Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Canada Mule Deer

So Ive been out of the game of out of state hunting for a long time. Looking to squeeze in a mule deer hunt this year so I can save up for future hunts with my daughter. Which will also give me chances to build points with her hunts. I currently have 0 points anywhere.
Looking into it, I can get decently priced hunts in British Columbia and Alberta. I do not want a pickup prairie hunt where there is the “there he is, you want him” conversation from a pickup along a farmers field.
Looking for a spot and stalk hunt. I’ve talked to a few outfitters and it’s looking like cost is close to one another and BC hunt will be early at higher elevation. Alberta would be in WMU441. Not sure where BC WMU is but it’s not far from East Kooteny BC (forgive me if I misspelled something).

Any experience from anyone hunting Mule deer in these locations. I understand this is not the kill a 200 inch deer location but I’m looking for a nice mature mule deer that’ll look nice beside my moose and most of all a nice, fun hunt.

hemi82;
Top of the morning to you sir, I hope that the fire's are all burning bright and the coffee is on at your place and that you're all well.

Regarding hunting up here in general, we have a whole bunch of information stacked together in this thread, some of which is dated but the links seem to all be good.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...60/planning-a-hunt-in-canada#Post6042560

It's been years since I've been over in the Alberta area which looks to be on the Smoky River just south of some family as it turns out. Very pretty country there and if I'm not wrong there's some Alberta members here who aren't super far away either.

The East Kootenay country is also home to at least one member here and is more familiar to me, though the West Kootenay is where we've spent more time.

If you do the BC hunt, bring a camera and prepare for a visual feast.

We've kicked around the mountains in BC, Alberta, Yukon, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Arizona - so far - and each has it's charms and unique flavor.

The East Kootenays would be like your Glacier National Park in Montana for viewing pleasure, which is to say quite spectacular.

This winter hasn't been terrible overall so if you booked into this fall there should be some decent bucks as the survival rate "should" be up.

That said, it's also been a bit of a light snow pack so they'll need forage to grow big antlers and fat too, but that's always the dice we pick up when we hunt the mountains, which is all I personally do so there's that.

Unless I'm wrong about that part of the Kootenays, talk to the outfitter about black bear and wolf tags as they might be reasonably priced. If I had my way, every visiting hunter would leave here with a black bear under each arm, dragging at least a pair of wolves, but I digress....

If it's a horse pack or back pack trip into the BC high country it'll be memorable for the view for sure.

If you have further questions by all means feel free to drop me a line and I'll do my best to get you an answer.

To be clear, I am not now and never, ever have been in the guiding or outfitting line of work, nor tourism of any kind.

All the best.

Dwayne

I traveled to BC a number of years ago to hunt mule deer. Went opening week. We had 11 inches of rain. The alpine was socked in the whole time. Saw one legal deer
Tough hunt.

Hope somebody else from the area can chime in, but having spent a fair bit of time in the Grande Cache area over the years, I dont think the mule deer hunting in 441 would be worth whatever you are paying. My impression is that the mountainous areas aroun GC are nothing special as far as mulies go, possibly further north it might get better but you are also getting into thickly timbered foothill/ logging slash type country. I dont know how much spot and stalk you'd be doing in that stuff.

If you want to do a spot-and-stalk mulie hunt in AB with good trophy potential, I would look into hunting river break areas rather than high country. The experience is somewhat similar, and I think the hunting and trophy potential will generally be better.

I think the AB hunt’s around 3 hours from Grand Praire in what he’s calling the Foothills on the eastern slope. I haven’t had a chance to look at a map to get my head wrapped around it all yet.
And you’re right about the logging areas as that’s where they want to focus on.

So I'm just going on a couple things, firstly I've seen allot more incidental whitetail in that area than I have mulie while I'm camping/ fishing, whatever. Secondly your right in the last little cluster of zones left that can still be hunted on a general Mule Deer tag. You can take that one way or another, but generally in AB thats a bad sign. Too, it sounds to me like your outfitter will be hunting off the Forestry Trunk road. I'd ask alot of questions about the hunt experience, its a buisy road with lots of recreational and industrial activity on it, unless you guys are using ATV's to get back into a remote camp it might not be the sort of wilderness hunt you're expecting. Not trying to come off as super negative but it chaps my ass watching Albertan outfitters take peoples hard eaned money based on false expectations.

I have an aquaintance that does some hunting in the Grande Cache area, mostly for moose and sheep. I know he does his mulie hunting in southern AB and have not heard him make mention of taking any in the GC area. If I bump into him I'll ask him what he thinks.

On a totally different note, I've seen some huge whitetail bucks out there, and I think those northern mountains are a total sleeper area for whitetail. Anyone headed out there is generally after something else, and most people dont really want to hunt them in that kind of terrain.

