Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Californias D-6, D-7 zones

I need someplace closer to home so I can hunt weekends and these two zones are in range. I usually head to the Yolly Bolly for a week but work schedule will not allow it anymore. These are both in the three hour range to most areas, not looking for anyones honey hole by any means, just looking for some general tips. I backpack and have no problems going 8-10miles in for a weekend trip.

I have a little time of in July and Im looking to get some scouting done.

Varmintsinc,
Either zone should produce good results for you especially if you willing to backpack in and avoid all those that like to drive the roads. Lots of great public access to either national forest or BLM.

I�m not familiar with the area north of the Merced River but if you would like more information about any area between there and Pine Flat reservoir I�ll help out as much as possible. Just let me know or pm me.

If you plan on hunting D7 I would suggest you pick up your tags as soon as possible. D7 has sold out for a number of years now. If memory serves me D7 sold out mid-June or early July last year.

Thank you vexter, I was starting to zero in on the Dardanelles Cones area just north of Hwy 108. I fished all over Pine Flat Reservior when I was in school at CSUF but I dont rememeber seeing a bunch of deer. Ill shoot you a PM soon when I get a little closer to going.

I�m not familiar with the Dardanelle area but I know 1 person that hunts the area and has had great success. I�ll try to track him down and see if he has any input that may be of value.

I haven�t hunted deer in the Pine Flat area but I have scouted and spent some time chasing valley quail there. Some tough terrain and very few people in that area but some nice bucks have been taken out of there. More in the area above Pine Flat and north of the Kings river. But I think that are is D8.

I�ve decided to concentrate on the A zones this year, despite living in D7. Finally got access to some private property just west of Coalinga and preliminary scouting has been real good. Hopefully they are still in the area come August.

The first thing I'd do is go to the DFG website and look up their deer information for your zones. Then make sure you get into the area and scout. I've seen lots of areas in KA's wilderness which either have good numbers of deer or almost no deer at all. I don't get down as far as you are interested these days. Years ago, the area had plenty of deer as did my home areas. But not anymore. Most of the deer in my area are either at the lower elevations or a in a few select areas up higher. None of my local wilderness have significant numbers at this time.
After you do some intial reasearch, but before you go scouting, you would do well to contact the local office of the DFG and leave a message and your phone number for the local biologist. That guy gets paid to be out there with the deer all year. So he will know where the bucks would be. DFG has a policy to encourage guys like you to get back in the back country, so I'm sure he'd be glad to help.
The one I talked to some years back was very helpful. In fact, I've never found a wildlife biologist with KA's DFG that wasn't well worth the time to talk to. E

Thanks guys.

You may want to talk to your boss. I think that the area you left has some of the biggest blacktails in CA. Have you ever hunted the trail Buck Ridge, especially where it turns North? There are some monsters there. Plus, it is easy as crap to get a bear out of there, well I mean shoot one. Those cowboys that go in there w/ their horses often see more bears than deer. That is some tough country though. I am going there this year for a hunt. Got 2 B zone tags sitting next to the computer as we speak!

Bears are definetly in no shortage in the Yolla Bolly, but its about 7-8hours to drive which is a bit much for weekends. The D-6 only took me three hours which is far more reasonable for multiple 1-2 day trips. Also it sits in the middle of my new territory so Im sure I can find some extra work in the area from September to October.

I was up in Sonora yesterday scouting around in the D-6 on the X12 border and was pretty impressed. Saw some decent mulie bucks still building some pretty nice horns and talked to alot of CDF guys. Seems everyone road hunts and waits for the weather to push bucks out of Yosemite. Seems like anyone willing to get out and walk should do pretty well.

My group is going in and up to Iceberg peak. About four or five mile in, but steep.

The deer counts have been dismal in the area, but same goes for most of the D zones. I think the coast has been better over the last few years, but poison oak kicks my butt, and ends the trip.

+1000 on the poison oak, that was my biggest reason from walking away from alot of private ranches in the A zones. If Im around it I will end up in the hospital with a series of steroid injections, not fun at all.

At least the steroids work, I wish they were around when I was a kid...the smell of calamine lotion still turns my stomach.

Nothing like being on a trip and getting that first itch on your balls, and knowing it's too late.