Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game The art of scouting

Most of us do it, and everyone recommends it. How is it done right ? I've been doing it all my life. You get out into the field, and look for what your going to hunt. Usually you can't see the critters. So you look for sign, tracks, pellets, beds, etc. Often you have hundreds of square miles of area to consider. Which is the best area ? How do you find it ? Usually, I start with our Kalifornia Dept. of Fish & Game. Game wardens seem to vary in helpfulness. Some of them don't have much to say. But the biologists have rarely been anything less than very helpful. Not only will they give one some good general areas to look, but they will tell you why the, say deer, are there. They can also tell you what key habitat features to look for, what they eat, what the buck to doe ratio is, etc. Then I get maps. If it's US forest service land, I get their map. This gives me access information. I also get USGS topo maps. These give me terrain features, water source information, and some vegetation information. Then it's time to hit the field. I'm very fortunate these days. I live minutes from where I hunt. Here's what I do. First, I take the side windows out of my Jeep. This improves visibility. You wouldn't think it would make a difference. But countless times, as I passed a set of tracks, they have caught my eye. I finally realized that as the angle I observe them changes, so does the light that strikes them. For just an instant, they stand out. They catch my eye. Try this the next time your looking for tracks on hard ground. Guess where they should be. Then change the angle at which you try to see them. All of a sudden, there are the impressions your looking for. A simple angle change did it. Second, I try to be there when they are moving. Early in the morning is best. It gives you the rest of the day as well. I make my approach with the sun at my back. I note access routes. Too much access can be as bad as not enough. I note vegetation types and conditions. Water sources are key areas. Not only for water, but for high quality feed. When I find what I'm looking for, I try to evaluate its significance. I'm often surprised. Yesterday's experience was a good example. I started out looking for good Mtn. Quail areas. The first area I checked, I saw one complete family of quail, a nice Blue Grouse, and a few deer. I noted lots of cattle use. Right on the key meadow complex that had attracted my interest. The next area I checked looked similar, but no cows. I started looking with great interest. Sure enough, all the riparian areas looked great. Lots more quail. But there was more. The tracks of a large buck. Instead of being in the classic wilderness areas, this one was was in the lower reaches of his summer range. No cattle grazing. Lots of high quality feed, meadows, etc. Lots of cover. Impossible to hunt, unless one can pick a good spot for a stand. That's why he's there. Four to five miles away, I found the tracks of another. Very similar situation. You must understand. This area has a buck to doe ratio of about 20 to 100. Four year old class animals are scarce. But now I've located two of them, in atypical situations. Both in areas that can only be hunted one way, if at all. Both of them because I did what years of scouting has taught me. Now I need to "pattern" them. When the archery season opens, I'll be there. Not to hunt them, but to watch for them. To evaluate their heads, and to learn their escape tactics. They are on their summer range. They will be there until the gun season. I will have to hunt them by taking a stand. The area is too thick and dry to do anything else. I like hunting from a stand least of all. It probably takes more patience, and discipline, than any other method. But that's what hunting really is. An exercise in patience, and discipline. Yes, I see 120 gr Barnes X in the future of one of them. I've got a nice 8.5 lb. .280 with a 6X42 leo. It will be perfect for the job. Now, I need to shop for a camo covered cushion. E

