Chasing Carmen Mountain Whitetails with Browning and Leupold

Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. We earn from qualifying purchases.

Hunched over, I pulled the ocotillo-stained whitetail rack out of the brush for the first time, admiring the storytelling scars and intricacies of each antler as I have done many times before. However, the towering cliff faces that gave way to steep draws and benches littered with various cacti, ocotillo and no shortage of demonic cat claw was a stark reminder I was a long way from what anyone would consider whitetail country.

Carminis Mystery

Nestled in a select few isolated pockets north of the Rio Grande, lives one of North America’s smallest, most elusive and least understood subspecies of whitetail deer, Odocoileus Virginianus Carminis, better known as the Carmen Mountain whitetail. First recognized in the Sierra del Carmen Mountains in Coahuila, Mexico (hence their name) in 1940, it wasn’t until the early 1990s that Carmen Mountain whitetail were officially recognized as a separate subspecies by Safari Club International.

Carmen whitetails display a striking resemblance to their close relative, the Coues deer, with sleek gray coats that seemingly evaporate into their desert surroundings. The primary difference being that Carmen deer are typically slightly smaller in body, display a broader nose and, for the males, can have a larger crown of antler adorned atop their head, though any rack north of 100 inches is recognized as an exceptional trophy. A mature Carmen buck will likely tip the scales right around 100 pounds (live weight) while a doe averages a dainty 60-65 pounds.

What the Carmen deer lacks in body mass and inches of antler, they make up for tenfold in the ruggedly intimidating, desolate and equally inspiring mountain ranges they call home. Their home range stretches from the Sierra del Carmen Mountain Range north to the Rio Grande. North of the Rio Bravo, taxonomists have recognized isolated but healthy populations throughout the Trans Pecos region of Texas in both Presidio and Brewster counties. The largest population of which lies within Big Bend National Park (where they cannot be hunted).

Most have likely never heard of these overlooked and largely mysterious subspecies of whitetail, let alone explored the opportunities to hunt them. Their small but stable populations, paired with the lack of public land in the Lone Star state, limits the hunting opportunities for these special little deer to but a small handful being taken each year. All of which are hunted with a select few outfitters that are fortunate enough to own or lease ground where the Carmen whitetail calls home. I have never explored nor hunted them south of the border, but I do know there are some opportunities to hunt them there as well.

Deja Vu

The pursuit of mature mule deer will always be king in my eyes, but hunting foreign animals in unique places has always been one of my greatest pulls. I recall watching a hunting show on the Outdoor Channel when I was a boy where the host was hunting Carmen Mountain whitetails. Since then, they have always played fiddle in my memory, though they were nothing more than a figment of my imagination until I first laid eyes on one a few years back while hunting aoudad in the shadows of Chinati Peak, just north of the Mexico border. My dad found an impressive matching set of non-typical shed antlers from a Carmen deer on that same hunt that kicked my desire to hunt these diminutive, little deer into overdrive.

Fast forward two-and-a-half years and I found myself bumping down a dust ridden dirt road towards hunting camp, which was nestled at the base of the rugged and unforgiving Chinati Mountains. The term “camp” is used loosely as our home for the week was Fort Cibolo, an extremely well-kept and renovated fort that was originally built in the 1850s. Fort Cibolo and its surrounding regions are overflowing with a rich history of the American Southwest, but that is a story for another day. In camp was two of my dear friends, Shawn Skipper of Leupold Optics and Shaundi Campbell from Browning, along with my now good friend and Editor of Game & Fish magazine, John Taranto. Our main priority was to put Browning’s newest X-Bolt 2 Speed through the paces and push it to its limits. Our quarry for the week? Carmen Mountain whitetail. Coincidentally, we would be hunting an adjacent ranch to where I first laid eyes on a Carmen whitetail two years prior.

First things first, I verified the zero on my X-Bolt 2 Speed, chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor, the following morning before heading afield. Like clockwork, the new rifle, topped with a Leupold VX-5 HD scope, printed a cloverleaf group at 100 yards and we were ready to go.

Browning X-Bolt 2 Speed

The most visually obvious new feature of the X-Bolt 2 Speed is its completely new stock design. Browning’s new Vari-Tech composite stock allows shooters to customize the rifle to their liking via the ability to adjust comb height, length of pull, and the grip angle. These might sound like minor details, but I can assure you, your ability to shoot with precision improves dramatically when firing a properly fitted rifle.

