Tips and Tactics: How to Hunt Mule Deer (Part 1)
I’ve killed more mule deer than any other species of wild ungulate. It’s easy to do if you’re a Montana resident with more than enough public land out your back door. But a heavy-racked trophy still eludes me. In some ways, this is the conundrum of mule deer. In most areas west of the 100th meridian, they are commonplace, visible in alfalfa fields and open prairies, their characteristic stiff-legged springing run (called “stotting”) familiar to anyone who drives Western highways. But old, big bucks are almost always products of the backcountry: deep canyons, desolate deserts, and subalpine basins.
Hunting techniques for mule deer are as varied as their habitat. Legions of Great Plains deer hunters don’t walk far from their pickups to engage “muleys,” as the deer are often called. Especially during the November rut, when otherwise elusive old bucks get spiral eyed and dull witted with lust’s distractions, covering ground on back roads is a good strategy to find doe-tending bucks in the open.
In the Missouri River Breaks, near where I live, hunting deer is a hiker’s game. I use powerful optics to spot interesting bucks, and then plan an approach that takes me within rifle or bow range. Mountain hunters either find velvet-antlered bucks above treeline in September or wait for deer to follow ancient migration corridors to lower elevations once heavy snow falls.
And in the vast, scorching deserts of the Southwest and Mexico’s Sonora, hunters drive sandy roads until they cut a buck’s track, then spend hours or even days walking that deer down. Hunters prepare for long shots in the shimmering heat or close-range snap shots when a buck flushes from cover.
