Some people dread turning 60, but I took the positive route by going bowhunting and celebrated with my biggest mule deer ever.

THIS WAS TOO GOOD to be true! It was late September 2007, the first morning of my mule deer hunt in eastern Wyoming, and I had one of the biggest bucks known to live on this ranch focused in the lenses of my binoculars. Better yet, he was bedded in the shade of a small pine with a rock knoll only 30 yards behind him.

A light wind perfectly favored an approach from the knoll. It was almost 10 a.m., and the sun insistently blanched the white sandstone canyon where the buck looked comfortable and alone. How often does this happen? I thought. Almost never!

IN A SENSE, IT was a birthday present. In July I had turned 60, and feeling no worse for wear, I had booked two hunts -- a moose and mule deer hunt in Utah for early September, and this Wyoming mule deer and antelope hunt for later that same month.

On the Utah hunt, temperatures had reached 90 degrees, making the hunting a bust. But the experience had many redeeming qualities. When I first met my guide Josh Smith, a 24-year-old, college-educated young man full of great humor and tons of energy, I thought, He's too young to have much guiding or hunting experience, and I won't be able to keep up with this grasshopper.

Fortunately, I was wrong on both counts. Each morning, Josh and I rode a Honda quad almost 10 miles to reach mountains on far corners of the ranch. If not for the well-cushioned passenger seat, I'd have quickly felt my age on that rig.

After parking the quad, we proceeded on foot, and climbing to one of several mountain lookouts became routine on this two-week hunt. At 60, I'm active and carry no extra weight, and I found it relatively easy to stay on Josh's heels. As we were climbing one day, Josh stopped in his tracks, turned to me, and offered one of the best compliments of my later life, "I told my boss that if animals were high, there is no way a 60-year-old man could climb the mountains on this ranch. I was wrong. I'm not so sure you're not in better shape than me."

WITH AN AFFIRMATION like that, this Grandpa four times over was feeling eager and confident upon reaching the coulees and canyons in the rolling topography of eastern Wyoming. And this year's Wyoming hunt would be extra special because my wife, Connie, had agreed to go along to try her first rifle hunt for antelope and mule deer. Thus, I allowed myself only three days of archery hunting before she and other ranch hunters pulled out the rifles. The pressure was on!

Although I'd always hoped Connie would take an interest in archery hunting, bows somewhat intimidate her. She had taken many trophy animals on four continents with rifle and muzzleloader, but she had never showed more than reluctant curiosity about bows. Maybe this would be the trip that would change her mind.

This was a self-guided hunt, but to acquaint me with the land, ranch manager Tom Bruegger met me at daybreak on the first day. The prior evening, his son, Thompson, had showed us a photo of a buck they called Granddad. This tremendous buck carried a 5x4 rack with brow tines and a cheater point off each G2 fork. As we drove to the far border of the ranch, I asked Tom where Granddad had been seen of late.