Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Mule deer do's and dont's

Huh?

Thanks Bob, but I'm more lucky than good.

The best ones are. You have to create your own luck and it takes skill to consistently make good luck

I would get a lightweight tripod to glass from, even if your using 10's it makes a world of difference in big country. It's a natural tendency to set up and start glassing different spots in different places that are miles away but start close and work your way out. I've made this mistake a bunch and have watched others do the same thing. Your glassing a hill 2 miles away and you hear rocks rolling right under you, it's humbling. When I get to where I'm glassing big country I'll break it up into grids and really try to cover it all. If the deer are up and moving I may be inclined to glass a little faster to cover a little bit more county but when the deer are down I may leave my binos on one spot for a half hour or more trying to pick up movement.

If your hunting open country and you watch a deer bed and you bail off after him remember that his first bed is the quickest. Most times when they bed down for the first time they may only be down for up to an hour and a half but they'll get up to piss. The second bedding they may stay down for 4 hours or more if they are comfortable. I prefer stalking bedded deer in open country. It more difficult when they are up but it's really not that big of a deal if you are hunting with a rifle

Don't just start walking and bumbledicking your way through country. Be smart about it, use your glass to cover the country and pay attention to the other wildlife you see, they are coming and going from somewhere to somewhere for a reason. Also, of you find and bed a big deer pay close attention to the other animals in the area. Most people see a big deer and get tunnel vision looking at him. Pay attention to the other animals and where they bed, it's a bitch when a big deer is blown out by the animals you didn't know where there.

Know what the weather is going to do, often times the wind direction changes in the country I hunt. I use the weather channel app on my phone when I have service and pay close attention to the hourly report in regards to wind. Also, as the air heats up it will rise, I don't like to come at a deer from below, I prefer to come down on them or sidehill to them.

Anyway, there's so much to think about but when you find him don't over think killing him. It's amazing some of the stupid ass stuff I've heard people come up with when a lot of times you just need to walk over and kill him. For me finding the deer you want to kill is the hard part as big damn deer are tough to find, killing them isn't to bad, especially with a rifle

It's great to hear the voices of experience and I owe you guys, many thanks.

Way earlier in the thread I think it was SU35 that mentioned using an anchoring shot in the sage as necessary; and to remember that I'm trophy hunting, not meat hunting. I'm not contesting that notion in any way, but, it's funny how much it's made me think about whether I'm approaching this as a trophy hunt, or what. I don't know for sure that I am! I like venison a lot. Bringing home meat is very appreciated at my house. Heck, a big, fat 3x3 would be a very enticing target for me. And I've never yet approached a hunt as a trophy hunt.

So anyway, I will think more about this more (obviously, lol) as the summer goes by but just for grins, what's the best way to reliably nail the younger bucks? Find the big bucks then hunt down?

The juveniles will be pretty easy....

To folks who live and hunt where a 130 class whitetail is a "big one";or like you in blacktail country,which don't get as large in body or antler, a 150-160 class mule deer will look astonishinly "big" and tempting for a first timer,so they shoot and many are happy and that's fine.

After you do it a few times,you will pass those bucks(maybe,depending on what floats your boat)because you will come to realize they are mostly youngsters(big bodied, very old timers on the "mend" being an exception) and you will start to look for more "age".

Bucks start to get the "Wow" factor when they hit a frame size of about 180, gross......if you see one larger than that,and he has a body to go with the antler size..he will have the WOW!!!! factor;they will knock your eye out,and you will at first,for a split second,think he is not even a deer....he will be so much larger than the ordinary stuff in body and antler size that he will need no evaluation at all,unless you are the most serious and jaundiced of trophy hunters.He will be MUCH bigger through the body,blocky and short legged looking,kind of immense,and I have spoken with guys having seen their first one's,think they were elk at first.

By the time a buck reaches those dimensions,he is at least likely 5.5+ years old, although I am no expert at aging them. He will not be easy to find or kill.

I have passed on some 180 class deer, because I knew they were "young" and while they had big antlers, they were slender bodied and did not have the body weight and size to put them in the upper age class.Others killed them, so I knew what they scored....I like them "older" like JB says,but you do the best you can.

Jeff look for the best you can,and if time is running out,take a meat buck toward the end.Make it fun.

Yup! Exactly!

To add to what huntsonora said about bedded deer, I've often seen bucks get up and move around a little bit during midday. It may be only for a minute or two, and they may bed down again in the same spot, apparently because they just want to get up and stretch and take a piss. But sometimes they bed down a few feet away, whether due to the angle of the sun or the wind or something else we don't know about. Whatever the reason, this little midday stretch makes them a lot easier to locate and stalk, one reason I often continue to glass even when deer aren't "moving" in the classic sense. (At least if I'm not taking a midday nap myself, which sometimes happens after getting up before dawn.)

The wife burns more fuel running around with her camera than I do hunting in Oct. Here's the largest typical in the Steens unit that Cookie ran into last year in a secret apple orchard. Not a huge body but nice antlers. Yes, about 1 week after deer season ended.



A slightly larger nontypical she found about a week later. I'd guess 30+ in width and a huge body.


