DAN SIMMONS Sportsman's Quest MORE COLUMNS SPECIAL TO THE PVT The Keefers, Shelby and Roy. Advertisement

Fishing is still great and getting better, but the hunting season has also begun for those lucky hunters having a tag.

My hunting pal Roy Keefer knows how serious a good tag can be and does everything he can to ensure success, and he does it well.

Hunting all over the country and dedication to hunting with those pointy sticks is well demonstrated by his successes

Roy is one of my heroes, and here is a story that we can all use as a model.

'Utah Mule Deer'

By Roy K. Keefer

Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. That was my plight. For eight years I applied for one of the limited-entry archery mule deer tags in Utah.

They are limited because of the quality of the deer in certain areas and the Utah Department of Wildlife's desire to keep it that way. It's tough to draw a tag, as I can attest, but it was my turn.

I drew a tag for the Book Cliffs area.

As usual I began to step up my routine in getting ready for a hunt. I prepared my list of equipment, exercised more regularly and began to shoot my bow every evening. And that's where the bad news crept in.

One day while practicing I felt a sharp pain in my left arm when I drew my bow.

The pain was pretty severe and I stopped shooting that day.

Later I applied some liniment and ice to self medicate the problem. A couple of days later I tried to shoot my bow and the pain returned.

I decided it was time to see a doctor.

The doctor determined an MRI was the only way to see what was going on in my shoulder. The results weren't good.

I had a torn labrum (you've probably read of big league pitchers having this condition) and two bone spurs. There was no easy fix except surgery. It was the kind of news I didn't want to hear.

I gave the doctor a detailed explanation of my situation and asked if there was anything he could do to get me through the hunting season, with hopes of delaying the surgery until later.

He suggested a shot in the shoulder which might offer some short-term relief. So that's what we did, but my problem wasn't completely solved. I had to lower the poundage on my bow to lessen the irritation of my shoulder. Lifting the bow was a little testy as well.

My son suggested I use the Knight and Hale Steady Ready to help lighten the load.

This device provides support to the arm holding the bow. The Steady Ready was a big help. I couldn't believe how much it helped me to hold the bow in a stable position, and with the reduced poundage I was able to shoot my bow again.

With that behind me, my wife, Shelby, and I headed for Utah. By this time I had contracted some flu bug and felt terrible. Shelby drove the entire 10-hour trip, but we made it and we were ready to hunt.

The scenery alone was worth the drive. The Utah Book Cliffs scenery is typical of many western states. Beautiful mountains sparsely covered with scrub pine trees and sagebrush. The Book Cliffs are in the eastern part of the state and border Colorado. In the evening we could see the lights of Grand Junction, Colo., many miles away. A heavy rain the week before we arrived relented and the weather was nice for our hunt.

Cool mornings and evenings and shirt-sleeve days were the norm. Although I thought the rain would be a detriment, it turned out to be a blessing.

The mountain tops were covered with small water holes which meant the deer would be spending most of their days feeding and watering up high, instead of feeding on the tops and moving to the bottoms to water in creeks which flowed between the mountains.

As a result, the deer were more concentrated than is usually the case. I knew how difficult it had been to draw a tag for this area and I wanted to hold out for an above average deer.

Who knows when I would draw another tag. My guide was honest in assessing my chances at a monster muley.

He said we would need to have extraordinary luck to see a 200-inch muley, but a 180-inch class deer was a definite possibility. That sounded good to me since my biggest muley to date measured 163 inches, using the Pope and Young Archery measuring system.

The guide preferred to hunt in the same fashion I've become accustomed to hunting. We sat on mountainsides and glassed the surrounding areas.

If you've never hunted muleys in the west, I would highly recommend you give it a try. Otherwise you'll spend a lot of time and shoe leather to cover the country.

We were hunting public land, so I had to deal with other hunters who were as anxious as I was to fill their tags. Although this was a remote area we had a lot of road traffic, i.e. road hunters. More than once we had stalks aborted by people passing by in their pickups.

For two days, we glassed the mountains and tried some stalks but struck out on getting any shots. The number of trophy size deer we saw was impressive. I knew I had picked the right area for a chance at a large muley.

The third day proved to be our day. My guide saw three bucks on a mountain side and quickly decided one of them was worth the taking. We moved toward the bucks and got to within 50 yards before the deer saw us and slowly moved away. I snuck to within 35 yards and knew it was now or never.

My 45-pound bow didn't send a lightning bolt toward the buck, rather it seemed like a slow arching lob, but it connected.

Knowing the country like the back of his hand, my guide suggested we move to the opposite mountainside and glass back to the mountain where I had taken my shot. He was right on, we saw two of the bucks feeding and moving down the mountain. The third buck was nowhere to be seen.

The mountainside was fairly bare except for one patch of head-high brush. We speculated my buck had gone there to lie down.

As we glassed the area, I saw a coyote follow the trail we guessed the deer had taken. He entered the brush and soon we saw my buck stand up and run the coyote off. Then the deer lay down. Thirty minutes later the coyote returned and the same thing happened.

The buck rose, chased him off and lay down. Some time later the persistent coyote came back, not willing to give up on an easy meal. But this time the buck did not rise. We decided it was time to move in.

Slowly, quietly, we searched the brushy area and found the deer. I couldn't believe its size. He was a big mature buck, much bigger than anything I had ever taken.

Subsequently, we had the deer officially scored and he measured 183 inches gross and 176 inches net. He was the buck of a lifetime and I was so appreciative of the opportunity to have taken him.

As the old saying goes, "sometimes you have to take the lemons and make lemonade." Let me tell you, this was some sweet lemonade.

What's new

We have been focusing on travel sporting equipment recently, as technology has enabled new designs and products to enter the market and most of us are traveling towards distant locations for our sporting adventures.

Bimini Bay Outfitters demonstrated their full line of Tsunami three-piece travel rods at the recent international fishing exposition.

They have models for surf, spin, and cast models in line weights of 10 to 40 pounds. They are great for river, heavy fresh water, and medium salt water action.

These are premium-quality graphite-composite unidirectional blank rods wrapped in an ultra-high quality graphite mesh.

They are extremely light weight and have incredible strength at a great price. For more information, go to the Web site, www.biminibayoutfitters.com.

Events

Ducks Unlimited will hold its annual banquet Oct. 2, in Las Vegas. For more information or to confirm participation, call Scott Bowels at 702-461-8779.

Las Vegas Fly Fishing Club holds its monthly meeting the third Tuesday of the month at Bass Pro in Las Vegas at 7 p.m. For more information, call 702-876-2005.