To the untrained eye, the receiver looks very similar to the original X-Bolt design, but the notable improvements lie in the details. The X-Bolt 2 features a redesigned receiver and bolt to optimize speed, comfort and performance. Browning engineers achieved this by creating more guidance area between the receiver and bolt, eliminating any ability for the bolt to bind and increasing the smooth, buttery feel of the action as it cycles. I never had cycling issues with the original X-Bolt, nor felt that it wasn’t smooth operating. However, there is no denying the effortless glide of the improved action and the speed at which it does so.

The forementioned improvements are appreciated and no doubt, make us more efficient hunters and shooters, but the incorporation of the DLX Trigger into the X-Bolt 2 is a defining feature to the new platform. Last year, Browning launched the DLX Trigger in their target line. Following the success there, bringing the new trigger over to the hunting line was a no brainer. The DLX Trigger is an adjustable, three-lever design that eliminates creep and allows shooters to easily adjust the trigger down to 3.0 pounds. Rifles come from the factory set at 3.5 pounds.

Cosmetically, the X-Bolt 2 Speed sports a smoked bronze Cerakote finish on a fluted, sporter contour barrel and receiver while the Vari-Tech stock is cloaked in Browning’s versatile Ovix camo pattern. Other notable and appreciated features include a threaded, radial-style muzzle brake, new Inflex Recoil Pad and fluted bolt.

Over Before it Ever Began

Trent Whitesell, our trusty guide, spent plenty of days afield prior to our arrival and had a pretty good idea of what was around. While enjoying a fine meal the evening prior, he shared some video clips of bucks he had seen recently, one of which he was keen on making a play on the first morning. Taranto won the coin toss for first crack at the buck and, thankfully so. Within an hour of leaving the range, Trent glassed up the love-struck buck tailing a doe, snuck taranto within striking distance and punched the first tag of the trip. Up close and personal, I became even more infatuated with the petite characteristics of the Carmen whitetail. From his head to his hooves, everything was proportionally smaller than any ungulate I had seen, yet his impressive chocolate-hued 10-point rack was mesmerizing.

With 3 ½ days of hunting left, I was in no hurry to fill my tag and was more than content to savor the experience and enjoy my time afield with friends. That changed in an instant when Skipper glassed up a small bachelor group of bucks. Trent got the spotting scope on them just as they crested a ridge up and over into the next canyon, but the small panic attack that ensued and the intensity in his muttered words told us he had seen all he needed to see. “How big was he?” I asked. “I don’t know, but he had something funky going on,” replied Trent. That was all I needed to hear.

The bucks had spooked into the next drainage, but we were sure they hadn’t left the country. Making a big loop to get the wind in our face, we tiptoed to the lip of the draw they had disappeared into. We figured we had to be within 250 yards of the bucks, but couldn’t turn them up despite the sparse vegetation. Our puzzled thoughts shifted into go-time when a rolling rock directly below us gave away their location. Problem being, they were on to us. The trio of bucks broke cover out of the bottom and up the opposite ridge, the big buck bringing up the rear. There was no mistaking  which buck had incited Trent’s excitement.

Nearing the crest of the ridge, the buck made the fatal mistake of looking back at his pursuers. With the X-Bolt 2 cradled in the sticks, I flipped the safety off and squeezed through the DLX trigger, dropping the buck in his tracks at just under 200 yards. Everything happened so quickly that none of us still knew for sure what antler configuration crowned his head. Nor did it matter. Where the buck fell, I could look to the north, just over a mile, and see the head of the canyon I first laid eyes on a Carmen whitetail two years prior.

Full-Circle Moment

It was a surreal, full-circle moment putting my hands on a Carmen buck of my own in the shadows of the mighty Chinatis. The buck was everything and more than I could have hoped for, sporting a heavy, non-typical rack (not all that much different than the set of sheds my father picked up) lined with 12 scorable tines.

Over the course of the next few days, I got to relish in my friend’s successful hunts and soak up the entirety of the experience, knowing I would likely never get the opportunity to hunt these special deer again. And that’s okay. Fortunately, I can continue to satisfy the itch of chasing miniature whitetails in rugged country in pursuit of the much more abundant but equally challenging to hunt Coues deer.

---