“He’s at least a 180 inch buck” the guide whispered, as we watched the heavy rack of the mule deer rise over the rock outcropping. The snow was falling harder now, and while the deer using the mountain trail earlier in the day moved without a trace of urgency, this buck moved with purpose, intent on getting out of the high country. As the buck came into full view, I nocked an arrow on the bowstring as my pulse raced to Olympic levels. After checking the trail ahead from the protective cover of the pines, the buck moved into the open to cross the one hundred foot trail that traversed the steep rockslide of shale that had accumulated over the millennia. Sitting in ambush on the down-trail side, and just below the path the deer would take, we watched as the deer committed to the tight-rope thin trail and moved into bow range. Each step brought the deer closer and lessened the angle between arrow and shoulder. The buck was nearly broadside now; it was time to move. The bow flexed as it rose above the makeshift blind. The peripheral movement caught the deer’s eye, stopping him in his tracks. The situation was perfect; a hunter’s dream come true. Only one thing wrong: I couldn’t see the sight. Earlier in the day, as the snow and temperature began to fall, I had put on a ski mask; a mask with two eyeholes and a cover for the nose. My vision was fine and unobstructed, that is, until I looked hard left past my nose in the direction of the bow sight. That little piece of cloth between my eyes was completely blocking the sight pins on a huge buck standing broadside at twenty-five yards. Frantically I worked the thumb of right hand between my eyes to remove the offending cloth. After what seemed like minutes, the fabric had shifted enough to see the faint outline of a sight pin. I settled the image on the buck’s front shoulder and pressed the trigger of the string release. The deer, startled at the sound of steel crashing into rock, watched the arrow continue bounding uphill, then went on his way. I sat in disbelief as the deer walked away unscathed, while the guide feigned sympathy as he choked off a grin. “Just a bit high” he laughed, as he could no longer hide his amusement. “Had a little trouble with your hat it looked like. Man, he stood there for a while. Too bad.” “Too bad” was right. In my panicked attempt to get off a shot, I had put the one and only pin I could actually see on the deer’s vitals, and let the arrow fly. It would have been a good shot too, if only the deer were at forty yards. Unfortunately, since the target was considerably closer, the arrow was high, but that’s bow hunting. And after all, it was the first day of our hunt, and we had seen lots of mule deer. Tomorrow would be another day with another chance at a big Rocky Mountain buck. But tomorrow never came. That was four years ago. For the rest of that hunt, and the following two seasons, I returned to northwestern Wyoming to try and take a trophy mulie with a bow, but to no avail. The guide and outfitter of these hunts was Monte Horst of Ishawooa Outfitters. Monte runs a great camp high in the Shoshone Wilderness near the east border of Yellowstone Park. A six hour pack trip from the trail head finds a comfortable base camp that is used by hunters of elk and bighorn sheep, but the majority of this operation is focused on the pursuit of trophy mule deer. As autumn in the Wyoming mountains fades into the harsh cloak of winter, the mule deer of the high country begin their decent to the flatlands near Cody. Does and younger deer are first to make the downhill journey, with larger bucks following later as the snow begins to accumulate in the summer range. Hunting this massive migration is all about timing; hunt too early and the trophy bucks will be few and far between. But if the snow comes early, you just may spend a week hunting a mountain void of deer.