After winning the Mystery Ranch 6500 in the BAYED contest on On Your Own Adventures Forum – Hunt Talk, I’ve been trying to give this pack the workout it deserves.

Immediately, this pack became my go-to pack while shed hunting and bear hunting in the spring and carrying the spotting scope and other goodies.

Over the summer I took it everywhere with me.  The 6500 carried my gear deep into trail-less areas several times, on quests for cutthroat and golden trout.

Trying to get away from the crowds while paddle-fishing on the Missouri, I got a chance to haul out my first critter for the pack.

The pack even got to come to work with me a few times. Working on the Charles M. Russell NWR, I helped dig out a 75 million year old Elasmosaur fossil.  I packed in bags of plaster and five gallon water jugs for the crew using the NICE Frame and Load Sling.  I even packed out the skull of the beast encased in rock and plaster. It was the heaviest load I’ve ever carried.  The pack did great!

August through November the pack never went more than a few of days without getting sweat on it.  From bowhunting antelope in the breaks to chasing elk up high in the Gallatin Range, the pack came with.  After having many close calls during archery season, I ended up empty handed for elk with a bow.

I was, however, able to harvest a six-point bull as soon as rifle season began.  The bull came out pretty easy with the NICE Frame and Load Sling.  Help from my friends was an added benefit!

Although my buck from this year didn’t require packing, the 6500 was still there carrying my gear on our float trip in which we accessed land-locked public land via river.

Throughout the year, the NICE 6500 accompanied me on many adventures.  It’s the best pack I’ve ever used.  I am planning to add more MR’s to my collection for day hunting and skiing as soon as funds allow.

Thanks Mystery Ranch Backpacks and On Your Own Adventures for the amazing pack!

“You going to be able to make it to The Hills this year?”

That’s what I asked Sam as soon as my unsuccessful bow season ended. Sam is my hunting partner of six years, but he’s never around these days, busy training for the 2012 Paralympics’ Cycling events, while traveling the country as a motivational speaker.

“The Hills” is our annual hunting trip, and since Sam grew up hunting, he should know that tradition is everything.

He could only squeeze one long weekend out of rifle season, and it was all we needed to pack up the Sprinter and head north. We drove five hours and talked about where we might find some big Mulies, knowing that in late October, the deer hold high, waiting ’til mid November to head down to the wheat fields to rut. We settled on putting our MR packs, and our legs, to the test and hauled up to a high ridge line where we could set up camp.

The weatherman called for 50 degrees and calm and was wrong as usual. What he meant was 30 degrees with 70-mile-an-hour gusts – not necessarily the conditions you want when camping on a ridge. But we stuck it out like most Montanans would.

Our morning hunts were focused “grocery shopping” with our Mule Deer B tags, while afternoons and evenings were geared up for getting into the big boys. Our MR packs worked great for hauling our gear during the four days we spent hunting and stalking. They were, in all honesty, the most comfortable packs either of us have ever worn.

I only wish I could tell you first hand how great they are at packing out a mule deer.

But the vivid dreams of harvesting record-setting big game were met with the reality that the animals didn’t get our memo, “We only have FOUR DAYS in the field this season – so you better show up!”

Regardless, Sam and I share similar sentiments. It never is about how big of an animal you harvest – but who you’re hunting with. It’s about the lessons learned in the field, and stories shared around camp.

Sam has been traveling to The Hills with his father since he was 12, and I pray that Sam and I can continue that legacy with our own sons. They’ll get to experience for themselves what Sam and I  see every year: mountains sprouting out of nothing, wild places, and the opportunity to explore them in the way the one who created them intended.

Who knows what we’ll get to fill our Mystery Ranch packs with next year. I’ll guarantee you I’ll be dreaming about it for the next 11 months.  Sam, on the other hand, he’ll be dreaming about “Gold in 2012.”

On the evening of September 23, all that success sparked against a bit of luck, which sent my arrow flying. And so I harvested a gorgeous Montana archery bull.

Mike drew a prime moose tag this season, and he was out scouting some new country. At first light, he saw a fine herd of elk, but his main goal was to find one of the big bull moose he knew hung out in these hills.  Eight hours later, just before dark, he decided to wander a ways over toward the elk – four miles to be exact. A couple of cow calls, and suddenly a satellite bull was in his lap. He released an arrow at 35 yards, the razor-sharp broadhead did its work, and he heard the young bull hit the ground.

It was late and dark with no cell service. He hurriedly gutted his elk in prime grizzly country, and grew rightfully nervous on the hike out. With the smell of blood on his hands, he jumped at every shadow.

He remembered the landowner’s words when he asked for permission: “Have at it son, but watch out. There is an ornery griz in there. He chased us in our quads and almost ran our hired hand through a barb wire fence.”

He’d spilled the guts and the meat was cooling, and as he headed for cell range, he thought about whom he could call to come help him pack it out. It turned out to be a long list, but as a testament to what kind of man he is, he only needed to make two phone calls. I am honored to have received one of them.

