Deep Canyon Mule Deer

[brant89]

Muley generally rut in early Nov. End of the first week, and heavy in the 2nd week. Fish and Game has gotten smarter over the years. It seem they try and stop the hunting before the rut really gets into full swing.
Have a good set of binoculars on a tri-pod mount. Spotting Scope would help to really determine if the buck is what you want. Get a good spot to watch from and don't sky light yourself either. Have brush behind you or rocks. Don't stick out like a sore thumb.
Muley ears are about 22" from tip to tip. So the ears stuck out parallel with the horns. That will give you some sort of an idea of wide the horns are. You wants to see the curve to outside the ears. Do some reading on how to judge horns, it will help. If you are lucky and there not much pressure with other hunter. Don't do a lot of walking around and stay our of where the deep bed down. Don't push them. Let the binoculars do the walking. Shots can be anywhere from 20yds to 500+yds. Mike Eastman has a good book on hunting muley.
Don't be talking to others while hunting about what you are seeing. The best is say you haven't seen much and planning on moving. Most hunters just look quickly and drive on. Heavy forest, and aspen the deer only us if being pushed that much.
If in an area where everybody else is. Kind of like Utah were hunting deer open up for week or so. Everybody is out there. After couple of days the deer will hold up in small pockets of aspen to hide in. Most people don't hunt those areas. just drive by. Set up if hunting them to have people to be able to see all the sides. Have people walk though there to push the deer. Go over where it's safe to shot from too. People get stupid when it comes to hunting a deer are showing up and running. So be careful.

We will be packing in binos and a spotter, and I've located a half dozen glassing locations that offer good cover that we should be able to get to without blowing everything out of the basin.

I'm generally pretty open about my hunting but I've been particularly tight-lipped regarding this area since I have plans to return semi-regularly in the future for both elk and deer.

I've got a pretty good idea of what I'm looking for size-wise, and how to judge them. Not after a B&C buck, but something respectable. I've got more than enough grain-fed whitetail doe to shoot here in Michigan, so I don't really NEED the meat (elk would be a different story). 500yd is no problem and 700+ should be doable if conditions are right.

 

[brant89]

Pulling the trigger is easy; hauling it up is another story.

I've already scratched several other canyons off the list because I questioned being able to get a deer out. No pack out is fun, but that particular canyon in the picture shouldn't be anything extreme. Obviously we will have to make the final determination with boots on the ground, but I won't shoot what I can't retrieve.

 

[WahooYahoo]

Man... There are so many things to consider... Transition points between timber and grass, sage or broken ground is worth looking over. The warmer it is the longer and deeper you should look. Pray for snow, it will multiply the amount of deer you see. Sometimes you just need to move to a different spot on the drainage to see what you can't see from the spot you're on. They'll lay in a 4' spot of shade for hours and only move their ear to shake a fly... I think that's what makes them so popular.
If you move a lot, you'll pass a dozen and never know it.

 

[brant89]

Man... There are so many things to consider... Transition points between timber and grass, sage or broken ground is worth looking over. The warmer it is the longer and deeper you should look. Pray for snow, it will multiply the amount of deer you see. Sometimes you just need to move to a different spot on the drainage to see what you can't see from the spot you're on. They'll lay in a 4' spot of shade for hours and only move their ear to shake a fly... I think that's what makes them so popular.
If you move a lot, you'll pass a dozen and never know it.

Sounds like we might be better off to walk right past the aspens near the trailhead and go straight to the main objective location so that we can spend more time glassing and less time leapfrogging our camp.

We are actually a little concerned about snowfall and being able to get out of the basin. The only road out is pretty high elevation and we don't want to get snowed in. We are parking the truck at 8600', taking a side by side down to 7200', and then hiking down to about 6000'. Last year they got over a foot of snow on October 12th so I'll have to keep an eye on the forecast on my InReach.

Coming up from the bottom would be nearly impossible. You could get there but it would be hell trying to get a couple deer back out.

 

[FEENIX]

Sounds like we might be better off to walk right past the aspens near the trailhead and go straight to the main objective location so that we can spend more time glassing and less time leapfrogging our camp.

We are actually a little concerned about snowfall and being able to get out of the basin. The only road out is pretty high elevation and we don't want to get snowed in. We are parking the truck at 8600', taking a side by side down to 7200', and then hiking down to about 6000'. Last year they got over a foot of snow on October 12th so I'll have to keep an eye on the forecast on my InReach.

Coming up from the bottom would be nearly impossible. You could get there but it would be hell trying to get a couple deer back out.

Yep, pay attention to mother nature's warning. A few years ago, my hunting buddy and I were covered with snow in 15 minutes, so we called it quits. Those that stayed got their vehicles stuck for a week and had to hike nearly 10 miles to the main road.

