Thursday, November 9 through Wednesday, November 15

Cerwin, Jeff, and Jordan had been looking forward to this hunt for more than a year. Jordan found the hunt on the Internet and asked Grandpa to check it out – probably a year and a half ago.

Before long they were talking to D&E Outfitters out of Colorado Springs, Colorado, who book Nebraska mule deer hunts. Our guys were impressed and before long it became a three generation hunt – Cerwin; our oldest son Jeff; and Jeff’s oldest son Jordan.

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Jordan and Jeff came here about 2:30 am on November 9th – with Jordan driving his Dodge pickup. Jeff and Cerwin offered to drive, but Jordan (like his truck driver grandpa and dad) enjoys driving and drove the entire trip – about 1,500 miles.

They arrived at the Comfort Inn in Valentine shortly after noon on Friday the 10th. Cerwin said every room was full – most of them hunters.

D & E had 32 hunters in the area.

John Kime is the landowner where our guys hunted. He was also their guide.

Cerwin said John worked hard to see that the guys had a successful hunt.

Day 1: They left the motel at 4:30 am on Saturday and drove for an hour and a half to the area where they would be hunting.

Cerwin’s ground blind – next to a huge grass bale where he sat in the dark for about half an hour.

After daylight, he kept his eyes on the rolling sand hills for signs of movement, then (shortly after 9:00 am) he noticed a deer about 200 yards away and saw it was a nice muley.

Cerwin was facing the sun and when he focused his scope on the deer, it suddenly steamed up (from the heat of the sun on the cold glass). He quickly wiped it off, refocused, and when the deer stopped and looked at him – about 35 yards away – he pulled the trigger of his 300 short mag and dropped him on the spot.

He was pleased to harvest this nice ten-point.

Cerwin took this picture of his hay bale blind – from the spot where the deer dropped.

John heard the shot and hoped that one of his hunters was successful. Before long he came and took this picture for Cerwin.

John knows his ranch and the deer that roam it, but said he had never seen this one.

John and Jordan went to check on a buck they saw at a distance, but it was small, so they came back to Cerwin’s hay bale blind.

Jordan finished out the day here, but did not see anything close enough to shoot.

Stormy-looking sky that afternoon.

Notice the eagle nest.

John told them about a time – a year ago – when a storm brought a tree down that contained an eagle nest with a baby. The parents faithfully guarded the nest – which was now on the ground – for many weeks until the baby could fly. When John drove his truck within a hundred yards of the tree, the eagles came after him. He said, “I wouldn’t have wanted those talons attacking me.”

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Cerwin was the only one of our three guys who was successful on Day One.

Jeff had a successful hunt on Day 2 – bagging a nice nine-point. Jeff still has a flip-phone, so the pixels are not real high – giving a very small picture. 🙂

Cerwin took a few more pictures of the happy hunter with his cell phone.

I like this one best. Good job, Jeff!

On Day 3 – while Jordan went hunting – Cerwin and Jeff compared stories, took pictures of their deer (Cerwin’s on the left and Jeff’s on the right), and walked around town.

A scene from downtown Valentine. Cerwin and Jeff were fascinated by the building on the right. The scene was designed with bricks.

Look at the smile on Jordan’s face. 🙂

His aunt Amy told him that she thought he would probably sleep with a smile on his face that night.

John, and some of the others thought he might have the highest scoring rack because of the size and length of the antlers. So he bought a meal for everyone that night. 🙂

The restaurant

Left to right: John’s wife, baby, daughter, John, John’s brother-in-law, Jordan, and Jeff.

D&E had 32 hunters out for mule deer and white tail and there were 32 successful, happy hunters.

Our three hunters.

When they got home, Jordan measured and scored the antlers – Cerwin’s came in a bit higher. It scored 140. That means Cerwin should have paid the meal. 🙂

Cerwin brought home 77 pounds of boneless meat – which we had processed at BurPack. We got hamburger, sweet bologna, tenderloin, dried deer, and sausage.

Cerwin just picked it up at BurPack yesterday, so we haven’t tasted anything, but John told us that mule deer is much better than whitetail meat.

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Cerwin said this was his best hunt ever. So I thought maybe he is ready to retire from hunting, but it sounds like that is not in his plans. 🙂