Caribou Gear Tarp

First Mule Deer Hunt

iHunt said:
The thing I am most worried about is that I know nothing about mule deer, so far my game plan right now is to walk ridges and glass alot until I find one with antlers then go shoot it!
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Get moving before light so that you can get to a high spot with a good view before legal shooting. Sit and glass for 2 hours...the deer will be out but may be up and down the draws so you may glass for an hour only to realize that there has been a good one right in front of you the whole time. By 9 or 10, it's time to start walking the ridges and looing down into draws. You'll kick them out of the draws but if you go slowly enough, you can catch them in their beds. 2 hours or so before dark, it's time to sit and glass again. repeat.
 
You guys can give him all the good advice in the world, but likely as not, when the time comes to pull the trigger he will go belly up and forget where his safety is! Or he might oversleep...again!

Just kidding. I know he will put in 110% effort on this hunt. And after packing out my bull while I lounge around camp, he will be in tiptop shape!
 
And that my friends is my brother, who is heavily banking on me being in great shape for archery season!
 
Update, I have a MT big game combo and will be archery elk hunting in sept. and if a big muley makes a mistake I will spend some time on that! Otherwise I am planning to come back to SE MT for late rifle season to fill the mule deer tag, and possibly and elk if I dont shoot one with my bow. And also I am planning to go to WY with a rifle for mule deer! It is going to be a crazy year!
 
iHunt said:
Update, I have a MT big game combo and will be archery elk hunting in sept. and if a big muley makes a mistake I will spend some time on that! Otherwise I am planning to come back to SE MT for late rifle season to fill the mule deer tag, and possibly and elk if I dont shoot one with my bow. And also I am planning to go to WY with a rifle for mule deer! It is going to be a crazy year!
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Sounds like a fun season ! I also have the big game combo but will be rifle hunting only however I plan on making two trips to montana first for rifle opener for elk then back around November 15 for mule deer . Good luck to you !
 
Just for perspective, I really felt that Mule deer hunting above all else was about careful glassing as they blend into their environment extremely well. Mule deer was the first time that I spent 2-3 hours glassing nonstop and after glassing up deer and have some pointed out I was amazed at how well they blend in even in the open. The hunt can be summed up as hike in to glass, glass for a few hours, move and glass some more midmorning, try to jump some deer in logical places and setup to glass the until last light. Regardless of how little you intend to glass midday, hangout on good vantage points while you eat lunch, take naps and glass intermittently. I killed my first mule deer because we were sitting up high eating lunch and thinking about a nap and we spotted a buck moving midday. Figure out the glassing locations on google earth, drop them onto your phone/gps and strategically move point to point along the way. Bring the best binoculars you can afford and a tripod to glass from.

My experience with pressure/road heavy areas has been that most guys hunting mule deer by leaving the truck at shooting time and walking/pushing cover hoping to bump into something during peak activity. If you are where you want to glass an hour before sunrise you will watch the whole day unfold and you will see deer then watch other hunters walk past deer from 8 am-10 am, then get bored and head back in.
 
Good advice from Flatland. Mature mule deer will bed down and let you walk right past. Let the other hunters do your work, pressure and push the deer to you.
A good set of binos and eyes are key.
 
So now that the fall is getting closer I have a few more specific questions regarding the WY Bighorns mule deer hunt.

We will be hunting the first part of Rifle season, I think its 10/15 to/10/20?
We have a full day of scouting before season starts as well.

My question is where should we be looking for deer, above the black timber, in the black timber, or below the timber? I know weather can play a role in this as well but I just curious where we should start our search.
 
iHunt said:
So now that the fall is getting closer I have a few more specific questions regarding the WY Bighorns mule deer hunt.

We will be hunting the first part of Rifle season, I think its 10/15 to/10/20?
We have a full day of scouting before season starts as well.

My question is where should we be looking for deer, above the black timber, in the black timber, or below the timber? I know weather can play a role in this as well but I just curious where we should start our search.
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Start high and work your way down until you find what elevation they're concentrated at.
 
Oct. mature bucks are pretty solitary still. Middle aged bucks will hang out together and sometimes a couple old old guys may hang out together. Unless you have deep snow look for solitary bucks still up by themselves. If you can get down adjacent to private where they are feeding in hay meadows hunt the travel routes back up into the hills.
Otherwise look the cuts over closely. Warm weather means look for shady spots by mid morning and bedded bucks. Could be a rock outcropping or a tree or bush or deep cut bank.
By end of Oct. the more mature bucks will start showing themselves down near doe groups.
 
On my first mule deer hunt, I was hiking to what I thought would be a good spot. On the way, I glassed a lone pinion in a draw, thinking to myself, "That looks like a place where a mule deer might bed down." I didn't see any deer so I kept walking. Seconds after I started hiking again, 3 deer emerged from the exact spot I was glassing.
 
Something else you can consider would be going to Nebraska, up along the Niobrara River in north central part of the state. A pretty good amount of deer up there, and public land. Worth looking into, an much closer to you. Oh, they have a "draw" for tags, but usually have left over tags so you can buy one on line.

Good luck!
Jay
 
PaJay 1962 said:
Something else you can consider would be going to Nebraska, up along the Niobrara River in north central part of the state. A pretty good amount of deer up there, and public land. Worth looking into, an much closer to you. Oh, they have a "draw" for tags, but usually have left over tags so you can buy one on line.

Good luck!
Jay
Click to expand...

I may do that next year, but this year we are pretty set on WY, we already have the tags and everything.


Also, how do you rifle hunt the black timber when the bucks start coming down at the end of October? I remember Elk hunting in MT last year and we couldn't see 50 yards in the black timber. Or are they below the black timber when they come down to find does?
 
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