Less stature, more heft, and a little trash. She has literally hundreds of images from last fall.

So we do have them around. One does see several mediocre or average boys for every one of these.

Nice bucks and beautiful pictures!

I.... it.... they.... WOW!

Nice photos....

Can't wait for fall!

1Minute-

Props to Mrs. 1Minute - wonderful picts.

There ya go ,Jeff! 1 Minute showed you what's there.....just gotta find one!

I always love your pics 1minute. Once again they didn't disappoint!

Oh is that all? How tough could it be?!

Really looking forward to being able to SEE. Blacktail hunting is usually in pretty low visibility-- at least how/where I do it. I like sneaking around in the thick stuff but getting into more open country is exciting!

What kind of bucks typically come out of that unit? You've got to set a realistic goal, you know?

If memory serves it's a 45% success rate overall with about 30% being 4x4 or better.

With those statisics, that means the hunter sucess for 4X4 bucks is 15%. Very few 4X4's are over 25 inches wide. That means when he's looking at you with his ears flat, his antlers must be an inch or two beyond the ear tips to make that. If they are at an alert status, then the ear tips are typically 18 inches apart. Well over half of the 4X4's will run 18-23 inches wide.
As a rule, a really good one is wider than his ears flat and nearly, or higher, than he is wide.
Jack O'connor said once that the really big ones look big w/o a doubt. If there is any doubt, he isn't. E

JG: Elevation in that unit ranges from 4000 to just under 10,000 ft (sagebrush desert up into section sized aspen thickets). Much of it is nasty rugged, very remote, and essentially unhunted.

Animals that gain elevation throughout the summer can stay in good groceries from about April-Oct. There are no antler requirements, so those that simply want a deer can tap any buck, and that fits the average hunter just fine. The lastest statistics put success at 44% but the stats do not address stature or point counts. I am amazed at the number of hunters that roar in Friday at midnight and head out at noon on Sunday.

Based on the wife's photo runs, I think one has to look at 40 to 50 bucks before he will see anything approaching a Booner. Yes, the average 4 by is about ear width at 20 to 24. I'd put the first pic above at about 26 to 28, and the second image at 31 to 32.

I'd guess that the typical animal taken is a yearling forky or 2 yr old 3 or 4 by. Those willing to go the season and pass on Jr. though can typcally find a trophy. My son, not really into hunting, and I put a stalk on a monster 4 by about 4 seasons ago on his 3rd day out. We caught him out moving to an outcropping bedding site at about 06:45 on the east side of the McCoy creek drainage through a spotting scope. Unknown to both the buck and us, we passed one another in opposing directions about 150 yds apart at the tail end of the stalk as the wife watched from about 1.5 miles away. I think we could have scored if we had left the moment we spotted him. The kid though, wanted to eat breakfast before heading out, and bacon takes forever to cook. Near the end of the stalk the wife's signals told us the buck was up, but we do not do radios and had no ideas on his directions. Later, fog and snow, took us out of action for the last couple days of the season, and the kid came home empty.

For several years that area was managed as a 4 pt only unit with unlimited tags. The 4 pt header really wound people up, hunter numbers went through the roof, and probably 90+% of the 4 by's were 2 or 3 yr olds. Overall success went into the toilet. Big boys were near non existent. About a dozen years ago, the 4pt requirement was dumped and entry was limited. Since then both meat and trophy hunters seem to be happier with their experience, and I think more of the wise old trophy bucks are escaping. There are some fine bucks about, but they do not get that way by coming easy. A coworker lives and owns property in the unit and can pull a landowner tag each year. He typically takes a 25 to 30" wide buck each season on the first or second day, but knows the in's and out's of the 10 sections or so that he has available.

One needs to forgo tags (accumlate points) for 3 or 4 seasons to be assured of a draw. The primo deer unit in eastern Oregon is the Trout Cr Mountains on the Or/Nv border where one needs about 12 or 13 points to assure a draw. I put in for that unit with a party this year carrying 16 points. The fact that our party had a non resident in the group, however, got us kicked out of the draw. Only 1 or 2 non resident tags are given out, and obviously a NR was drawn before our group came up. Maybe next year.

From my experience, this is excellent advice. One more aspect I might add is to find edge in the area you'll be hunting. Edge is where most game of any species is found. It's between food and cover where deer bed down.

Stay quiet. Mule deer have huge ears for a reason. Stay silent. Walk slowly. Stop every few steps and glass.

Spend as much on a good pair of binos as you would on a decent rifle. I use Zeiss. Good binos are eye friendly, which means you can glass longer.

If you glass grazing deer far off, say a mile away, don't rush. Assess. Develop a plan that will execute a good stalk. Where will it likely go if it's spooked?

Don't be tempted to take a shot when you think you're close enough. Try to get closer.

I like to find escape routes and sit 'em. I can force myself to sit certain areas for days.

For some reason deer follow fence lines. If you find a fence line, examine it for recent deer movement along it. Deer aren't smart enough to hide where they've been.

Finally, accept mistakes you will make and learn from them.


Best of luck,

R