"My Awesome Colorado Hunt"
Written by Rylee Dearen

My story begins on a warm Saturday (November 1st) afternoon. It was the first day of my first Colorado deer hunt and my father, Kenny Dearen, was taking me hunting. Also accompanying us was my Uncle Donnie and his father-in law, Mr. Catalano. At first we went up on a ridge to check on some previously located bucks. Well, when my hunting party and I got up on the ridge we located a couple of decent bucks and one shooter, with a bunch of does off to the south. We were busted right off the start and couldn't get on the shooter buck, so we decided to go check on another place and let these deer calm down. This didn't work out too well, so we decided to go back to where we saw that shooter buck earlier in the day.

On our way back to the ridge we saw some other people going up there, so we decided to wait and see what happened. Thankfully, a short time later we saw the other people coming back off the ridge and decided that since it was just the first afternoon, and we had the whole hunt to spend looking other places, we would go back up on the ridge and wait until dark, and hopefully the big buck would show himself once again.

When we got on top of that lucky ridge, we were so thankful that the by passers had not spooked the deer, but merely moved them a little farther away from us than before. We didn't see the big buck we had seen before, but off to the north the buck of my dreams walked out of the trees. We moved into position and struggled forever to get into a comfortable shooting position. Then it was here, finally the moment had come and I had the buck in my scope…so I shot. I really thought that he would be down, but my dad said, "Baby you missed him clean", and then I realized that I, a Dearen, had missed. After the first shot, the buck started to trot farther and farther away from me. My dad stopped him in his tracks with a call. I knew then, this was going to be the moment of truth, the moment that I was going to get this buck. As I took a deep breath and leaned into my rest, my dad whispered, "If you're not 100% comfortable, then don't shoot, it'll be okay." Then my uncle whispered, "You got this Rylee, no problem". I told my dad, "I got him". He told me to take the safety off and hit him right behind the shoulder.

When the gun went off, I knew that my shot was fatal to that buck. I looked up to see that monster muley drop like a stone. I screamed and jumped up and down with joy as we ran to see the monster of a buck. When I got to him I almost cried, as I couldn't believe the size of his antlers. He was a 29-½ inch wide four by four and the buck of my dreams. He gross scores around 192 and nets a little over 181.

I would like to give a special thanks to my dad, my uncle D and a huge thanks to Mr. Catalano. I never knew the feelings that hunting can bring. It was an awesome experience.