Mike21
FNG
When I first turned on the episode of MeatEater titled “Big Buck Dreams: Mule Deer” I instantly recognized the area I had hunted in my former home territory of southwest Colorado in 2013. As the episode flashed from Montana to the Steven Rinella’s hunt in Colorado, the ground became more and more familiar. I kept telling my wife that is the valley, mountain, ridge and saddle that I had hunted. When Steve began walking on the ridge and looked at the foot prints he said “This guy’s my brother, not my real brother but like a brother in spirit up here wandering around”. The hair on my neck stood up and I knew right then, when and where Steve was. When he and his hunting partner spotted the carcass I think I fell out of my chair. To hear Steve say “I’m so ridiculously jealous of whoever killed that buck because it is such a cool place to kill a buck, if I found that guy I would strangle him, then buy him a beer, or I would buy him a beer then strangle him not sure”, I was speechless. It was my boned out mule deer carcass.
I ended up sending an email to Steve Rinella along with the dates and coordinates of my carcass. He confirmed my story and posted an article and video about the hunt on his website:
"Here’s one of the weirdest, coolest things that’s ever happened to me. On our recent episode, Big Buck Dreams: Mule Deer, there’s a part where I find a butchered mule deer carcass. Seeing it, I go off about how jealous I am and how I want to either strangle the hunter or buy him a beer. You can see that clip here.
Well, just the other day, we get an email from a fan who was watching the show. All along, he was shocked by how similar our hunting area was to the place where he hunted. And then he’s watching the part just before we find the carcass and it looks REALLY similar. And then we show the carcass and he couldn’t believe it — it was his buck. He had killed it just the day before we stumbled across the remains. He even sent me a copy of his hunting journal that describes the location along with the exact coordinates where he killed the muley, a nice tall 3×3. He says that he’ll happily accept the beer, but he’ll pass on the strangulation." http://themeateater.com/videos/big-buck-dreams-steven-rinella-gets-jealous-another-hunters-deer/.
The buck was decent/unique but not "big". Pretty crazy story...
I ended up sending an email to Steve Rinella along with the dates and coordinates of my carcass. He confirmed my story and posted an article and video about the hunt on his website:
"Here’s one of the weirdest, coolest things that’s ever happened to me. On our recent episode, Big Buck Dreams: Mule Deer, there’s a part where I find a butchered mule deer carcass. Seeing it, I go off about how jealous I am and how I want to either strangle the hunter or buy him a beer. You can see that clip here.
Well, just the other day, we get an email from a fan who was watching the show. All along, he was shocked by how similar our hunting area was to the place where he hunted. And then he’s watching the part just before we find the carcass and it looks REALLY similar. And then we show the carcass and he couldn’t believe it — it was his buck. He had killed it just the day before we stumbled across the remains. He even sent me a copy of his hunting journal that describes the location along with the exact coordinates where he killed the muley, a nice tall 3×3. He says that he’ll happily accept the beer, but he’ll pass on the strangulation." http://themeateater.com/videos/big-buck-dreams-steven-rinella-gets-jealous-another-hunters-deer/.
The buck was decent/unique but not "big". Pretty crazy story...
