DOUBLE LUNG
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http://espn.go.com/outdoors/hunting/s/h_fea_deer_mule_CO_Lowe_05.html
There are mule deer.
Then, there are big mule deer.
And, then, there are those monstrous mega-muleys — bucks so big they cause hunters to have trouble sleeping at night.
Count 28-year-old Utah archer Jed Lowe in that last group, thanks to his Aug. 29 arrowing of a massive Colorado mule deer — a 10x11 velvet-horned monster non-typical that has an early green score as high as 277 0/8 inches gross and 273 0/8 inches net.
Keep in mind those figures are preliminary rough scores of the deer's rack; the Lowe buck must go through the mandatory 60-day drying period before an official Pope & Young Club score can be obtained.
But also note those same figures — should they be verified — stand to propel the deer to the top of the bowhunting record book as perhaps the largest velvet antlered non-typical mule deer ever tagged by a hunter.
While this story obviously will not cross the finish line until after all of the official scoring takes place, it actually began for Lowe earlier this summer, after a 10-mile hike into the Centennial State's high country at an elevation of more than 12,000 feet.
That's when and where the veteran hunter cranked up the power on his spotting scope and got a glimpse of a mule deer that would nearly take his breath away.
"I spotted him from really a long, long ways away," Lowe said. "I watched him the rest of the day."
Lowe, who has chased muleys with a rifle or bow in his hand since the age of 14, played a careful game of cat-and-mouse with the massive muley the rest of that day, never getting any closer than 700 to 800 yards away.
But as the day wore on, with his spotting scope cranked to the max, one thing became readily apparent to Lowe: He had found the deer of his dreams and one that he would spend his season hunting.
"I knew he was big, but I really didn't know how big (at first)," Lowe said. "But I got to look at him from some different angles and started adding things up in my head and the numbers just kept going up."
After the early-August scouting trip, Lowe admits the buck consumed his thoughts.
"Honestly, I couldn't think of anything else," Lowe said. "He haunted me those few weeks."
Needless to say, Lowe and his brother Matt found themselves deep in the backcountry when the Colorado archery season opened Aug. 27.
To the amazement of the siblings, the buck not only was located again, it was found in country surprisingly devoid of any other hunters.
"I figured that with a buck of that caliber, someone else would have seen him," Lowe said. "Surprisingly, we only saw one other hunter while we were up there, and that was an elk hunter."
Even so, that didn't mean that Lowe was able to make an early, aggressive move on the high-country monarch.
"We had him pegged down pretty good, but he wasn't presenting himself in the right place," Lowe said. "The first couple of days there was really no chance of getting in on him."
"He had chosen where to live very well," he added. "Above him were cliffs, and there was no way to stalk him from above. And there was very little cover to work with from below, so it was hard to stalk."
That finally changed, however, on Aug. 29.
"On the 29th he probably put himself in the best place in the basin," Lowe said. "It was still not a great option and was a tough place to try and stalk him, although I'm really lucky that it worked out."
But it wouldn't work out without a lengthy approach that forced Lowe to descend to the bottom of the basin and work his way carefully up the other side.
And all the while, Lowe had to be painstakingly careful to avoid a misstep in the rocky terrain that would alert the buck and send him — and his 170-inch, 4x4 typical muley sidekick — packing.
"It probably took at least four hours," Lowe said of the stalk. "My brother was behind the spotting scope the whole time while I was stalking."
In fact, Lowe gives great credit to his brother — first, for allowing him the initial crack at the deer, and, second, for giving him hand signals from afar that helped Lowe successfully stalk the deer.
"He was gracious enough to allow me to get the first stalk at him," Lowe said. "My brother is a pretty good guy."
Finally, after the tedious stalk, Lowe proved that he, too, is a pretty good guy, at least with a compound bow in his hand.
That's due to his rigorous practice routine (Lowe shoots several times a week, year-round), and to a bow tuned to perfection by the gang down at Sportsman's Archery in Salt Lake City.
When Lowe's moment of opportunity finally arrived on that Colorado mountainside last month, the bowhunter came to full draw and made good on the shot of a lifetime.
"It was perfect," Lowe said of the shot. "He went down within 60 yards."
With a monster buck of dreamlike proportions laying motionless, Lowe sat down to take it all in, sharing the moment with only the rustling alpine breeze and the crowing magpies overhead.
"It was just overwhelming," Lowe said. "I saw him go down; but I still gave him the 30 minutes, although it was hard to wait.
"After a while, I looked at my brother. He could see the deer down through his spotting scope and he was waving his arms.
"It was kind of a humbling feeling to kill an animal like that. I felt a profound sense of gratitude and respect for the animal."
Odds are, plenty of other hunters will have a little respect for what could be one of history's best-ever, velvet-horned, non-typical mule deer.
Taxidermist Jay Ogden is one such person.
"For anybody who likes mule deer, this buck will take your breath away," Ogden said.
With initial green measurements showing a width of 38 6/8 inches, a 212-inch gross mainframe, an overall gross score of 277 inches and an overall net score of 273 inches, it is easy to see why.
To put those numbers into proper perspective, the standing Pope & Young Club world record for a hard-horned non-typical muley is a 1987 Morgan County, Colorado, buck that was taken by bowhunter Kenneth W. Plank with a net score of 274 7/8 inches.
While the P&Y Club doesn't have a permanent record category for velvet antlered mule deer, the club does record the top such fuzzy-horned animals for each record-book scoring period.
The Lowe buck, depending upon its final official score, should do well against all other velvet antlered non-typical entries, perhaps even well enough to be the unofficial world record for the specialized category.
(Editor's note: the 1999 fifth edition of the P&Y record book shows a 264 6/8 inch buck atop the velvet antlered category for non-typicals.)
Regardless of where Lowe's buck ends up ranking in a historical sense, he knows where it ends up in the place that matters most — in the recesses of his hunter's heart.
"The score, it's a nice way of measuring the deer, but that doesn't mean everything to me," Lowe said.
What does mean everything to the hunter is simply enjoying the noble pastime of hunting mule deer, especially on their rugged turf in the spectacular high country of the American West.
"I think that there's a reason that people call it God's country, because that's what it is."
Amen to that.
