was, a coues buck deadlocked on to me. I slowly reached down to my bino harness and unclipped my rangefinder. He was exactly 195 yards out. I put my rangefinder back and noticed a thicket between us, roughly about the height of my chest. I dipped lower at the knees in hopes that my movement wouldn't be caught and I would just materialize into the bushes. It worked! I was utterly shocked. Most of the time once a deer is locked on to you it's simply game over. The coues buck flickered his tail, turned his head in several different directions and went back to grazing.

Completely baffled that the deer had not bolted I began to unclip my pack buckles as slowly and quietly as possible. Typically I'll never leave my pack when I'm putting on a stalk, however, I knew I was already in close proximity. I took a fairly large gulp of water before leaving my pack behind. I knew without the extra weight I could stalk significantly quieter. I got in a crouched position and began to inch forward. The buck had begun to drop down in elevation as the ridge I was on had a slight rolling hill. I watched as he ducked behind a tree and never emerged again living up to his nickname, "the grey ghost". As I pre-ranged a few trees at 82 I began to wonder if he had doubled back or dropped faster than I thought. His speed was slow and his demeanor was completely relaxed, there's no way I had spooked him. I picked out the yellowish juniper that I had last seen him at and began to make my way over. I stopped at a few points and waited as several thickets made for a very noticeable choke point that I thought maybe he would emerge through. He never did. I pushed up to the choke point and slowly rose, using the chest-high thicket as cover for my movement. Then my eyes picked him up, there he was about 20-25 yards lower than I had expected, but I finally had eyes on him. I ranged the tree and somehow pulled 82 again. That didn't seem right... I knew he had dropped but it wasn't that much. I needed a better view of him and so I decided to try and attempt a few sidesteps to free myself of the thicket obstructing my view. He was locked onto me at first as if he knew something was amiss. I froze for a moment and waited until he relaxed and put his head down momentarily and then looked away towards the opposite ridge. I rose and had a completely clear view to range. Boom, 63 yards. "I'll take that" I muttered to myself. A shot that I felt ethically I could fulfill. I drew back and made sure my bow was level. He stood dead still the entire time as if caught in a gaze into the sunset across the ridge. I put my 60-yard pin just below his spine, but a little high and pulled the trigger on my spot hogg wiseguy release. I heard my bow go off, followed by an audible, THWACK!. That sound is the most relieving sound to archers who have just pulled the trigger on their bow. It's an audible affirmation that you've connected and once you've finally heard it, you'll know it from then on out. The buck snapped his hind legs up and bolted off into the trees. I never had enough time to try and grab a visual confirmation, so I just closed my eyes and let my ears take over. I heard hooves clacking on the rocks, followed by a large crash, followed by more scuffling of some sort then a large final crash that was undoubtedly a tree and then complete silence.

I immediately breathed a huge sigh of relief. I couldn’t believe I had just shot a buck on a 4-hour hunt after work. “Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Lord so much!” Now I began feeling that overwhelming sensation to go check and look for blood, but something told me to just hold back for a bit. So, I pulled out my phone and immediately started marking my spot that I had just shot from. I sent a text to my hunting group chat and got an immediate response from Jake, “don’t tease me like that!” I had been sending texts throughout the afternoon as to what I was seeing. I let them know I had heard crashing afterward. I finally went over to the point of impact and found another huge relief, plenty of blood. I marked the blood trail and slowly moved along. Jake let me know he was on his way up and I continued to track. From large area spray to the occasional palm-sized puddle, I felt confident this buck wasn’t going far. My buddy Darrin Boyd replied in our chat, “Lots of blood! He’s dead!” As I had sent photos of my findings. “I can actually see that and I’m red/green color blind” He said. I continued my tracking and noticed something ahead laying in the middle of the blood trail, my arrow. I had seen this before on my elk hunt and it must have happened again. My arrow had done a quasi full pass through but the fletching was just barely hung up on the way out and the arrow finally dropped on the trail. A thick layer of blood-covered my arrow almost dripping off and I was super pleased to see zero green bile as I knew my shot was placed slightly far back.

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This is where my buck bedded in an effort to clot his wound

Signs like this stand out from the traditional spray of bleeding. Cough’s of blood show that your deer is nearing his final moments. He shouldn’t be far off.

After another 10 minutes of tracking, I finally found the buck. At one point he had stopped and bedded under a juniper before continuing. A large, dark pool of blood and coagulation piled up and mixed in the dirt. This exact tactic happened during our 2019 archery elk hunt. Jake’s bull had bedded and rubbed his injury in the dirt in an effort to clot the bleeding. The same instance here, now that the arrow had fallen out I'm going to assume he could lay down now and tend to his wound. He must have pushed on past this point and continued up the slight hill. His blood trail was getting heavier. I knew that he couldn’t be far off at all with this type of loss. By my experience, when you’re tracking in the dark and using a headlamp or light the first thing you’ll catch is the gleam of reflection in the eyes from the downed animal. Even once they’ve passed this will still happen and that’s exactly what happened here. I felt that final moment of relief. BUCK DOWN! I snapped a few success pics and started sending them out to my wife and friends. My buddy Darrin recognized the buck as the same one who had come into 40 yards of him earlier in the season. Jake arrived at the spot and we immediately began to get to work on skinning and quartering the buck. I had set up my tripod and placed my phone on top of the flat plate, turning on the flash flight this method makes for great illumination of the workspace. Of course, I also cranked on my country playlist and jam at the same time. Total bliss for the next couple of hours as we chatted and worked together on making the most out of the harvest. It sounds cliche but these are the times that you live for! High on endorphins and relishing with a brother on your success there’s no better feeling than bonding together over a downed animal and meat headed for the freezer. It will create a friendship that will most certainly last a lifetime. As we worked on the final stages of the buck it dawned on me that my last deer I harvested (Aug 23rd, 2019) was on a Friday evening on opening day, here I was now on closing day on a Friday with another buck. Amazing to wrap up this way and in both situations Jake was there, willing to trek up and help pack out. I couldn’t be more grateful for this harvest and the experience of my first spot and stalk coues! It’s something I’ll never forget and I look forward to utilizing that knowledge and growing on it as well as passing it on to others!

In conclusion,
Don't let someone discount your efforts, EVER! I had a few people *tisk tisk* me for shooting a younger buck and in my opinion, that's absolutely not right. How many hunters are formed by young kids shooting their first deer as a spike or fork in the woods with grandpa? MANY! Not everyone kills giants right off the bat. Our Arizona regs are set at "any antlered deer". Therefore if there are bare antlers broken out of skin the buck is legal for the taking. Now, let's also add the coues deer are in my opinion by far the hardest to spot and stalk. They are ALWAYS switched on and extremely flighty! This animal is just on extra high alert all the time. Once they see or hear something they don’t like, that’s it! So the fact that I successfully stalked and harvested one, to me personally, is a huge milestone. It shows that I'm learning, that I'm implementing the knowledge I'm absorbing and some of the techniques I have come up with on my own are a success(or failure) and I can utilize that again or ditch it in the future. Remember, at the end of your day this is YOUR tag to fill. The wildlife biologists have given us their blessing to take what we see fit beyond a certain level of maturity and that's ours to decide. I'll say this also that if those rules ever change I will happily abide by the newly set age limit guidelines with no complaints or kickback from me. But this is the bar that was set and I chose to fill my tag that day because I wanted meat. I have zero regrets about that.

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2020 Arizona OTC Archery Coues Deer: Spot & Stalking the Grey Ghost

2020 Arizona OTC Archery Coues Deer

Spot & Stalking the Grey Ghost

Written By: Stephen Miller, Bowhunting AZ