Good topic. Scouting is almost as much fun as hunting, and ususally more relaxing, though not always. In some of the mountain areas where we hunt, we climb from our spike camp to a peak and glass with the rising sun at our backs. In the evening, we climb a ridge on the opposite side of the basin and glass with the setting sun at our backs. <P>Scouting is worthwhile even if your conclusion after a day or even a weekend of effort is to decide you will never go there again.<P>Scouting first on maps saves a lot of driving and walking. In your Kalifornia, Errmicus, years ago I used to figure out from roads and private land where hunters would start on opening morning, and position myself on escape routes. It meant scouting out before the season how to walk sometimes a mile or more in the dark up a mountainside to arrive before light where I wanted to be.<P>In some areas of high hunt pressure, it does little good to scout for game before the season, because gazillions of hunters will run them out of the country and disrupt any normal patterns at least on opening weekend.<P>That has been frustrating sometimes in WA State. My son located a loose bachelor group of bucks with two 4x4's in the bunch and kept an eye on them all summer, hiking up 7 miles to glass them nearly every weekend, anticipating the early season high buck hunt. The day before opening day, some college guys backpacked up there and shot three of the five bucks. They only got two of them because one of the 4x4s ran off in a canyon and died where they didn't find him. We did. It took nearly a week but my son stayed up there and found the other 4x4, 3/4 mile away over the mountain on a kinfe edged rock ridge you wouldn't expect would hold a goat.<P>Because of that kind of stuff, we keep seeking out places no one else hunts, sometimes pockets not too far from roads, other times major packs into high country, and then away from hiking trails. In those spots, we scout to learn the country but haven't worked on specifc animals, just know how we will hunt it in different wind, snow, weather conditions. Sometimes we just travel through an area to see if there appears to be a good number of bucks, and any good sized bucks. Summer is the best time to see them. If so, then we try to figure where those bucks will be when the velvet comes off, and then later when the snow starts. In the western mountains, rarely will they be the same place in Oct. or Nov. that they were in summer.<P> It took me years to factor in the seasonal difference, and the what ifs: what if there are lots of hunters here?. What if there is two feet of snow here? What if it is a dry hot fall? What if there was a buck on that ridge, how would I approach?<P>Scouting enough to know the country makes the difference in getting game sometimes. When an animal jumps or is traveling, or even when you spot him bedded, knowing where clearings are, what the wind is doing on the opposite slope, etc. tells you when to run ahead to an ambush spot, which way to approach, what spots will give you a view of small basins, etc. I collected a 5x5 elk that way one time, when I heard antlers softly easing through thick alders about sundown. I padded 60 yards up an abandoned road, moving away from the elk. I headed to what I knew from prior scouting was the only spot where a person could see over an entire grown up clearing where a portable mill had operated many years ago. From that tall hump I saw the bull emerge in an open spot about ten minutes later.<P>Elk seem inconsistent to scout for. That probably means I don't know enough. In Idaho wilderness areas, we have glassed specific bulls and taken a number of them exactly where we planned, almost to the minute we expected. We have watched the same herd bull for days, put him to bed the night before opening day and collected him in the morning. In '96 three of us took three six points within 30 minutes on opening morning, two of them the specific bulls we had scouted and gone after. <P>Yet in Washington State the only consistancy about elk seems to be inconsistency. In a permit area on the east side, same kind of elk as Idaho, the elk seemed to wander and travel constantly. No hunters were working the animals I hunted, there were very few permits, yet the only sure thing was that if an elk was here at dusk, he or she would be miles away by daylight. Scouting had given us the good habitat locations, vantage points and lay of the land, but it was the most random hunting I've ever experienced.

JMHO, Okanagan covered it pretty through. In the Rockys, especially Colorado, about all you can do anymore is locate an area,(mountain), where they are, then hope to be where they are escaping. Colorado fills up with over the counter hunters the day before season and most are gone by the third day, tired, dirty, missing wifey, and modern conviences. The season always starts on Saturday so the locals can hunt the week-end without missing work or kids school. Remember also CO seasons start in August with Bow and work down to rifle so the mountains are full of hikers, stock men, then hunters all summer. Elk are where you find them but only while you are watching them. [img]images/icons/wink.gif" border="0[/img] I usually just find a good saddle, pick out a spot with the most view, and grow to a good back rest in the shade,(early season, or sun if its cold), and wait for the chasers to push them to me, usually close to the road or trail. Never think for a minute elk will follow a trail or easy route, sometimes they will give a mountain goat a run for the money. If the season is close enough to the rut calling is effective until everything gets hectic. -- no