Those two calls netted him three helpers, and early the next morning, four of us assembled in the dark at the trailhead for couple hours of hiking and hauling. We had four cans of pepper spray and some slightly stronger deterrents in hand. I was packing a slug gun, and a buddy had his defender loaded to the hilt. The last thing we wanted to do was give the statisticians more maulings to count.

As we headed through the dense underbrush, we could hear elk bugling not far from the kill site. Mike had made a perfect shot and got out of there without spooking the herd. A great bowhunter, friend and father, he always has a long list of friends ready to pitch in. Mike’s generosity in helping out others and the fact that he is such a good guy puts a bunch of people at the ready when he needs a hand.

Our Mystery Ranch packs out-hauled our friends’ pack frames by a wide margin. They’re so comfortable and easy to load that for a little while, I worried more about Mike’s friends sneaking into my garage and taking my pack than I did about any bears in the area.

Of course, they were friends of Mike too, so there was nothing to worry about. We made it back to the trailhead without any incident with bears, and the fellas said they couldn’t wait to get home and put their packs up on eBay.

Do you ever get called to help your friends pack out meat? Who do you call when it’s your animal?

Despite the lack of a tag, Kyle has devoted himself to following me around in the woods with over twenty pounds of camera and video equipment in an attempt to capture the experience.  Props to a solid elk hunting partner and friend!

Let’s hear about your hunting partner!?

Dana Gleason and Luke Buckingham at the Official Ribbon and Tie Cutting Ceremony!

Moving into a brand new building this January was quite the event!  We captured the three day process through the camera lens… it only took 10,369 photos stitched together to make this video!

Dana had more fun than should be allowed... check it out!

Did you win?!  Watch the video to find out!!!

The secret spot was discovered the third spring.  Snowmobiles and four-wheelers had scavenged the place.  I witnessed two individuals chase down a six point bull on their four-wheelers, hooting and hollering, trying to get him to drop his antlers.  Their arrogance and lack of respect disgusted me.  Ethics should play a role in all types of hunting.

I’ve been shed hunting for eight years now.  After the grandeur of the first two years, I’ve come to value the antlers I find a whole lot more.  The sentimental value of each one, even if it’s chewed up, has more worth than the money they fetch.  Although the chewed up sheds usually do become dog bones.

My house is loaded with deer and elk antlers.  They are the primary decorative piece, despite my family’s and roommate’s objection.  In my kitchen alone there are twenty two sheds on top of the cupboards.

During the fall archery season I’ve learned there are still abundant opportunities to find antlers.

Opening morning of my first day ever archery hunting, my dad and I were sneaking through the timber when he abruptly whispered, “STOP!”  I froze, peering through the timber for what I presumed was an elk.  My dad then said, in a normal voice, “No, look down.”  One more step and I would have tripped on the most unique elk shed my dad or I has found to date – A huge split G2 seven point.  That evening we called in a six and a seven point bull.  It was quite an opening day, one that would hook most anyone on archery or shed hunting.

My version of a perfect antler hunt was realized this spring.  I spotted what I initially thought was a pine branch in a distant coulee – my binoculars proved otherwise.  Despite having just eaten an entire Hamburger Helper, I sprinted wholeheartedly to lay my hands on a beautiful mature bull elk shed.  I was in the middle of nowhere, no one was there but me, and I still sprinted.  The reaction was uncontrollable.

No matter how often it’s done, the experience of putting your hands on the byproduct of a game animal that shapes many of our lives remains gratifying.  When rewarded with such a treasure, gas money, miles put on foot, and the opportunity costs associated with pursuing such a passion are forgotten.

As the landscape changes from a fresh blanket of snow to a green world of new life it becomes harder for us as sportsmen to fill the obsession of being in the outdoors. It seems like yesterday we were climbing into our tree stands and settling in behind our spotting scopes in hopes of pursuing the animals we obsess about all year long. Now that the season is over it is once again time to prepare for the season to come.

Scouting for deer in our world begins with hunting for sheds. This process starts in early winter when we start to search for areas that our deer are wintering in. This year we did a late December archery mule deer hunt with Sitka Athletes Mark Seacat and Jeff Simpson. Our primary strategy was to hunt over food sources. With ground blinds brushed into the cover of alfalfa round bales we settled into to sub-zero degree temperatures to embark on our hunt.

During this time of year the numbers of deer observed per sit is high. In a good evening we would see up to 150 mule deer. On the third night Jeff was able to connect with mature mule deer. With only three points on each side the buck was still able to push into the low 160’s. Without hesitation the next morning Mark and Jeff were right back in the same blind attempting to make it happen with one of the 180 class bucks we were seeing on a regular basis across the road.

Mark hunted hard for the next several days and had a few close calls with some world class animals, but inevitably did not harvest an animal. Mark has taken some great bucks over the years and new exactly what kind of animal he was looking for.  During the hunt several bucks were large enough to make Marks hit list. It takes a great hunter to stay disciplined with his commitments of passing on great bucks in order to harvest the trophy he is after. The effort was well worth it and we came away with some phenomenal footage of some of the deer we are anxious to chase next year.

