MORE SASKATCHEWAN MONSTER BUCKS WITH GARDEN RIVER
OUTFITTERS
Slaton’s Slugger
 Editor’s
Note: Slaton White, the editor of Shot Business, came
to Saskatchewan to hunt with Garden River Outfitters
because he knew he’d have a chance to take the
white-tailed buck of a lifetime. Slaton explains, “All
my life, especially when I was the editor for Field
and Stream magazine, I’ve heard that Saskatchewan
is the place to come if you want to take a really-nice
buck.”
QUESTION: What was your hunt like?
WHITE: The weather was cold, and the hours in the stand
were long. But, I knew to take a really-big buck I‘d
have to wait out any bucks I might take. I knew that
I would have to use extraordinary patience, and it would
take at  least
11 hours a day of sitting on a 4 X 4 platform stand
inside a small tent to get a chance at my buck of a
lifetime. I was seeing deer, but not all the time. The
deer came in waves, and I had to stay prepared and focused,
which really took a lot out of me. We had hunted a couple
of days when the temperature was -7 degrees, and the
wind chill was -27 degrees. I knew I needed to wear
plenty of clothing, and I had a lot of Hot Hands heat
packs.
I’d seen the same 8-point bucks
all week long, but I could never get excited about his
rack. Toward the end of the hunt, I decided to go ahead
and try and take him. I got into my stand about 6:40
am, about a half an hour before legal shooting time.
I saw two does at the bait, and then at about 7:50 am,
I heard a deer grunting. This 8 point was working really
 big
circles around my stand, and I could see him preparing
his scrapes and. checking does until about 10:00 a.m.
I also had several other deer come into the area. But
at 10:00 a.m., the rut seemed to really break loose.
I saw a 10-point buck I’d spotted on Tuesday.
As I looked at the buck, I said to myself, “He’s
not really that big a deer; he’s a young deer;
maybe I’ll take him, and maybe I won’t.”
As I was watching the 10-point buck,
the 8 pointer I’d been watching all week created
a scrape right behind my stand. Next, a button buck
came in about 20 yards from my stand and started looking
straight at me. Then, I saw a buck with beautiful chocolate-colored
antlers that I’d spotted two days earlier. I thought
he was a little small, but one of the things I remembered
was that the big bodies on these deer make their antlers
look small. In talking to the guys at camp, I’d
learned to look at the eye of the buck and then look
at the base of the horns. If the width of the antlers
at the base was wider than the deer’s eye, then
usually the buck had a pretty good mass. When I made
that judgment call, I realized that this buck had really,
really nice mass and was the buck I wanted. However,
this presented me with a real dilemma. The chocolate-antlered
buck that
I wanted to take was coming in, the 8 point was behind
me making a scrape, and I had a 10 point in front of
me and a button buck looking right at me. So, I moved
slowly, rested my elbow on my knee, got my CVA rifle
and prepared for the shot. Once you decide on the buck
you want to take, especially if he’s a really
nice buck, your adrenaline kicks in, so, I tried to
keep every emotion I was having at bay.
Check out www.bushnell.com to learn more about Bushnell’s
top-quality optics.
To learn more about Hot Hands, call Howard Communications
at (573) 898-3422 or visit www.howardcommunications.com.
For more information on Garden River Outfitters, contact
Mo Heisler at (306) 978-2307, or you can write to him
at Box 929, Martinsville, Saskatchewan, SOK-2TO.
To learn more about BPI black-powder guns, including
CVA and PowerBelt Bullets, Winchester and New Frontier
go to www.bpiguns.com.
TOMORROW: THE REST OF SLATON’S STORY
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