I did a combo goat and mule deer hunt about 15 years ago with Bugle Basin outfitters out of Cranbrook BC. Got a good buck and a 10 inch Billy. Don't know if he's still in business. I booked it through Jack Atcheson and sons. It was an awesome hunt.

I'd be cautious of Alberta for mule deer.

The fall of 2024 was quite warm and people were complaining how little deer they were seeing, even compared to the fall of 2023. However, once snow and colder temperatures hit in the third week of November, more deer were seen. These northern deer get their winter coat and if the fall is warm, they stay in the shade during the day to try to keep comfortable.

CWD has spread across a large chunk of Alberta. It affects all cervids (deer family), but the worst hit is the mule deer, with old mule deer bucks the worst hit. I would source a map of the CWD spread from Alberta Fish and Wildlife. That should help you determine if the area of your proposed hunt has been affected by CWD. If it has, I would look elsewhere. That all being said, some large mule deer bucks are still being harvested, just not in the numbers as in the past.

Roger that. Libby MT just South of Alberta Whitetail hit hard, unsure of impact on our Mule deer population.


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I dont think the area in question has any CWD problems just yet, that said, the population densities in those areas have never been great. In Alberta, particularly the northern mountains, our tree line is lower than further south and the transition to thick timber is generally abrupt. Also in contrast to what I've seen in the states, there is often a couple hundred miles of heavily timbered foothills before you find any open country at lower altitudes, further north these foothills simply fade into the boreal. In short, the type of alpine habitat that deer and elk like is in short supply, and mountain hunting for these species tends to be tough.

Total newb to these species. What type of habitat do they like. Alberta would be Boreal type forest. Again I’m on the other side of the continent so I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.

They like more open country. Boreal can be okay if it has lots of logging cut blocks. Prairies, alpine mixed country, and parkland are where they tend to be found in AB, IME.

Gotcha! Thanks

I'm only a passing mule deer hunter myself, but disliking the whole private land/ agricultural experience I hunt them in river valleys. I bypass the permission ordeal by hunting out of a canoe and accessing the valley from the river. In the OP's situation I would see if anyone is outfitting this kind of hunt in the greater Peace River area. I'd imagine that similar hunting opportunities could be found further south, but the rifle season opens later and CWD could be a factor.

I'll also add that in the prairies, MD love country with deep coulees.

Yeah, that can work, as long as you know the legal property boundaries along waterways.

This is the habitat where I hunted.

hemi82;
Afternoon sir, I hope the other side of the continent is getting a decent day and you're all well.

As Rickshaw showed above, here in the mountains they can live in places every bit as steep as a sheep will go.

They love burns too, especially from about 2 years after the burn up to perhaps a dozen, depending on moisture.

Here's the mountain behind the house where we chase mule deer in my part of BC.



Yes that's a hayfield in the upper left, the lake in the background is 5 minutes south of where I'm sitting typing, though we're a couple hundred feet above it.

Again this is the same place looking the other way.



They'll move through the big Ponderosa and Doug Fir stands, but there's not a whole lot to eat in most of them as "old growth" here is actually pretty sterile as far as food goes for ungulates.

Looking west across the valley, we see another couple burn areas and we hunt mule deer all over in that photo.



Our part of the world gets fairly warm - we're classed as "semi-desert" so while we'll see 115°F in our yard once in awhile, up here at about 5000' it'd only get to the mid 90°F sort of temps in summer, but enough to dry it out.

As you can imagine, if bucks get up and bugger off in the wrong direction after being hit, it can add hours to the pack.

That second photo for instance was taken just a couple hundred yards from where we got a rig into on a buddy's sheep hunt. It was 90° F when we left the trucks, we went down to nearly the dark line in the photo which is a creek and then began to make our way out.

I pulled out my GPS and announced happily that we were only 1000yds from where we could get a pickup to, so we radioed the one older smarter fellow who'd stayed at the rigs to meet us there.

If memory serves it took us not quite 15 minutes to knock every 100yds off that distance....

On the way up I drank a liter of water, a big Gatorade and thank heaven buddy who brought the truck was thoughtful enough to pack some beer that morning as well, because we were all ready for some sort of liquid beverage when we got to the pickup.

The mountains in the BC area you were looking at are steeper than ours are here, but it's a bit wetter too, so no sagebrush or small brittle prickly pear cactus like we have.

Hope that helped somewhat or at least was fun to take a look at.

All the best.

Dwayne

The Mule Deer/CWD situation where I hunt is the biggest wildlife tragedy that I had a front row to witness, it has been badly mismanaged IMO.

Alberta has seen better days for Mule Deer. But they are still out there. Here are some of what I have taken within 100 miles of my house over the years. Most of them within 50 miles. Lots of varying terrain around here and they inhabit a varying variety of it. Next time I get drawn I may try and spend a solid month looking for a real good one.