Thank you gentlemen, for your comments. My knowledge of elk is limited, but I understand they do leave, and sometimes travel miles, if distrubed too much. All the areas I've hunted deer, and that's every habitat type known to have them, they always return to their home range when distrubed. It can be pretty big, in the low desert your talking two square miles, but they do come back. What I've discovered they do, and recent reasearch confirms this, is hold still. They may "shift" from their usual haunts, and they may change their habits, but they are always in the same home range. With good cover, they can get away with it amazingly well. This is what distinguishes the older bucks from the younger ones. They don't run near as readily, they don't run as far, and they know their area well enough to stick to cover. They often move in a circle. I agree completely about the season shift. In this area, the season extends until the first week of November. That means the high country will get snow, or freezing temperatures. That will move the deer. The beauty of the three bucks I've located so far is that they won't have to move. Two of them are living on their transition ranges. They won't have to move into, and get used to, a new range during the hunting season. The other thing is that our so called wilderness areas get hit with very heavy back packer pressure all summer. They don't have anything like the deer numbers you would expect. It is very open as well, meaning little cover. Lots of people hunt them, with horses, etc. I've hunted, hiked, and scouted almost all them. In some of the more remote areas, like Modoc county, there are good numbers of deer in them. But in our Sierra Nevada Mtns., there aren't many. The biologists tell me this has been going on for years. All attempts to limit use, and abuse, of these areas meets with lots of hysteria from the back packer crowd. They refuse to believe that their "non-consumptive" use limits wildlife numbers. Observation of deer in such areas reveals low fawn ratios, and few deer. Now, when I scout deer, that's the first thing I look for. Heavy summer use by people means few deer, and seldom any good bucks. I use to think the good bucks only got smart during the hunting season. Now I realize they are that way all year. When they are growing their antlers, they can't use heavy cover without risking injury to their antlers. When their cewing their cud, they insist on being left in peace. So they live where experience teaches them they will seldom be distrubed. Even if it means lower quality feed, they will trade that for being left alone. I'm probably not going to bother to hunt the opener. I'll wait until the middle of the following week. Then I'll look for the tracks of "my" buck. Then I'll decide what tactics to use. Probably a stand, at least until the rains come. Then, perhaps I can still hunt them. What a game. It is like hunting, only more relaxing. E

Eremicus, that's confidence to skip the opener. We do that more and more, just letting things settle down, in areas where the season is longer and we know the terrain and game habits. My best hunting in WA State has been either the last day of season or sometimes 2 or 3 days before if the season ends on a weekend. I lived for years in British Columbia, with seasons of one sort or another running from mid August to Dec. 31, and we could take our time, hunting only optimum weather, waiting for migrations, etc.<P>That's great that you have some bucks living in their fall and winter area already. <P>Interesting about the back packers effecting deer. Come to think of it, I haven't seen big bucks standing around looking at backpackers on regular hiking trails. We've had fork horns and does come into camp after handouts or to lick urine where we'd taken a leak. That during early buck season in a three point or better area, and they had been panhandling backpackers all summer. <P>The big bucks we've spotted have been at a distance, by getting to vantage points well away from the trails and glassing places far away. I saw the only record book mulie I've ever seen while leading a backpack camp one time in British Columbia, but we were a couple of miles from the nearest trail, climbing toward the highest peak in that range, and we popped through a rock defile pass and caught him by surprise on an open slope above us. <P>Some deer are just more wary. On a winter range scouting trip just to enjoy looking at lots of game, my son and I were parked beside the Yakima River in Ellensburg Canyon, glassing sheep and a few deer on the steep lava and cheatgrass mountainside across the river. After about ten minutes my son said that there was a deer either dead or lying down in the middle of a talus slope about 400 yards from us. We put the spotting scope on it and it was a deer lying on a trace of trail with its neck stretched out flat on the grey brown lava rock. Incredibly hard to see, especially when other deer and sheep were grazing or lying with their heads up. Antlers had been shed, no idea how big a rack it would have, but that deer will live a long time. It never moved for the entire 20 minutes we sat there, except in the spotting scope I could see its eyes roll or flicker once in awhile, apparently keeping track of what we were doing.<P>I love to glass for bucks on the big open canyons. In Oregon we used to see nothing for several minutes, then pick out antlers or ears in a bit of brush in a steep draw across from us, then more. One time I remember seeing 48 deer, not a one of them noticeable with the naked eye. <P>I learn from this kind of exchange. NO, your saddle sitting sounds better to me all the time as I mellow and age. I know a saddle not too far from Wenatchee that is a sure thing for a buck any day after Oct. 25. When they cut off the season earlier I didn't even bother to go there any more.

