Tag Archives: trophy bucks

Zen Hunting

Pre-Season Mule Deer Scouting

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Preseason Scouting

Scouting is hunting; it’s not optional. As rule of thumb, you should spend at least twice as much time scouting as you do hunting. With fewer trophy opportunities these days, it’s best to locate big deer and big deer habitat well ahead of hunting season. Simply put, the more days you spend scouting in the preseason, the less time you’ll waste during your hunt.

Scouting doesn’t mean just locating deer, but locating feed and water, bedding areas, escapes routes, game trails, and sign. You don’t have to actually see a big buck to know he’s there; just look for tracks and read the signs.

Multiple Opportunities

Once you’ve located or even patterned a buck, you need to devise multiple game plans. Bowhunting is a low-odds game which means you always need a backup plan, or maybe several. What do you do if you bust the buck on opening morning? Where do you go next? What if that doesn’t work? What if someone else shoots your target buck out from under you?

Effective scouting means always having a backup plan or even a backup buck. Whether I’ve found a great buck, or if I’m just hunting promising new areas, I always have plan A, B, C, D, and so on that will at least cover the first few days of the season.

Part of planning is to anticipate variables, like changing wind direction, and then figuring out the best time of day for a stalk. One method that works for me is to make a list of likely big buck areas and then assign the best time frame to stalk based on thermals, bedding areas, and other factors. For each area I’ll mark morning, evening, or both.

E-Scouting

With modern technology, such as super-optics, trail cameras, GPS with topo maps, and 3D internet mapping, you can now scout anywhere in the country, 365 days a year, even late at night in your underpants.

E-scouting is great for locating promising new country, but nothing beats boots on the ground. Physical scouting accomplishes two important things: first, you’ll become intimately familiar with the terrain you’ll be hunting, and second, you’ll get plenty of pre-hunt exercise while enjoying God’s natural splendors.

Trail Cameras

Trail cameras are a valuable piece of scouting equipment. Not only do cameras tell me when and where the bucks are, but they also tell me where they are not. Any hunter with a limited amount of scouting time will benefit from setting up an array of cameras in likely buck areas.

The best locations to hang cameras are in prime feed locations, secluded water seeps, game trails, bedding routes, and water routes. Even better locations include pinch points, saddles, funnels, and trail intersections. A month or two before the hunt opener I’ll set up four or five cameras covering an area of about five miles. By the hunt opener I have a pretty good idea of the quality and quantity of bucks in my area.

Avoid bumping deer while scouting, especially in the weeks leading up to your hunt. Check your trail cameras during the day when bucks are bedded and less likely to notice you.

Quality Optics

I can’t over-emphasize the importance of quality optics. Binoculars and spotting scopes open up the vastness of the mountain, and quality optics even open up the shadows during the critical morning and evening hours when big bucks are likely to be moving.

The strength of your spotting scope depends on the type of terrain you’ll be hunting. In thick timber country with limited sight distance you’d probably be fine with a 48x, or maybe just 40x binoculars. In this case it’s more important to identify big buck tracks and droppings than to actually see a deer. If you know what you’re looking for, you’ll find the deer.

In open or vast country I would recommend a high-quality, 60-power minimum spotter with a large objective lens that gathers plenty of light early and late in the day. Just beware that spotting scopes in this range can get very pricey and very heavy to pack around.

Where to Look for Big Bucks

When scouting a new mountain, the first step is to locate prime feeding areas. Begin by searching south- and east-facing slopes, especially in areas adjacent to thick timber or steep bedding cover.

East-facing slopes tend to grow better feed than north and western slopes because they get more sun early, and then fall into shade later when the sun is hottest and thus hold more ground water.

Next, look for secluded stands of aspen trees. Aspens only grow where there is an abundance of ground moisture. Not only do deer love to eat aspen leaves, but the myriad of succulent forbs that grow in these areas as well. In the early season, aspen groves provide an ideal bedding area because the ground is cooler.  In late fall as bucks get ready to shed their velvet, they spend more time near scrub aspens which they rub their antlers on.

While investigating likely feeding areas, scan the ground continually for large tracks and droppings. Also watch for areas with plenty of chewed-down vegetation. Once you’ve identified prime feed, follow any trails or large deer tracks leading in and out of the area. At the very least, these trails will point to likely bedding areas. Even if you lose the trail, you’ll still get an idea of which direction the deer are coming from or going. Big bucks have relatively small home ranges, so you should have little trouble locating likely bedding areas.

Final Note

It’s always possible that your traditional hunting area will go downhill or be lost to the crowds. So you need to be adaptive and mobile, always searching for promising new areas. If you didn’t draw a tag this year, or you just have extra time on your hands, it’s always a good idea to investigate other units or new areas just to see the potential. You don’t need a tag to scout, so get out there and do some camping and hiking. You never know what you’ll turn up.

Conclusion

Scouting is hunting and should be taken seriously. Just drawing a decent tag is quickly becoming the hardest part of hunting. So when it’s your time and your tag, don’t waste valuable hunting days looking for deer that you could have found during the long preseason months.

Zen Hunting

The On/Off Switch: How Bucks Become Unhuntable

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How Bucks Become Unhuntable

Opening morning is here, and it’s on! But not really, because the deer are effectively off. With increased human presence this year, the deer have sensed danger and left the area. It takes 20 days of futile hunting before I really understand what has happened: All the mature bucks flipped the ON/OFF switch to OFF, and have become unhuntable!

