After several days of hard bowhunting in Arizona, Troy Seward was able to wrap his over-the-counter archery mule deer tag around an old desert buck we called Shovel Beams.  This was Troy’s biggest archery mule deer to date & 2nd archery mule deer in 2 years of archery mule deer hunting with us.

The 2016 Arizona Archery Mule Deer rut was very dull & sporadic as compared to years past.  We were able to find multiple bucks throughout the archery hunt, but most of the bigger mature mule deer were very inconsistent in courting does. One day you would find a big mature mule deer buck rutting, while the next day he was disappear & go off by himself.  This made for tougher than normal archery mule deer rut hunting conditions, but was still a very enjoyable hunt for all of our 2016 bowhunters.

Lee & Troy found Shovel Beams late on the afternoon of the 4th day, but they were hunting a bigger mule deer buck.  In fact, Troy had the bigger buck within bow range for several minutes but the wind swirled before the bedded buck presented a shot.  The big desert mule deer blew out just before dark, thus a plan was formed to try & relocated the buck the next morning.

The next morning Troy & Lee glassed for their big buck, while Craig & Logan Knopp glassed for Shovel Beams.   Shovel Beams showed up while in the middle of a mule deer rutting frenzy.  Meanwhile, the big buck the other crew was searching for slipped off in some mule deer black hole.  A plan was launched for both Troy & Logan to pursue Shovel Beams as he was intensely searching for more does.

Shovel Beams was zigging & zagging for almost an hour, before Troy was able to release a single deadly arrow at 60 yards.  The big old Arizona desert mule deer buck literally fell to his death just 30 yards from Logan while he was waiting with a knocked arrow!

Check-out some live & dead video of the Shovel Beams:

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You don’t need to draw, you can buy this tag over-the-counter!