It's interesting this came up this weekend. I was out on my first official deer scouting trip of the summer, meaning my primary purpose was to look for bucks and try to figure out how to get to them under various conditions ranging from wind to snowed-in roads, and before somebody else, as opposed to just seeing deer while out doing something else, and wondered what some of your tricks were.<P>I have been doing this for only about ten years, and have put most of my efforts into elk hunting. I would say that for the first half of that ten years I blindly stomped around the woods and stirred it up for everybody else. But in the more productive, enlightened second half of that period, I feel I have found a reliable place where the elk always show up. I don't even scout for them anymore. I just go there every year and the elk have always been there so far.<P>But I'm still tring to figure out the mulies. I've shot a few smaller ones, and they were generally where I saw them earlier, namely during elk season a couple weeks earlier, but it has still been mostly haphazard and not very consistent. One thing that bothers me a bit is that every buck I've shot was clearly moving away from something or most likely somebody else. I would rather not have to rely on the mob to push deer to me, but maybe that is a fantasy during general rifle season.<P>I have just about convinced myself that the bigger bucks are always there, even if I don't specifically know about them beforehand, but they just lie quietly in some vertical tangle somewhere, and wait out the opening weekend chaos, which I find myself doing more and more. The biggest buck I ever saw in my life was on a windy, snowy Thursday in a place that is easily one of the most crowded areas in the state for opening weekend, but then very pleasant to hunt the rest of the week. I would have never guessed a buck like that could survive there long enough to grow antlers like that, and he wasn't even hard to get to. He and his two younger buddies led me in a big circle that was never more than a half mile from a ridgetop road. By then, that road was, for all practical purposes, closed to vehicles due to the weather. Maybe he knew that.<P>Anyway, I've decided that the best I can hope for is to spend as much time as possible out in their backyard during the late summer and early fall, hopefully stumble across a good buck or two, preferably more than once, and then come deer season park my butt where I can watch for them and simply hope that somebody else isn't luckier than me. And it seems to me that the bucks tend to be in the same places year after year. That doesn't stop me from looking for new places, though. That's part of the fun. Scouting IS hunting if you ask me. I've found some places where the odds of seeing a little buck are probably better than mere chance, and the opening day mob will push lots of does and forkhorns around, but if I can hold out, grandpa just might get up and move again by midweek.<P>My problem with this approach (relying on chance to move him in front of me) is that I have found elk hunting to be best when you go actively dig them out of the timber. I use a cow call, and sneak through the trees, hunting more with my ears and nose than with my eyes. I haven't found still-hunting to work very reliably for mulies. They don't make any noise like an elk does, and they disappear too easily into the background. I can get close sometimes, but the problem is I don't know they're there until it's too late. An elk would stink and make enough noise to let you know he's there, and would probably be coming to you. I hate to think about how many times I've jumped bedded deer that were a stone's throw away, if only I had seen them sooner. <P>What it comes down to, I think, is that there are no tricks to scouting. You just have to put in your time. And by time I mean years, not days. I think the most important thing for scouting is to stick to one or two areas year after year and learn them thoroughly, rather than moving around a lot. That way you get to know every tree and rock, where the 10% of the country is that holds 90% of the deer, not to mention where 90% of the competition will likely be. Around here, learning where not to be is as important as learning where the bucks are, and that's something you can only discover the hard way opening weekend. -al

When I scout, I look for good habitat first. Then I look for sign. Big bucks are just that. Does often run 100-130 lbs., whereas your 4 year old class bucks run 180-225 lbs. plus. Their tracks are at least 50% larger, and they sink deeper in the soil. Their pellets are much larger too. What I've noticed about them, more than anything else, is their need for high quality cover, and a desire to stay away from people and livestock. You might try these ideas when you scout. One more thing, the herd has to have some in it. If your buck to doe ratio is less than 12 to 100, your only looking at about 5% of the bucks in the 4 yr., or older, class. Lots of herds simple have very few of them. E