That was pretty much the story in Northern Utah last year. After several years of mild winters, deer numbers steadily rose to the point where the DWR issued more tags. It’s a traditionally difficult unit to begin with, but with the slightest increase in human traffic the deer have simply left the area and/or became completely nocturnal. I’ve never seen anything like it!

So I hunted from the top to the bottom, bottom to the top, and north to south. In some real nasty country I found tracks and beds, affirming there were still in fact deer around. But as the sun came up each day, they were nowhere to be seen. It felt like the Twilight Zone. In 2015 I counted 8 different 4×4-or-bigger bucks, including one 200” typical. In 2016 I counted ZERO big bucks!

I spent one frustrating day hiking farther and farther into a really remote canyon. Just as I was questioning my sanity for bothering, two mediocre 3-points blasted out below me. Being completely stealthy on approach, I couldn’t figure out how they’d even sensed me…unless they were completely neurotic…and that’s when it hit me: Bucks have the ability to decide whether to be huntable or unhuntable. It’s as simple as flipping a switch. Here’s how they do it:

Mature mule deer bucks are bigger, stronger, and faster than us. They also see just fine at night, maybe even better than during the day (according to biologists)! Deer are diurnal and nocturnal anyway, so being totally nocturnal simply means they don’t get up and feed during the day.

They also don’t drink water each day which helps them reduce daytime movement. And no matter what any “seasoned” hunter tells you, deer are smart. They are highly adaptable by necessity in order to survive extreme climates, terrain, and predators that they encounter daily.

When spooked by a hunter, a buck easily blasts through tangled brush, taking special care to keep trees between him and you, all while following a carefully planned escape route. The hunter hasn’t the slightest ability to chase after, or even to relocate the wizened old buck which is capable of covering vertical miles with ease and disappearing for days.

Flipping the Switch

For a deer, flipping the switch to OFF is probably not a conscious decision, but an instinct, and such a simple whim that it just happens without the necessity of thought. The buck spends a few days feeding and sleeping in some impenetrable patch of choke cherries on some ungodly-steep slope while waiting out the hunting season.

I know because I found one of these very spots (I spent every day peeking behind every tree, after all). Sure there was deer sign in the area, but it was so thick that I was literally climbing through the brush with both hands. Visibility was only a few feet and the unavoidable cacophony of my approach would spook any deer long before I ever saw it. All I could think was, “This is exactly where I would be if I were a deer.”

So, what’s the solution? How do you beat the unhuntable buck?

The short answer is you can’t. It’s game over. In my case I left the mountain and hunted out of state. Everyone knows that increased pressured makes hunting harder, but there’s a tipping point where the buck decides to go farther and deeper than humanly possible. After years in the woods, he’s learned where these places are and when to use them.

One question remains: If a deer can become unhuntable, why doesn’t he just remain in that state all the time? Well, he’s an animal; naturally lazy, hungry, lonely, and curious. He doesn’t enjoy holing up on a hill if he doesn’t have to. He also knows that hunts are short and hunters will eventually leave the mountain.

In the end, it comes down to hunting pressure. If an area has little hunting pressure, the buck might not even know the season is on and just go about his summer routine. Becoming unhuntable is simply a tool he uses in order to survive dangerous times, the same way he occasionally uses his antlers for fighting, and then forgets about them.

If you think about it, being invisible to man isn’t that uncommon in the animal kingdom. Deer share the mountain with much more elusive animals like cougars, bears, bobcats, badgers, foxes, etc. Many of these animals are nocturnal, but more notably they’re born with the natural inclination to hide from people.

Comparatively, hooved animals like elk and deer are certainly shy of people, but not overly wary. For whatever reason they have to learn to associate people with danger. It’s likely because we’re the only predators capable of killing them at long ranges…which is new and unnatural.

On the topic of long-range weapons, I’ve also observed the deer in my unit are holding tighter to the dark timber than they did in the past, even very early and late in the day. I believe the popularization of long-range rifle hunting is causing bucks to hold tighter to the deep timber where long-range rifles are rendered pretty much useless.

Think about it: A group of bachelor bucks are standing in the open, and one suddenly falls over dead long before the report of the rifle is heard. The far-off shot is difficult to pin-point, and therefore difficult to avoid. The remaining buck’s only option is to dive into the timber and not come out until dark. How many times will this happen before old bucks stop coming out all together, and then teach their apprentices to do the same?

What is the future of deer hunting? Are deer getting smarter? Are they adapting to human predators faster than we’re developing more efficient ways to kill them? If deer are bigger/faster/stronger than us, will there come a time that they are no longer huntable?

All of these valid questions, and definitely up for debate. During a recent hunting seminar, someone asked the speaker if he thought deer were getting smarter. The so-called expert replied, “No, I think deer are the same as they’ve been for thousands of years.” I quietly but wholeheartedly disagreed, and then wondered how much time this guy really spends observing deer in the nature.

All I know is that I’ve watched deer become more unhuntable by the year, and since unhuntable deer quickly spoils my season, I’ve opted to hunt elsewhere. It’s really my only option. I know there are some real bruiser bucks in my old unit, but I can’t keep wasting my valuable hunting time there.

No matter where you hunt, there will always be another area with less pressure and huntable bucks. Remember, bucks hate people pressure more than anything, so you must avoid people with as much fervor as you hunt for deer.