Ryan Dethlefsen

Deer season brings with it an aura that can't be found anywhere else.  The Dethlefsen household  is no exception to this rule.  There is an attitude change in the members of our tiny clan as the time stretches on into the fall, closer and closer to the rifle deer season.   Every year brings with it a plethora of memories that will undoubtedly last a lifetime.  Though we kids are slowly leaving the house in pursuit of lives of our own, deer season is one of the constants that bring us all back together year after year.  The 2011 Nebraska deer hunt is without a doubt one of the most memorable to date.

It is our yearly tradition for Dad and his two boys to head up to the hunting grounds a week before the hunt, a  sort of cap on our preseason scouting.   The drive up  feels a lot like the adult version of trying to sleep the night before Christmas morning.  Everyone in the truck is tense, and the talk is all hunting.  We review with each other what kind of bucks we have seen in the preseason, and each of us sets a sort of goal for ourselves as to what style and size of buck would be ideal for that given year.  Dad usually doesn't say much, as he seems to get the most pleasure from seeing his two boys and wife get nice deer before he will even think about taking a shot.

As we pull into the opening pasture of the fifteen thousand acre ranch, we don't have a lot of hope of seeing anything special as all the deer will likely still be off in the broken hills.  As expected, we don't see much on the first five pivots.  As I hop out of the truck to unlatch the western style barbed wire gate that will lead into the final pivot, something  catches my eye.  There on the far side grazing are about 20 deer.  It is impossible to see much from this distance, so I quietly latch the gate and hop back into the truck.  As we make our way as silently as possible along the fence line that surrounds the pivot, it becomes clear that there is a buck in the herd worth looking at.  Glassing the landscape, the big buck is unmistakable.  There are a few other bucks present, but nothing that comes close to the giant that is clearly the boss hog of the group.

His antlers are snow white, and he has an incredibly dark grey, almost black body.  I make a comment that his antlers are white as a ghost, and the name sticks.  From this point forward, this goliath buck is dubbed  the "Ghost buck."  It isn't immediately clear that this name will soon mean more than just the color of his antlers.  As we pull out of the pasture for the night, we begin to discuss the buck we had just seen.  We talk, and come to the realization that we had seen the Ghost the previous year as we were pulling out of the ranch on the final night of season with all our tags filled.  On that night, the Ghost made his way down a draw and right out into the open pivot of alfalfa and looked across at us as if he knew without a doubt that there was nothing we could do about it.  Even a year younger, the Ghost buck sported an impressive stark white set of antlers that would make the mouths of most mule deer hunters water.  As night fell on our long road home, my father vowed right then and there that if he was able to find the Ghost in the broken hills the  next morning, it would be his last rifle buck.  After that, he said, he would focus on a new found passion; muzzleloader hunting.  By the time we arrived back home, we were all in agreement that the Ghost buck had to be at least 27 or 28 inches wide with great mass and a few stickers on each side.  Perhaps the most impressive attribute of this buck, however, is that from front to back, the rack had to be at least two feet deep.  For the Sandhills of Nebraska, this is indeed a trophy.  We estimate that the ghost would score somewhere around 185 if not higher.

As we made the extremely early morning trek to the broken hills and alfalfa pastures of our hunting grounds on opening day, the whole family seemed to be sitting on the edge of their seat.  Every member of the family tags along on these hunting trips, which consists of my mother, father, older brother, and younger sister.  The strategy is usually to get to the pivots and see if anything is out and about early in the morning, and then take the Argo, which is an 8 wheeled amphibious deer hunting machine,  up through the broken hills until we find a suitable spot to start glassing and walking.

As we pull into the first pivot, we see no trace of deer.  As we weave our way through the valley, pivot after pivot turn up empty.  Finally, on the third to last pivot, we catch sight of what we think is the ghost.  We park the truck, and hop out as quietly as humanly possible.  My father and I slink along the fence line to within shooting distance of where the buck will cross the fence on his way up a deep cut draw to his shady bed.  As we get within shooting distance, I tell Dad "I don't think that's the Ghost!"  He isn't convinced, however, and leans over to use the barbed wire fence as a rest for the shot.  As he squeezes the trigger, the crack of the shot from his Remington VTR in .308 echoes up and down the draw and the buck hunches over, slowly making his way toward the hill that he thinks will be his salvation.  Dad lets another shot ring out and the buck turns and looks right at us as if to say "is that all you've got?"  As we make our way closer to the supposed "Ghost" buck it becomes clearer and clearer to me that this buck is not the Ghost.  At about fifty yards, the buck is still looking at us with a look of pure hatred.  I keep one finger on the safety of my Howa .270 just in case the old boy decides to make a downhill run at us.  One final shot from the .308 craters the old buck, and Dad has his deer.   As we walk up to him, Dad finally concedes that this isn't the Ghost.   Regardless, however, it is a beautiful buck that ends up scoring out at just over 174 inches and Dad's largest mule deer to date.

The rest of the 10 day season was spent searching high and low for the Ghost, but none in the family ended up finding him.  As the days waned on it became increasingly hard to hold out for the giant, especially as we passed up buck after buck that would surely spike into the 150 class.  My brother ended up taking a beautiful buck with long sword-like tines and an extra kicker that scored out at 161 and some change, and my mother took a beautiful buck that scored out at a dead even 146.  The deciding factor in taking this buck was the body size.  It easily had the thickest neck of any deer we had taken.   I held out as long as possible for the ghost, but ended up taking a fine typical buck on the last morning we had to hunt that scored right around 166 inches.  This buck was extremely tall and the points all curved outward, which made him very unique.  At this point, I was convinced that the ghost had been taken by another hunter somewhere along the line.

More than a month later, while  still on Christmas break from the University of Nebrsaska-Kearney, my father and I took a late afternoon trip up to the old hunting grounds to see what we could see.  We saw some nice new bucks as we made our way through the valley of the ranch.  As we got to the very last circle, up on a hill looking out over the wide valley that is undoubtedly his kingdom, stood the Ghost.  His beautiful snow white antlers which contrasted so perfectly with his gray-black body gleamed in the amber sunset.  It was then and there that the meaning of his name came full circle.  He was indeed the Sandhills Ghost.  The search for the Ghost will undoubtedly resume next year.  My only hope is that somehow, in some way, one of us can outsmart the old buck, which would surely end up being the trophy of a lifetime.