Mike Truman writes, "Me and my cousin, Peter Nielson, took the last 4 days of the deer hunt off and went up in the mountains in Utah and camped for the last 4 days of the hunt. It was a cold windy 4 days....but well worth it. Saturday night we welcomed about 2 inches of snow to help us find that big muley we had seen on Friday morning when we had jumped a big 5 by 5 and it just happened so fast there was no shooting....we jumped him again on Friday afternoon, but still could not get the shot we wanted. We hunted hard for him Saturday, but just couldn't find him. Sunday morning came and we welcomed the snow, and so we decided to go back to where we had first seen the buck on Friday. We slowly snuck through the big clearing and through some trees with the wind just howling at our backs...(ya, we thought for sure he would wind us long before we got there). But, when we walked to the edge of the trees and looked about 100 yards away downhill in the edge of the trees...there he stood. We both quickly pulled up and as soon as I said, "It's him!", Pete shot and then I fired two quick rounds.

So then we worked our way down the snowy, slippery hill....sliding most the way down. Well, we got to where the deer stood and could not find any blood. We had a great shot and we both felt good about the shots we had taken, so I decided to track the deer in the snow.

There was about 5 head of deer there when we shot and so there were tracks everywhere and the little herd went uphill, so I went uphill. Well, little did we know, after we shot he ran into the trees and they were thick and we could not see that he went downhill. As soon as I started on the tracks Pete thought he heard something downhill, so I went up and he went down. I eventually circled back realizing there was no blood and we needed to make a game plan. Pete and I met back up and he said he couldn't find anything, but there were tracks going that way. As we stood there making a plan, we were near where the buck stood when we shot and all the sudden Pete looked down and dropped to his knees for a closer look....sure enough BLOOD....little tiny drops of blood, so we slowly tracked the speckled blood (which was not easy cuz there were alot of other tracks going through all the trees and deadfall). After about only 50 yards, I spotted the buck, he was under a pine tree laying there dead.

He is a 5 by 5 and measures exactly 33 inches wide and scores 188 gross....so we were happy with our last day find!!

This is the 3rd year we have seen this buck we call "Bodacious" or "BO".

2007 - We first seen him during the rut and he was a good 4 point with his cheaters!

2008 - We seen him on the bow hunt. I had slowly snuck down to him and had gotten 40 yards from him, but we were in thick trees and I had no shot and it got dark on me. He got lucky, and we never saw him again until this year.
NOTE: In '08 he didn't have the crab claw on his front right fork.

Then 2009 - We saw him along ways away right before the bow hunt and never could find him until the 2nd to last day on the rifle hunt and FINALLY caught up to him and got him. What a good buck!!!

Congrats PETE!!"