Monster Muleys forum member, Jeffrey Basagoitia (aka yeff2), had some incredible luck and drew the statewide raffle tag for Colorado. He shared his fun hunting adventure in the forum.....

"Colorado Governors Tag Mule deer story (raffle Tag) - Here is the story from Facebook I wrote the story on November 26th and had shot the buck on November 25th earlier this week. Also prior to this story, I had hit 2nd, 3rd and 4th seasons in the Gunnison Basin looking for big bucks before moving into Eagle county to hunt from Nov 18th until I filled the tag.

So I just tagged my buck yesterday. I had a Colorado Governors deer tag I won in a raffle. What a blast I had! Getting to hunt deer late into November was pretty amazing. I will say nice bucks still aren’t stupid. I had ample opportunity to pay or gift somebody something to access some private land but I still did it on public land and I’m much happier about it. I spent 7 days in the unit and actually passed on the buck I ended up taking on my 3rd day as I’m not good at judging mule deer. I actually called my brother and sent him pictures right then and I also spoke with Cole Ullom and he asked me why I hadn't shot it? So now I was like "dang it". I watched the deer bed before I drove off and so after talking with Cole I went back to see if I could find him an hour or so later but scouts for one of the other Governor tags had driven through there and the buck was gone.

Over the next few days by myself, I learned the terrain as best I could and by the time my brother showed up (Nov 21st) we started to hustle the unit. We were in the 3 or 4 major areas of the unit and seeing plenty of 160-180 bucks. Passing on these bucks was hard for me because they were all sweet bucks. The terrain has all kinds of country that the deer like to hang in. Areas where they are in private and you're hoping they come into public and areas where they are really high hoping they’ll come down and one area that just looks like the terrain I hunted as a kid full of sage, cedars, and juniper. (Uncompahgre plateau)

So yesterday morning after days of hunting I was pretty beat and forgot to set the alarm. I woke at 5:30 and was like “crap we gotta go” my brother and I were ready in 15 minutes and jumped in the truck. We showed up where we wanted to go and a good thing it was overcast so we weren’t actually late. We started working side roads all over looking for rutting deer. After 45 minutes we were worried because you could tell the weekenders had been in there Sunday tearing up the ATV trails and so it was like the deer we had seen the morning before were gone. We kept going into some steeper terrain away from the ATV trails and found some does. Next thing we see one buck and then just below us the buck I passed on showed up. We glassed him but within a few minutes while sizing him up another smaller buck pushed him over the ridge. I was annoyed as I hadn’t been able to find him in 4 days and after a few minutes, he was gone again. We sat watching and just like that 10 minutes later he came back over the ridge looking to spar. He and the other buck (about 180") were getting ready to spar when I put one right behind his shoulder at 300 yards. My brother was watching through binoculars and said” dude you smoked him” he ran 20 yards and face planted. And just like that, the tag of lifetime hunt was over. I had a great hunt and to share it with my brother was special and over the weekend I had my other brother and another best friend with us. I wouldn’t have wanted to do it alone. I’m just so happy we did DIY on Public land. I want thanks Cole Ullom and Nikki Haynes for their help in showing me places on the map to work for a buck. This is my best buck and a sweet one at that!

I urge you guys to support your local SCI chapters and Mule Deer Foundation. They do a lot whether it be on the ground or raising money to preserve and help mule deer habitat. I would like to thank Safari Club Colorado as their raffle is where I won my tag. Best $200 of my life.

He had a rough gross of 207. Sweet buck tons of character."