Shaun Larsen (aka deerkiller) shared a great adventure in our forum. Here's what he posted....

"Utah 2018 GS Deer - This year has been pretty crazy for me. Late last year me and my wife found out we were going to be having a baby sometime this summer. With that in mind going into the application season, I decided that I would mostly just apply for bonus points and harder to draw tags due to the fact that I would be busy with other things this year. I had just ended my 3 year dedicated hunter enrollment and as bad as I wanted to apply for that, I decided this wasn’t the year to rejoin. So I applied for a PP for that as well. I did however have 4 GS PP built over the years and decided that I was going to burn those on a rifle tag. I would normally pick the muzzy over the rifle, but it just felt a little too soon to be leaving my wife with a new baby by herself for a week when he was only 3 months old. Mid May I received a charge on my card for a GS deer tag, which meant I was going hunting!

I didn’t scout at all during the summer, aside from a few trail cams over wallows for elk in the mountains of my backyard. Scouting for a rifle deer hunt in October in Utah is pretty useless anyways since so much can change between July and October, but I felt confident that I could turn up a decent buck within 9 days of the rifle hunt. I’ve hunted this unit literally my whole life, so I already had a really good idea on where I needed to start looking once the hunt started.

Fast forward to last Friday morning. I got up early and left the house to go get a feel with what was in the area I planned on hunting. Got to my glassing spot at first light and sure enough, there were deer right where I figured there would be. Not as many as normal, but a good amount. I figured the heavy snow from the previous weeks and full moon was to blame for most of it. I saw 7 bucks with 23 does/fawns in the top of a cliffy canyon. 2 of those buck interested me, but I still wasn’t sure they were “the one”. I’ve killed several big deer over the years and had previously decided I wanted a 180 or a super old junky buck with character. This area has the potential to produce both. I looked other places the rest of the morning, but didn’t find anything that excited me. The rest of our group showed up that night and we made a plan on who was going to hunt where.

Saturday morning came quick, like it always does. I got into the area I wanted to well before light and sat and waited for light. I could make out deer feeding in the snow below and above me, but I couldn’t tell what they were with as dark as it was, but felt good about the situation. They were right where I had left them the night before. As luck would have it, 15 minuets before light a Group of 3 guys with headlamps on walked right up the bottom, spooking the deer up high into the cliffs. When the group got level with me they turned and walked right to me and sat 30 feet from where I was. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt that maybe they really hadn’t noticed me so I softly said “hey there’s someone here...” and got the reply “yep. This is public land.” We had this entire canyon to share, there only them and me, and they decide to sit right next to me. So.... I grabbed my stuff and quickly made a 250 yard run up hill to try and get away from them. As it got light I glassed a few does, but the bucks were no where to be found. I imagine with as big as the 2 bucks I was after were, they knew something was up when the does blew out of the bottom, and they left for safer ground. I did have a shot at a 160s 4x4 later that morning, but I let him walk without too much heartache on my part. I had the whole hunt and I wasn’t ready to settle on a small deer before noon on day 1.

That afternoon I hunted with my dad while my brother and brother in law went to another canyon just over the ridge. We saw some small bucks and a lot of does, but nothing worth shooting. The next morning we took it easy because they were all leaving around 11 that morning. They left and I decided to go up to my go to spot that had always produced bigger deer in the past. I got up to the top around 2 pm. Deer were already up feeding and moving around. It was cloudy and cool. My favorite conditions to hunt in on an afternoon hunt. I glassed 40 or 50 deer by around 5 pm, with several small bucks, but nothing I was after. I had decided to back track and go check out a canyon I had walked past earlier to see if anything had fed out into there yet. This canyon has never held deer in the archery or muzzy hunts for some reason, but the rifle hunt always seems to have a big deer in it, so I was hopeful something might show up. Right as I topped the ridge, I noticed about 20 does feeding on the opposite hillside. I was scanning through them looking for bucks with my binos, when in the background, in the thick brush, I noticed movement. It was an antler. As I watched it for a minute, I could see he had a decent back fork. I assumed it had to be a tall buck, if I could see antler sticking out over the brush, while he was bedded. This was enough to convince me I needed a closer look. I dropped off the back side of the ridge and closed the distance between us. As I come over the ridge lower and closer to him, the does hadn’t moved and I could see the antlers still in the brush. I got all set up, ranged the bushes, dialed the scope and waited. About a half hour goes by, when a shot in the next canyon over rings out. Instantly this buck jumps from his bed to see what’s going on. I only had a second to decide if he was a shooter or not because I knew he was going to bolt at any minute. I could see he was really heavy, tall and had decent back forks, but he didn’t seem to have much for front forks and I couldn’t tell width. He had a white, old looking face and a big body. I knew he was a mature deer. Factoring in that I hadn’t been seeing the normal amount of deer that I usually do and that my wife was home all alone with a 4 month old baby, I decided to take the shot. Like an amateur I rushed the first one and sent it just over his back (face palm moment). He ran down the draw and into some aspens and stopped. He kept looking back at the does to see what they were doing. They were just standing there looking confused, trying to figure out what that noise was. He was in the trees, but I could still see him really good. I ranged him again, dialed the scope again and found him in the scope. He was quartered away from me really hard, but I knew the capabilities of my gun, myself and was confident in the shot. I eased on the trigger and it went off. I didn’t hear that distinct ‘whop’ sound, but I did hear the bullet hit something. At which point I saw him jump, kick and dive to the right, out of my view. I gave it 30 minuets before I even moved. At that point I stood up and started glassing where he had gone. Instantly I could see a 6” wide blood path in the snow where he had gone and knew it was a good hit. It only went about 20 yards from the shot, fell over, slid down a ravine and then proceeded to slide another 200 yards, down hill, the the opposite direction of where I needed to go to get off the mountain.

When I got up to him, I couldn’t believe what he really was. Tall, heavy, wide and a little cheater on one side. I instantly recognized that buck from several years prior when I had gotten pics of him on trail cam and passed him multiple times over a 2 year period. He was a big deer, but just not big enough at the time. Glad I let him live! Now he was everything I was after! Teeth were super worn, when I had him checked they aged him at 8.5.

The pack out sucked, it took me an hour to get back to the trail and another hour back to camp. I got back to camp at 11:30 pm and shot him at 5:45 pm. But as bad as it was, I enjoyed every step of the way. Most of us don’t get nearly enough night’s packing out animals during our lifetime, so you have to enjoy it when you are in the moment. He ended up being my best deer to date by a couple inches. I taped him 3 times because I didn’t believe it. He was 29 1/4 inside and both G2s were 20”.

Super thankful to be able to harvest such a cool old buck. He’d seen a lot of hunters in his life. I’m honored to be the one who got to harvest him. That wraps up all the big game tags for me this year. 3 elk and a deer is a pretty good fall! I’ve still got some turkey and swan tags to fill, as well as help with a couple buff, elk and deer tags in my family too. Kinda depressing that the best months of the year are almost over, but it gives us something to look forward to for next year! Hope everyone else finds success or at the very least enjoys the time spent outdoors with friends and family."