EllieMay, very thoughtful post. I'm kind of the opposite from you on mulies and elk. Wish I could hunt timber for elk with your abilities. I've taken several elk including my biggest bull by targetting a specific animal, but many mulies and all of my big ones by still hunting a good area for them in timber or subalpine. I like to get into a migration route during the rut when it is snowing, which has always been a timbered ridge of some sort, usually gentle slopes, and kind of drift along with a purpose. Shot a 180 class 4x4 through a foot wide gap between trees at 40 feet.<P>You got it right that there is simply no substitution for time in the bush, listening, watching, examining. You learn how animals of various sorts act when another of their kind, male, female or youngster is around, and how they act when other species are around. I've found a lot of critters I was hunting, and spotted where they were, by watching other animals from birds and squirrels to moose and bears. You learn most of that behaviour while scouting. <P>On mulies, or anything else, scouting helps you begin to know where to look. By that I mean specifically, exactly, where to expect one of the critters to be standing or lying. If you believe he's likely there, you go slower and look harder. When I used to dive for halibut, the guy who taught me how to spot them covered in sand on the bottom told me to picture a halibut in my mind and project it onto certain specific spots where they preferred to lie. <BR>Amazing how often one would be there.<P> I'm gradually beginning to be able to predict where mulies will bed, feed, circle back to observe their backtrail, etc. so I can look at that spot and either see them or at least jump them. Again that's a time in the field factor. I've taught my sons a little of it by walking and hunting with them, and my younger son is teaching me some of the same about blacktails. He is simply excellent at finding big blacktail bucks in deep coastal forest and shooting them in their beds. Some of that is intuitive.<P> I have a reputation for spotting game, especially coyotes. After years of observing and hunting them, it is just instinctive for me to turn my head and look at the spot where a coyote is standing. It has happened many times driving down a freeway with friends or on a business trip. It is almost like I know the coyote is there rather than looking for him. Wish I could do that with elk. I haven't figured them out very well, not nearly as well as you have in timber.

I think I've found a key ingredient to good elk escape cover. Every steep timbered slope may look the same at first, but I look for more or less flat shelves halfway up otherwise steep timbered slopes of a couple thousand feet high or more. The shelves can be anywhere from 25yds to a quarter mile across. And of course, they shouldn't be too easy to get to. But that doesn't necessarily mean they have to be ten miles from the road. I've never packed an elk more than 2 miles. While most hunters are sitting on the ridgetops above, or driving the roads below, the elk are often quietly going about their business in these kinds of spots. First thing in the morning I judge which way the wind is blowing, and then hunt along these shelves accordingly. Cut fresh tracks in a high meadow, follow them into the trees, and I'll bet they go to, or at least move along a spot like this. It's been very reliable for me. <P>Needless to say, I'm not targeting a specific animal. I shoot whatever comes along. Last year I actually got cocky and passed on a spike (I figured with both a cow tag and a bull tag in my pocket, why shoot a spike?). Half an hour later I shot a 6pt. Passing a test like that is enough to make you religious.<P>My experiences so far with the elk have given me a lot of confidence. I know they are probably there in front of me somewhere, it's just a matter of time before they hear me, think that I am an elk, and respond by either calling back or making some other kind of noise (breaking sticks or hooves on rocks) or, most likely, coming to me. I might not be so confident doing this in a strange place where I hadn't seen elk over and over. But even in a strange place that I hadn't scouted, I would start by looking for the shelves and then hunt it this way. It's a lot more fun than sitting and glassing anyway.<P>I think my main problem with deer hunting success has been simply that I haven't put in the time. I plan on spending a week hunting mulies this fall. Hopefully it will be a milestone. <P>So Eremicus, does looking at tracks and other sign lead you to them come hunting season? I see sign everywhere I look, so I've basically given up on that and actually look for the animal. I wouldn't be too confident hunting a buck I had never actually seen. Well, I guess that's not entirely true. My best buck so far (3x3) was one I jumped off a ridge during elk season, and saw only a glimpse of hair through the trees as he fled, but assumed he was a buck by the size of him and his tracks. I went back a week later and got him. At least I think it was him. Nice buck anyway. I was confident hunting in that place because I had jumped him out of your typical ridgetop bed with a view.<P>BTW, elk season is when I do my most productive scouting. It's only a week or two beforehand, and the weather and other conditions (like people in the woods) are similar. Grouse season starts in September, and I learn some secrets then as well. I've seen some remarkable horns while out grouse hunting. Fortunately my dog just ignores them. -al

