Brittany's First Arizona Coues Hunt

This October Brittany and my father had whitetail tags for a unit we have not hunted since 2002. This year there were over 600 tags for one hunt, so right off the before the start we knew we would have to work hard for this one. I was able to scout three days spread out over the course of three weeks and having located some bucks we got more excited. Once the hunt started so did the wind and the full moon! Opening day we found a two point and a spike 200 yards from our position. I told Brittany to look at him and think if she wants to shoot or not, she passed. Later she would start to second guess herself for never harvesting a coues deer. Well the next four days went like this, no bucks. We hiked mile after mile and canyon after canyon searching for the elusive bucks turning up nothing. We managed to get far enough away from the other hunters but just couldn't find the deer. The last day we were able to hunt it all came together, deer every where! Alot of people had left and it was like the deer blew the whistle and came out of hiding. I glassed four bucks up right away around a mile from our location. I couldn't stop but tell myself there is no way we can shoot this buck, that is too far away by the time we get there we will have lost them. We had two canyons to cross so my dad elected to stay behind and when Brittany said LETS GO! it was on. I recall on the long hike over there I was nervously telling Britt that this was going to be tough cause they should move into the better shade so prepare for some tough situations. She looked at me and said if I don't kill a buck I'll still love you, that being said I took a breath and smiled cause we were still having fun. We didn't have to be successful to have fun we were still doing what we love so much.  We took off trying to get below them for what we thought would be a 400+ yard shot, we were trying to keep it under 300. Or we could get on a knob across from them but from where we sat it looked like 400+ also.  To make matters worse we had a bull and his seven cows laying between us and the deer and we would have to maneuver around them to get to the deer. We chose to go high and get across from them, slowly we crawled through the grass and trees and found ourselves 315 yards away with one deer laying in sight. The elk lay below us 100 yards and were clueless we had slipped into their bedrooms. We got setup at 292 yards from a two point that we knew was the second biggest buck up there, but Britt told me I wanna wait for the bigger one. We both agreed and the wait began. Two hours or so later my dad glasses a deer standing up and says one just stood up, I tell Brittany to look for one standing. She finds him and out of her I hear I'm going to shoot that one!! The bigger buck had stood at 295 yards broadside. I reminded her to breath and concentrate on squeezing the trigger, BOOM!! She hit her buck perfect and he only went about forty yards and was done.  Amazed at how fast the hunt had flipped from bad to good we walked over and found her first coues buck! We then realized the character we could not see from a mile away and when he stood he kept his bigger side towards us. But this makes him different and we couldn't of been happier with how it all worked out. We had a long pack out but with my dads help and Brittany we got it all out in four hours. This reminds me again to hang in there and never give up! Enjoy