Chuck Smock of Cabela's nailed this 4x4 mule deer with a single shot from his .300 SAUM. Helping him get his buck were Doug Stults and Angie Denny of Table Mountain Outfitters.

     Most of us have heard a tale or two about “shootin’ a buck out yonder in the corn patch.” We think of the “corn patch” as being part of the annual vegetable garden or at most a 40-acre cash-crop piece. So when Chuck Smock of Cabela’s invited me to accompany him on a deer hunt in the corn patch, imagine my surprise when I arrived in Arnold, NE, and the corn patch went for about as far as I could see—literally miles. Hmm, this ain’t yer regular corn patch, I surmised.

     We were at somewhat of a disadvantage. A week of rain in October kept the fields and the crop virtually saturated and made it impossible to harvest within the normal autumn time frame. Probably no more than 40 percent of the crop had suffered the indignity of the combine, so there was plenty of corn left for the deer to remain out of sight of our rifles. On our side of the ledger, though, the whitetails were smack in the middle of the rut, and the mule deer were getting pretty frisky as well.

     Our other hunters, including American Hunter Executive Editor Frank Miniter, wisely chose to focus their efforts on whitetail bucks, and it paid off well for them. Frank took a dandy buck the first morning. Chuck and I figured we would concentrate on mule deer. Now I am a rather contrary and ornery old coot; growing up a westerner I just like hunting deer with big ears, even if it makes the hunt more difficult. Good sense would dictate that we hunt the bucks that are easiest to get to, but I’ve never been blessed with much good sense. Chuck, on the other hand, seems like a very solid, rational and intelligent young man. I have no idea what got into his head about hunting pre-rut mule deer in the tall corn.

     Anyway, while Frank kicked back and enjoyed the prerogatives of hunters who tag-out quickly, Chuck and I pounded the ground for three days. And no, we didn’t fight our way through the tall grass with big seed pods; we took to the periphery (the cornfields really do have a beginning and end) trying to pick up a buck whose hormones got the best of him a bit early. But all we seemed to run across were “wimmen and children,” as one of my outfitter buddies calls does and young bucks. I named one fork-horn buck Gilligan—he was like our little buddy—because we seemed to see him in the same draw nearly every time we checked it.

     Chuck and I were finally able to put it together, albeit separately, on the Sunday morning before Thanksgiving. Scott Denny, who along with his wife Angie, run Table Mountain Outfitters and ramrodded this trip accompanied me, along with my guide Steven “Scooby” Johnson. We sat overlooking the edge of a cornfield well before shooting time. The light background of standing cornstalks made it easier to spot deer, and we saw a couple of whitetail does finishing up their nighttime meals. No less than a minute after shooting time a mule deer doe nervously trotted through the sagebrush between the cornfield and us, followed closely by a young three-point whitetail. Then out of the darkness came a 3x3 mule deer buck intent on running his eastern cousin off his western girlfriend.

     I got down on my sticks and began tracking the buck. The range was 200 yards, and it was wide open. I felt confident that I could kill the briskly trotting buck but decided to wait and see if it would stop. It did, and I settled in for the shot. Through the scope I saw the buck tense as if it was going to run off again, and I pushed the crosshair slightly into its shoulder and pressed the trigger. For whatever reason the buck did not move, and the 130-grain Barnes Triple-Shock drilled perfect holes through both shoulders—bang-flop, just the way I like it.

     At nearly the same time, Angie put Chuck on a nice 4x4 mule deer buck a few miles away—100-percent success. Nope, we didn’t get into monster bucks; they seemed to be perfectly content in the standing corn. But we all shot good quality bucks, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with everyone filling their tag.

 

—Dave Campbell