 

[shorthair1]

There's a fairly good access point directly between that location and where we are planning to camp, so packing out should only be somewhat terrible. I don't plan on focusing our efforts in the canyons right off the bat, but it would be nice to have another area to look over before packing out of that basin if we aren't seeing much. My original thinking was that most hunters aren't going to drop in there since there are only a couple places that it would even be possible.

Just remember that if you are willing to hike into some place that there's others that think the same.

 

[brant89]

Just remember that if you are willing to hike into some place that there's others that think the same.

I should elaborate that there's a good access AFTER a 2.5 mile hike through dark timber. So it's good access from where we are camping, but not necessarily good access for the casual hunter. It's still a bit of a hike from the trailhead.

I honestly don't know how far the average hunter hikes in, but I know that when we were out there last September we only saw one person more than a quarter mile from a road and I saw a similar trend in Eastern Wyoming chasing mule deer and antelope.

 

[mnoland30]

We hunt aoudad from the top of the mountain, and often shoot them at the bottom (1300 ft. elevation difference). Butcher the deer where you shoot it. Cutting the bones out cuts the weight almost in half. I put the meat in plastic bags, in deep shade, and it cools down overnight. On steep terrain, I usually make two trips. Starting fresh the next morning, the pack out never seems that hard. I often see deer 1/2 way down, on a bench. Early morning and late evening, they'll usually be in the open feeding and moving. Looking down on mulies, they seem almost black. I always GPS the track down, so I can follow it back up in the dark. Nothing worse than "cliffing out" in the dark when you're carrying a heavy pack.

 

[BillLarson]

This is what the canyons look like in the area we will be. State is Wyoming. Elevation here is 5-6k and we will be parking the truck at about 8k. I can clearly see trails in the canyon that I would guess to be game trails. It looks good to me but I never hear anything about deep canyon mule deer.
View attachment 367707

After hunting Alaska,Montana,Colorado and Wyoming.....for deer,elk and moose.....
The 2 best pieces of advice I have ever gotten:
Don't shoot anything anywhere we cant get out.....
Don't shoot moose/elk in the water....
I listened and didn't get myself and hunting partners into trouble.

 

[brant89]

We hunt aoudad from the top of the mountain, and often shoot them at the bottom (1300 ft. elevation difference). Butcher the deer where you shoot it. Cutting the bones out cuts the weight almost in half. I put the meat in plastic bags, in deep shade, and it cools down overnight. On steep terrain, I usually make two trips. Starting fresh the next morning, the pack out never seems that hard. I often see deer 1/2 way down, on a bench. Early morning and late evening, they'll usually be in the open feeding and moving. Looking down on mulies, they seem almost black. I always GPS the track down, so I can follow it back up in the dark. Nothing worse than "cliffing out" in the dark when you're carrying a heavy pack.

I don't usually bone out game in the field, but up to this point all my western hunts have been earlier in the year when flies are thick, so my main focus was getting the meat in a bag. We did bone out a mulie once when the wind was blowing so hard that the flies were probably blown to the next state and it definitely made a substantial difference. We have also taken capes and full heads from almost every kill up to this point so that's a lot of extra weight as well.

After hunting Alaska,Montana,Colorado and Wyoming.....for deer,elk and moose.....
The 2 best pieces of advice I have ever gotten:
Don't shoot anything anywhere we cant get out.....
Don't shoot moose/elk in the water....
I listened and didn't get myself and hunting partners into trouble.

@FEENIX offered up the same words of wisdom. I'm definitely aware of my limitations and have already scratched a few great looking areas off the list because recovery would be a nightmare. The areas we are looking at shouldn't be anything extraordinary. There is a ravine just to the east of that image I shared and another about a mile further east that we can definitely climb out of without too much difficulty. I made the mistake last year of taking a "shortcut" through an area I hadn't mapped out or studied and it's a mistake I'll not soon forget. Lol.

 

[Chadp82]

For reference, the pic with the arrow shows the shooting position. I shot from the rim down to the bottom. About 260 yds (225 horiz)

The other shows the way down in the left half. You can see the drainage we climbed down and out. About 500' in 1/4 mile. It was a boulder field.

For a sheep I would do it again…. other game, IDK?

 

[brant89]

For reference, the pic with the arrow shows the shooting position. I shot from the rim down to the bottom. About 260 yds (225 horiz)

The other shows the way down in the left half. You can see the drainage we climbed down and out. About 500' in 1/4 mile. It was a boulder field.

For a sheep I would do it again…. other game, IDK?

Neither of the drainages I'm looking at for getting out of that canyon are that steep. The first one is about 250' in 1/4 mile and the second one is the same vertical distance over about a half mile, but much more heavily wooded. The bear we packed out last year was a different area but nearly identical elevation gain/grade as a pack out of that canyon.

My "shortcut" back to camp last year ended up requiring us to climb 144 vertical feet in about 120 yards (which is about the same grade as the drainage you packed out of) and I would definitely not want to carry an animal out of anything that steep.