My NM mule deer

Thanks guys, about this time last year my father asked me if I wanted to go on a mule deer hunt in New Mexico. I of course told him yes, it would be my first time hunting out of state with him and also my first time hunting for mule deer. Fast forward to November, we had a little over 78 thousand acres to hunt, my dads friend that had been hunting on this place was being really secretive about where to hunt and where to go so by the 3rd day of the hunt we were not happy campers, we did not see a single shooter and hardly saw any deer at all. The guy that runs the hunts on this place got wind that we were not very happy about the hunt so far so he told us he would take us to a some new land that no one has been to this year, on the 4th morning he got a call that some Cowboys rounding up cows in the pasture we were going to hunt jumped up 6 bucks. We got up to the new land about 1:00 so we only had about 4 hours before dark, we started hiking up the mountains and ravines where the Cowboys had seen the group of bucks. I saw one doe at the very beginning but since we had limited time to find the bucks we pushed on, after hiking about 4 miles and only jumping a couple of does I decided to walk back down and go back to the beginning where I had seen the one doe grazing. I climbed up the the fist hill where I could see several ravines to start glassin. Right away I saw a big white rear end with its head in the bushes on the other side of the mountain side about 800 yards away. I knew it was a buck but I couldn't tell how big he was. The wind was blowing about 25mph in my face so I decided to climb down into the ravine and try to get closer, I snuck up the side of the mountain to see if he was still there and low and behold he had not moved a step, I watched him for about 15 min waiting for a clear view of how big he was and for a clear shot, finally he got turned around where I felt like a could make a shot, ranged him at 220 yards, got set up and pulled the trigger, he instantly dropped and never moved, I couldn't believe I got him. It was a special moment I will never forget, I feel blessed that I was able to get a once in a lifetime mule deer and most importantly I got to do it all with my dad. Here are a couple more pictures.
Hopefully I can get him scored some time in the next couple weeks, what do yall think he will score?
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I did a rough score based on what I could see and I get 199" gross...take that with a grain of salt cause he looks different in every pic, could be more, could be a bit less.

First off congrats on a great buck, you should be very happy with him.

Now I'm not from the USA and I realize your game numbers are substantially higher than here...
But I gotta say....to be disappointed after hunting 3 whole days that you didn't see a shooter....and to be so obviously upset about it that the "guy" felt he owed you something....if that's your expectation of hunting....whoa...that's too bad. There's sooo much more to it than that...
 
I did a rough score based on what I could see and I get 199" gross...take that with a grain of salt cause he looks different in every pic, could be more, could be a bit less.

First off congrats on a great buck, you should be very happy with him.

Now I'm not from the USA and I realize your game numbers are substantially higher than here...
But I gotta say....to be disappointed after hunting 3 whole days that you didn't see a shooter....and to be so obviously upset about it that the "guy" felt he owed you something....if that's your expectation of hunting....whoa...that's too bad. There's sooo much more to it than that...


Thanks for rough scoring it, we were disappointed how the hunt was going so far because we hunted the same area for 3 days and it probably only ended up being 10-15 thousand acres out of the over 75 thousand that we could of hunted. There was 6 of us in our group, and everyone of us hiked at least 10 miles a day. We didn't feel like the guy owed us anything, all we wanted was to know where we could hunt and where we couldn't. Turns out the pastures we hunted had been hunted out because it had the most roads running through it There are about 100 gates that lead into all the pastures we could hunt and not knowing where we could and couldn't go was the frustrating part, the guy that was suppose to take us and show us all the pastures wasn't doing what he told the land owner he said he would. That guy ended up leaving with his girlfriend 2 days early in the middle of the night without telling a single person so it was a little messed up sistuation. That's why the land owner felt like he needed to show us around because the other guy didn't show us anything.
 
Awesome Buck! Sounds like you were on private land? What part of New Mexico/what GMU?
 
That buck is handsome for sure considering the NM record is 213. Most of the records in NM are from Rio Arriba county in the north.

For a first that is amazing congratulations

Bob
 
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