As Luck Would Have It

By: Charlie Tapia

I knew, by reputation, that Vaquero Outfitters held a great reputation for operating first-class trophy mule and coues deer hunts south of the border. Shortly after confirming this with Ryan Hatch of MuleyCrazy I booked, what would be my second hunt in Sonora Mexico, with Chad and Shawn Smith. A few months later, I arrived in Hermosillo and as Chad and I made the long ride from the airport to the ranch, we talked a lot about the two deer that had already been harvested before my arrival. Both bucks were over 220 inches and after hearing about the excitement that had taken place, my fire was fueled to begin my own hunt.

Upon our arrival at the ranch, we were greeted with a great hot meal prepared for us by our cook, Francisco and I later learned that my guide for the week would be Jason Whitaker. Both Jason and Chad had been hard at work scouting the 30,000-acre ranch that I would be hunting and I was assured that they had it narrowed down to a specific area where we would concentrate on a giant mule deer. Early the next morning found us moving slowly through a huge cholla patch. Not long into the hunt, a doe appeared 150 yards away. Being that the rut was in full swing Jason told me to be ready for anything and shortly after the doe moved off into the dense vegetation, a huge framed buck stepped out and stopped broadside. One quick look was all we needed to know that this was a buck that I wanted. With no time to spare, I quickly took a shot just as the buck turned to leave. Although we both agreed that the buck appeared to be hit, he disappeared into the thick cholla.

We instantly got on his tracks and had just started to follow them when Jason suddenly looked up and saw the buck laying down. He was just staring at us, a mere 40 yards away and being that I was behind Jason, I couldn’t see the deer through the thick cover. As I tried to position to get another shot, the buck bolted and ran out of sight. At that point, we knew the buck was hit hard but we still waited 45 minutes just to be safe. After what seemed like an eternity we started tracking the buck and found him piled up just 200 yards from where we jumped him.

I have been very lucky in harvesting some great mule deer through the years, but I could not believe the size of this buck as we got to put our hands on him. He surpassed what we thought as we put a tape to him and found that he was a touch over 34 inches wide, extremely heavy, and scored 213 4/8. The rest of the week was spent hunting coues deer where on the fifth day of the hunt, Jason and I connected on a beautiful buck. My hunting partner Robbie also connected on an extremely old 190-inch deer. I would like to say thanks again to Ryan Hatch at MuleyCrazy and Vaquero Outfitters and their staff for an unbelievable week of hunting in the Sonoran desert. I can’t wait to go back during January of 2007…hopefully I will get lucky again.