With the late season hunt still fresh in our minds we were hardly able to contain our excitement when we arrived at the area we had hunted last winter. Kyle Metzger, Steve Tatum and I unloaded our ATV’s and began our annual shed hunt for 2011. We knew that there was a tremendously high number of mule deer on several food sources so we began our search there. Kyle filmed Mike Lutt shoot a 180 class mule deer named “Double wide” that had a 33 and a half inch spread in the same area during early October and was familiar with many of the bucks we were looking for.

We generally start our search out with drawing out a grid. With two ATV’s we work back and forth thoroughly covering a given area. Depending on the visibility of the field we spread out anywhere from 15-50 yards apart. The first pass yielded sixteen antlers for our trio! We could hardly hold ourselves back from flying across the fields and racing each other to the prizes we knew were everywhere. Stepping back we analyzed our best options and made sure that we covered the ground the best that we could. Five hours later we finished our adventure and went through our collection. We recognized many of the bucks from the past season and counted a total of 168 horns from the first couple of hours.

That afternoon Steve convinced us that we needed to look for one of the bucks he had located in January that we weren’t familiar with during the hunting season. The buck had an impressive 175 inch typical frame and sported a five to six inch drop tine on his right side. Understandably Kyle and I didn’t need much convincing to look for “The Drop Tine Buck”.  The interesting part of this hunt was that we knew there were only three mule deer bucks in the area.

After arriving Steve went south and Kyle and I headed north. Less than two miles into our search Kyle spotted a small three point side along a fence line parallel to a wheat stubble field. We assumed that the other sheds would be close so I turned around to go get Steve since this was his endeavor. I dropped Kyle off and he immediately found another small four point shed. So now we had found two of the three bucks we were looking for. I randomly choose a path across the middle of the field and less than twenty yards away I nearly ran over the drop tine side. As I jumped off of my ATV Kyle exclaimed “Wow look at that one”. I assumed he was talking about the side I had found, but he leaned over and picked up the other side to the drop tine buck.

We flew across the field holding the horns high in the air for Steve to see. He came over and was ecstatic that we had found the deer he was looking for. The right antler of the buck scored 84 7/8 inches while the left horn scored 79 1/8 inches. Assuming an inside spread of twenty inches the buck would have grossed 184 inches. The best news is that the deer is a three-year-old. Needless to say we are all anxious to see what he will turn into this summer.

The next day we joined up with one of our guides, Kasey Peters, to hunt on his property. We spent the day walking his family ranch and found several respectable whitetail as well as mule deer sheds. By lunch time we had found 30 horns and moved on to another field we knew had some good whitetails along a river system. The spot ended up being a disappointment. Consistently every year we pick up 100 horns along this river, but it had flooded and left the ground covered with debris and six inches of muddy silt making shed hunting impossible.

The same evening we attended a Pheasants Forever banquet in Draper and enjoyed a relaxing meal with the local hunters. After the banquet we went outside and realized that the full moon was amazingly bright. We had a 200 acre sunflower field that we knew had a lot of sheds to be found, but was too muddy to drive in with the ATV’s. It’s not hard to convince Kyle or Steve to do a little extra walking if they think they can find an extra shed. We waited for our final shed hunting buddy Dustin Lutt to arrive and we loaded up and attempted our first ever moonlight hunt.

The first round none of us really knew what we were looking for. Half way across the field the five of us were beginning to wonder if we were wasting our time when suddenly Kasey yelled out that he found one. Another fifteen yards and Kyle found the other side. The field we were in was harvested and the flowers were planted in thirty inch rows. We learned that if we spaced ourselves about ten rows apart that we could effectively cover the property. Spotting sheds in the dark in a field full of white debris is an overwhelming task, but it worked amazingly well for us. We began our search at 11:30 p.m., and by 3:00 a.m. we had discovered forty-five antlers including a set Dusty found that scored 175 inches assuming a 16 inch inside spread. This particular buck was one that Mark had been watching during his December hunt that we just couldn’t get within range.

The rest of the weekend ended up producing a total of nearly 300 sheds. Some of the best sheds included a non-typical set off a three year old we had been watching on a piece of public land, a 74 inch whitetail with a split G2, Kyle breaking his personal 100 shed mark for the year, a young mule deer set of sheds with his antlers tied together by an entanglement of barbed wire, and a total of over forty-five matching sets. All of this was produced in a total of only four days.

Shed hunting is something that we have all become obsessed with. It is an addiction that all of us share and can relate too. The feeling of reaching down and holding in your hand a piece of history is impossible to describe. The journey of each buck losing his antlers that end up falling in a place for us to find is an amazing process we think about relentlessly. It is a passion we embrace and will pursue every year in hopes of finding just one more shed.

Clayton Miller is the owner of Miller Mathews Outfitters in Draper, South Dakota.  Find out more at www.millermathews.com Follow Miller Mathews Outfitting on Facebook here

Photos are courtesy Dustin Lutt and Dusty Image.  Follow Dustin Lutt on Facebook here

The entries have been received, the chads dimpled, ties settled with sewing machines at 20 paces and recounts recounted. We are proud to announce and showcase the winners of the 2011 Mystery Ranch photo and video contest. Congratulations to grand prize winners Ryan Krueger, Matthew Irving and KGB Productions and thanks to everyone who entered your unbelievably awesome photos and videos.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.