"The Yellow Belly Buck"
By Scott McKinzie
Every one of us has a special friend who has touched our lives in many ways. For me that person was Daniel Robert Parker. Dan was a guy who would drop every thing to help a friend. I always told my wife that I could be stranded 1000 miles from him, give him a call and before I even would tell Dan where I was he would be in his truck coming to help. Dan loved life and he lived every day like it could be his last. Dan was one of those guys who you would look at and envy how he approached every day with his family, work, hunting, and his friendships.
It was late July of 2006 and the Arizona
I had moved up to north central Arizona
As the hunt drew closer we made plans to have Dan and Lee show up at my house the morning after Christmas 2 hours before sunrise then my hunting partner and friend Cameron Vaughan, my son Dillon and I would take them to a spot not far from the house that holds a good population of deer that way we could get them excited and motivated by showing them some deer right away. Dan showed up right on time and Lee being Lee was running late. I told Lee where to meet us. Cameron had a last minute meeting that came up for work so he told me he would meet us as soon as he finished up in town probably about 10 am. So Dan, Dillon, and I headed out to hook up with Lee. On the drive to the meeting spot I kept telling Dan to have patience and that I would not let him shoot the first buck we saw, that we need to just wait and eventually a “stud” buck would show himself.
Lee finally made it and as we were getting ready to hike up to our glassing perch Lee informs me that due to work and family commitments he only had 1 day to hunt so it was decided that Lee would be up first if we found a shootable buck. As we made it to the top of the ridge I again told Dan and Lee that they needed to relax and have faith and jokingly I told them to lie down and take a nap and in 10 minutes I would wake them up and show them some deer. You ever have one of those hunts that every thing just falls in to place and you can do no wrong? Well this was one of those days. It had been about ten minutes and I said “I’ve got deer, and one is a good buck chasing does”. They both looked at me and said “ya whatever”. Once they both realized that Dillon and I were talking about the size of the buck they jumped up and got behind their glasses, and spotting scope. We all decided that with Lee having a very limited window that he would put a stalk on this buck. The buck was about 800 yards away so we came up with a game plan and Lee headed off. About 20 minutes later Lee was in position about 350 yards from the buck who was preoccupied with his girls. Lee got set up and squeezed a round off and we watched as it sailed just high over the bucks back. The does immediately took off and the buck was in tow until the does took a hard right and the buck continued up the opposite ridge stopping almost at the very top with just his nose sticking out of an oak thicket. Lee made another move and this time got to with in 200 yards and set up for a second shot. Minutes seemed like hours as the buck would not come out but would not leave his overlook above the group of does he had been courting. After about 20 minutes I caught movement from left of the buck, it was a smaller buck running out of the canyon to move in on the does. I was thinking Lee DO NOT SHOOT the little buck. That was all the coaxing Lee’s buck needed to step out and present a shot opportunity and before I knew it Lee’s buck dropped out of site and a second later we heard the report of .270.
After making the hike over to Lee and locating the buck, some hugs and high fives and pictures we loaded up the deer and made our way back to the trucks. We had the buck hanging in my front yard by 9:30 am. Cameron showed up soon after and we decided to take Dan to a spot that has produced some monster buck sightings on previous hunts, this area had a resident heard of does and we knew that at any minute “toadzilla” could make an appearance. On our drive to the area we joked with Dan and Lee that we were going to blind fold them on the way in so they wouldn’t be able to tell any one where we took them.
We were all set up and glassing by noon. It just felt like one of those perfect days, great weather, and great friends on a great deer hunt. Dan had some of the best “one liners” known to man and it was almost hard to glass because if you weren’t laughing you were wiping the tears out of your eyes from the previous joke. Dan was a joker 24/7 but also a real friend, one that you could talk to about any thing and he would tell you what he honestly thought and help you in any way possible. He also had this deal with peregrine falcons. If he saw a bird or a bird made a noise with out even looking or seeing the bird he would randomly say Peregrine Falcon. He always said they were his good luck charm.
We had been glassing for about and hour or so when Cameron picked up some does with a small buck. We all took a look and I told Dan, Lee, and Cameron to keep on eye out for other bucks. I had just panned over to look at another area on the same ridge when my son Dillon said “Dad I got deer running on the top of the ridge”. I moved my binoculars over and had 3 does running from right to left and then they went over the top of the ridge. I told Cameron that I felt a buck had been chasing these does and that I was going to keep watching where they went over. About five minutes later I picked the does coming back over and about 20 yards behind them I saw the top of antlers moving through the brush. I immediately told the others and when the buck came out into the opening Cameron had just put his glasses on him and we both looked at each other and said “toad”. I didn’t even give Dan a chance to see the buck’s rack in fear of him getting “buck fever”, I just said “Dan you are going to shoot this buck”!
As Dan got in to position Lee finally got a look at this great deer. The look on his face was priceless. Dan got down behind his 7mm and proceeded to locate the buck for a shot. I ranged the buck at 360 yards and told Dan to take his time and make a great shot. Any one who has hunted these little ghost in the rut know that getting a buck to stop who has his mind on one thing can some times be a chore. So I told Dan I was going to “grunt” at him and be ready. I gave a soft grunt and he stopped on a dime. Dan said are you sure it’s not the little buck? Both Cameron and I said don’t look at the antlers just SHOOT the deer. The next thing I heard was Dan say “coming hot” and the 7mm barked. I said right over his back. The buck took about 3 slow steps and Dan let him have it. This time it was a good hit just little bit back. The bucked humped up and made his way behind a pinion tree out of our site. I jumped up grabbed my tripod and glasses and with Lee in tow I ran down the ridge we were on to try to relocate the buck. We had run about 100 yards and I picked him up bedded under a Juniper tree. Lee ran back and got the crew while I kept on eye on the buck. We got Dan set back up and talked him into the deer, ranged him at 220 yards. Dan put one finally bullet into the buck and he flipped over and that was it. After all the hooping and hollering Cameron and I kept trying to explain to Dan what kind of buck he just harvested but Dan didn’t seem to get it due to his lack of Coues Deer hunting experience. We all made are way down to the buck with Cameron and me frothing at the mouth to get our hands on this buck to see if we had estimated the buck correctly. Cameron and Dan were the first ones to get to him and I heard Cameron say “Scott he is bigger than we thought”. It was celebration time again. When the buck had flipped over he had broken a point off his right antler but Dan didn’t care. Once he put his hands on the buck you could see in his eyes he finally realized what he had done. Dan's buck unofficially scored 117 2/8".
Daniel Robert Parker tragically lost his life in a boating accident in July 2009 outside of Lubbock , Texas
As far as the title “The Yellow Belly Buck”, it had nothing to do with the deer. Yellow Belly was Dan’s slang term for his favorite beverage brewed in the Rocky Mountains and several were consumed once back at my house admiring the buck. In October of 2009 we were at it again for Lee who had drawn an early whitetail tag when some one saw two birds gliding through the air, I simply said Peregrine Falcon.
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