Hope, Stan does deserve thanks for sharing this sort of stuff on the WareWolf forum! Somehow, it looks like the WWF type style converted punctuation marks into code - I already squwaked to Stan about THAT! ;)

The main ranch is comprised of 110,000 contiguous acres (about 172 sections, or square miles!) ! At the widest, it covers 13 miles E/W and 18 miles N/S - naturally, the shape is somewhat irregular. There are a very few Cottonwood trees scattered in the bottoms of the draws; when we bagan hunting there (1988), a single "pine tree" graced the ranch - it now has a 10 year old neighbor! Naturally, this location was dubbed "THE PINE TREE"; the view from THERE is spectacular - some of the best deer country on the "home place". And deer habitat is scarce on the home place; that country is primarily goat heaven, with widely scattered deep draws, which the mule deer prefer.

"The Northwest Pasture", where Joe and I shot our deer is the extreme NW corner of the REMOTE "O' Brien Place", which is comprised of a mere 15,000 acres (roughly 23.4 square miles) of contiguous mule deer habitat; a BIG Buck could materialize ANYWHERE! The O'Brien Place is located roughly 45 miles SW of the main ranch. Again, trees are limited to a few cottonwoods along the very deepest and darkest washes, or at the wider mouths of the draws, where moisture can 'collect'.

In all the years we've hunted the O'Brien Place, we had NEVER done a walkabout in the seemingly gentle NW Pasture -  so one would think from the road - we've found other isolated BIG buck haunts . . and THEY looked better!

Every winter, when I visit with the rancher, he asks, "did you guys walk and glass the NW pasture ?"(a measley 3 sections of what appears to be rolling  knee/waste-high sage brush) My response has always been, "No, we just couldn't see the point - there isn't much relief" (we don't have topo maps, just BLM maps, which only show contours at about 200 foot intervals). To this, the standard reply is; "That was a mistake . ."

After a few words regarding other stuff, it finally sinks into my head: "Why, did you see a BIG deer in there?" "Didn't have too . . ." So, after all these years, we finally made two walkabouts (several days apart) - and we scored two decent bucks! ALWAYS LISTEN to the land owner! ;)

Oh, the NW pasture has ZERO trees!

Keep 'em ON the X! R.G.