I do track bucks in the low desert. I haven't done much of it in the Sierra Nevada. Conditions are not good for tracking until it rains, or snows. The big drawback is that the tracks don't tell you what kind of rack he has. But they do tell you alot. I just got in from another scouting day. Cut tracks on bucks nos. 2 & 3. All of them were at least a day old. What they told me was that each of them are still in the same areas. In one case, I found four sets of buck no. 2's tracks. Me thinks he uses that area regularly. They were all within 20-50 yds. of each other. Since the area has lots of logging roads, and few water sources, they leave tracks when they go for water. No, I don't sit on a water source. In the Sierra, many of the water sources are streams, and miles long. I just circle the area, in the middle of the day, and watch where they have moved. When the bow season opens, I'll be in the field nice and early. Not to hunt, but to watch from a vantage point. There are always plenty of bow hunters to stir them up. I should know, by then, what area to watch. When they get pushed, I'll see them. This has worked well in the past. Of course, I can try to do this prior to the season as well. If I can find a suitable vantage point. If they are in a relatively small area, say 1/2 a section, I'll most likely use a stand. There is so much litter on the ground, and it's so dry, that one cannot move quietly. Later, I might be able to use other methods. E

Gentlemen: Thanks for this thread. Very good stuff. Eremicus, I've seen quite a number of quail up in your neck of the woods (a bit farther east, of course) but I've never had the good fortune of kicking out a grouse. My all-time favorite game bird! Really enjoyed reading this one. Thanks again.

Born AK. Grouse are a tough bird to hunt in CA. Low numbers. Look for an area w/o cattle, lots of fir trees, some openings, and a small, live stream. Usually from 7,000 feet up. E

Contact ! Eye balls on buck No. 2. Nobody is going to believe me. I won't believe it myself, if one of you told me about one like this one. This is a California Mule Deer, not a Rocky Mtn. Mulie. They don't get this big (?). I spotted him this am just as he was heading into his bed. Only saw part of a wide spread, and the rear 2/3's of him. Glassing very carefully revealed a deer. A buck with a nice 18-20 inch wide, 3 pt. rack. Maybe 3 years old. But he was higher than he was wide. Wrong buck. Right below the 3 pointer, was a reddish area-with light colored triming on the lower half. Another deer. Moving carefully, looking through the heavy cover, I was able to see half of his head. And half of a very wide set of antlers. If the other side is identical, he's over 30 inches. Five points on the side I saw. Watched him for about 15 mins. Range, about 75 yards. Through 9X35 glasses, I could see him blink. I don't blame anyone for not believing me. I've never even heard of a Ca. Mulie that big. <BR> Cut tracks on a bear. His hind foot measured about 9.5 inches. <BR> Found a spring not far from the bucks. Jumped four Blue Grouse off of it. You could say I've had a very good day. E

My wife and I just got back from a scouting trip today and we saw probably the biggest mulie buck I have ever seen [img]images/icons/shocked.gif" border="0[/img].His rack is wider than his rump and well over twice the height of his ears.He was feeding on the edge of a cut block and only about a 100 yds. from one of my tree stands [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img].Hope to see him on Aug 25,archery opener.Seeing high numbers of whitetail bucks with better than average racks,saw 9 in one herd 5 were 4 point or better on saturday evening.Been watching a dozen bull elk all summer,2 different groups and 4 will be 6 pointers.

Way to go, Eremicus! Now don't give any more hints as to where he is. We know he is in California, and that's too much already. Many, many years ago I saw a California buck that I thought would go 28 or 29 inches wide, and he was a skinny tined, tall 3x3 so I think its possible. I skimmed an arrow under his belly as he ran, after a two hour stalk that is a permanent good memory. I believe you know what you're looking at. <P>What record book to do California mulies go into? I know they call them blacktails in most areas, but they look like scaled down mulies, not at all like northern blacktails. If you take a representaitve of the biggest buck in your area, it is a trophy equal in hunting skill to any. Some areas just don't grow big antlers so the biggest they get in that area is very significant to me.

Eremicus, et. al.:<P>When I was a kid gowing up in southern Calif., we called them Coast Range black tails. I never saw any as big as you guys have reported but I don't doubt that, with several years of isolation, they could get that big.<P>I have been reading your posts with much interest. Asking myself what you are doing, what I can learn from you, etc. My recent scouting can be grouped into two categories; initial introduction and details. <P>I hunted elk in the same area of the West Elk Wilderness for 13 years and knew it well. The initial introduction lasted a few years but after that I was able to concentrate on the movements of several small herds. So I had a pretty good idea where they would be in response to different weather conditions and hunting pressure. I was never able to pick out just one animal. My skills just aren't that good.<P>This year I will be hunting in a new area and I am still in the initial introduction phase. I'm learning my way around and need to do that before I can start concentrating in herd movements.<P>KC

Okanagan, et all. California Mule Deer would have to go in the general mule deer book, not under blacktails. The one I saw, at present, is too wide. And I don't know how the other half looks. But if it's symetrical, and the rack gets a little higher, he might just make it. He has at least six weeks to do this, before he cleans his antlers. <BR> The other thing is that he has made it all these years. That means he's got a system that makes him all but unhuntable. <BR> I know what everybody's thinking. "Just tell me where he is, and me, or me and my buddies will get him."<BR> Think so ? Let me tell you about Old Blunt Toes. Old Blunt Toes and I have been playing the hunting game for over seven years now down in the low desert. I have a friend that tells me that the year I first saw him, he had seen his tracks eariler that year while reasearching the Desert Bighorn of the area. He, and his associates, covered the area numerous times, on the ground, and by helicopter, but never saw him. They saw several other bucks, including a really nice 28 inch buck, but not him. After three years of covering the same ground every year, Leon finally saw him. Got him on video. At that time he was about 36-37 inches wide, with 7-9 pts. on a side. To date, I'm the only one that's ever seen him during the deer season. Yet he is still in the same area where I first saw him. All of the expert locals know about him. Many have tried. And this country is far more open the the Sierra Nevada where I've been scouting. This is what makes this game what it is. E

Nothing like adding a little spice to an old thread. <BR> I used a stand the first few weeks of the season. The second week of the season, right at dawn, I heard a big buck snort. It was not an alarm snort-I've heard lots of those-it was him. He was 100 yds below me. I never saw him, just his tracks. The cover was too thick. After that, he stopped using the area. The area was getting lots of hunter pressure on the weekends, and some during the week. From my stand, I could always hear the other hunters long before I saw them. <BR> So I would sit until 1-2:00 PM, and then look for sign. <BR> He entered the area only briefly once. Then, he disappeared. <BR> Frustrated, I started still hunting, and, later in the day, scouting. <BR> Monday, I found some old tracks. Not much. Most of the deer seemed to have concentrated in one small, hard to reach area. It is very thick. Old sign is covered by new. <BR> This morning, I found where he had torn up the ground. The tracks were fresh. He's now living in an area only 2-300 yds. across. I would say he has about 70% of the whole drainage's deer for company. All in an area 200X500 yds. They leave to water, and return. I don't know where he waters. Probably wouldn't matter if I did know. <BR> I've got until Sunday to get him. Man, what a game. E

Rocklin, 200 x 500 yards? Sounds like you should be able to walk into the middle of it and shoot him from anywhere. What's the problem? [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img]<P>Seriously, I am always amazed at how many, or how big a, deer can hide in a small place. 200 x 500 yards is a lot of country, isn't it? Good luck.<P>If you have got him pinned into an area like that, and he won't move for you, perhaps you could bring a buddy and soft-drive/ambush him? I know it's risky, but if he won't move at daytime, your options fade ...<P>Knowing you though, you'd rather still-hunt him onto the mantle! Double good luck.<P>Jeff

Talus. Actually a two man drop out, or a two man circle, drive could work. But the odds are against it. When they detect anyone in their area, they hold still. The thicker the cover, the harder they hold. That place is thick. If he makes a break for it, he's out of sight in two steps. <BR> Leonard LaRue, in his great book, The Deer of North America, writes about an experiment where some biologists observed experienced hunters hunting a 4 year old Whitetail. The biologists were in observation towers. The buck wore both a radio telemetery collar, and bright orange ear streamers. They had a fix on him at all times. A couple of the hunters passed within a few feet on him, and never knew he was there. The hunters hunted for four days, and never saw him. All were told aproximately where he was. Finally, in frustration, the hunters were directed to him. One finally saw him. The guy all but stepped on the buck. The buck got away, orange ear streamers and all.<BR> I'm going to close on the area by starlight. Then carefully still hunt it. Holding still much of the time. I've been through it once. It often takes me 45 minutes to cover 100 yds that way. I have a chance. At least now we are in the same neighborhood. E