Mule Deer Fanatic

Why can’t these guys get it straight?

Joel Eggars killed this 251 pound 198 point buck in Randolph County, Illinois.

Two mule deer killed by hunters in October tested positive for chronic wasting disease in Deer Hunt Area 163 – according to the Star Tribune in Casper, Wyoming

Mule deer around the Big Horn basin in Wyoming have been hurt by a mig-borne virus.  Lesions seen in the current outbreak include inflammation of the feet, crusting around the nose and mouth, and swollen lips. Bluetongue’s distinctive name is due to blue discoloration of the mouth and lips of infected animals.

Once an animal is infected, they tend not to eat due to soreness of the mouth. The no-see-um gnats that carry the disease live in and around stagnant water, therefore, drought or hot conditions aggrevate the spread of the disease.  Fortunately, frost kills the little buggars.

According to several news articles, the North Dakota Mule Deer hunt starts at noon on November 9 and ends at dark on November 25.  Last year, deer hunters in North Dakota set an all time harvest record at 100,000 deer. There are 5050 additional tags this year. Mild winters are getting the credit for increased deer numbers.  In North and South Dakota and in Eastern Colorado, plains mule deer numbers are up significantly.  The size of bucks is up as well.

Mule deer in North Dakota were hard hit by the winter of 1996-7, but have made a steady recovery since that time, progressing to 9.6 mule deer per square mile.  The buck/doe ratio is estimated at 42/100.  Units 4a through 4f are apparently the places to go.

A Craig Colorado man named Darwin Vesely has killed a 203 inch monster buck. According to the Craig Daily Press, the current mule deer record for Moffat County is 197. The monster buck was killed on Nov 3, 2007 in unit 2, Douglas mountains.

Every now and then someone shoots a monster muley buck that they think is a whitetail

Every year, while I’m hunting, I have experiences which remind me of something I had already learned, but forgotten. This year was no exception. When you are still hunting, it is a good tactic and habit to look behind you on a regular basis. I don’t know about you, but once in a while, I just get a premonition to look behind me. On one such occasion, I had been sneaking down a ridge with deer on both sides of me, hoping to get past them all without being detected so I could slip quietly out onto some ledges and shoot at the bucks bedded below them. After a successful sneak, I peered down at two bucks, but they weren’t the ones I was expecting. Without any identifiable reason, I turned around and glanced behind me. There, on the skyline, in a spot where I had been standing only a few moments before, was a large male cougar. I put the binos on him. I could practically count his whiskers. Those eyes were riveted on me and yet staring right through me. There was no doubt about where they were focused. For about five minutes he watched me. I began to get uneasy. I clocked him at 123 yards and calculated that he could be on me in about 3 seconds. I knew he could smell me and see me, and it didn’t seem to bother him. One of the bucks spooked and ran up towards the cat, during which time, the lion continued to stare at me rather than at the buck. Apparently, the buck spotted or smelled the cat, and subsequently ran for about 3/4 mile uphill without stopping. Shortly afterwards, the cat disappeared without a sound. Because of this tactic and for my effort – I did get him on video tape.

On another note regarding this same topic, last year while bowhunting in Southern Utah, I was cruising around on the ATV when I got this peculiar notion to look behind me. To my surprise, a very large buck was watching me drive by from his bed. I had already driven past him and I wondered how often he had successfully used that tactic – since he was obviously old and, by inference, wise. Because I looked back, I was able to video tape this buck for about 3 minutes. I estimated him to be about 3 feet in width. Had I been armed and legal, I believe I could have ended his long and successful career of evading hunters. I would guess that buck to be at least 7 years old. As it was, I was able to put my hunting parters onto him, though they did not kill him. I am working on a DVD called Amateur Velvet. If you are lucky you’ll get to see this muley buck on DVD.

Kirt Darner reportedly used a technique he called the J-hook tactic which is akin to looking behind you. Mule deer often have a habit of circling around you ( especially in heavy cover ) and returning to their original location which is where they wanted to be in the first place – until you interrupted. To use this technique, you walk back over ground you’ve already covered and then hook to the left or right – wherever you think the deer might be circling.

As hunters, especially as bowhunters, we get fairly focused on what is ahead of us and sometimes to the side of us.  It can be interesting how much is going on behind us. Do you know what indian britches are? They are the kind that sneak up on your behind.  Keep eyes in the back of your head and don’t let anything sneak up on your behind.

Good luck.

It has been rumored that Arizona will cease selling over-the-counter mule deer archery tags and, instead, issue tags via drawing. For me, this is bad news – one more loss that will probably never return. The general trend here is to take from hunters and give to the predators. The solution to the mule deer problem is never viewed by wildlife (mis)managers as a need for more deer, but instead, less hunting and/or less harvest.

Some hunters will even welcome this change because they are caught up in the scarcity mentality. They will say to themselves – Self, I would rather hunt every 10 years, and have only a hand-full of hunters to contend with than hunt every year with a whole bunch of hunters and no deer. They will mistakenly believe that going to a draw will mean more big bucks. Sadly, this will not be the case – as history has proven.

As mule deer become increasingly more scarce due to predators, it will become more prevalent for the relatively few remaining hunters to crowd in upon the small pockets of deer that will only exist in core areas. And, so the crowding will not be alleviated nor will there be more large bucks. There will be a few places that still have deer while large areas, void of deer, will not be hunted.

The North Kaibab is a perfect example of this phenomenon. This year, I managed to squeeze in a few days at the end of the North Kaibab archery hunt. From the looks of the roads, it was evident there had been a lot of prior traffic. I didn’t find any bucks other than a two point until the last day of the hunt, when, I finally found a pair of large bucks. Unfortunately, I spooked them into some other hunters who promptly shot one of them about 10 yards off the road.

I spoke to some California hunters my first day there. All of them had hunted the Kaibab for quite a few years. They had witnessed the crowd that was present on the opener and surmised that there were about 10,000 bowhunters. They commented that the large number of hunters was due to the liklihood that tags would be issued by drawing next year. This was my first exposure to the fact that the archery draw might be more than just a rumor. I do not know if there were really 10,000 bowhunters, but it is possible.

All of these people are crowding into an area where there are a few deer left and where they can get a tag while the rest of Arizona has few muleys and sparse bowhunters. The North Kaibab could support 10 times the mule deer that are currently available there. I, and everyone I spoke to, saw and heard plenty of coyotes. I know there are many lions there by the number of tracks I have seen.

Unless the AGnF is bombarded with unhappy hunters voicing opposition to this change, you may anticipate it becoming a reality. As long as this downward trend continues, the next change will also take away from hunters and give to predators rather than the other way around.

Make your wishes known.

Garth Goodrich of http://arizonahuntingtoday.com also has this to say about the upcoming archery mule deer hunt changes for 2008:

Well, I got a little more information about the new archery deer draw that will start in 2008 in Arizona.
Units going to a draw and # of tags (+/-): 1 – 200 tags, 3A/3C – 150 tags, 3B – 75 tags, 7 – 500 tags, 12A – 1850 tags, 13A – 120 tags, 13B – 120 tags. The number of tags is preliminary and will most assuredly be adjusted before the time of draw.
Also, the following are units that will no longer have an archery deer season in December. Units 17A, 20A, 22, 23, 35A, 37A & 42.
On the bright side, all the archery deer hunters that draw a permit for 12A, 13A & 13B can also buy over the counter buffalo and elk tags like the rifle hunts in these units.
What baffles me, is unit 37A…..it only has a December and January hunt and, every year has leftover rifle tags. So, this is a unit that is not in high demand but, we as bowhunters, lost a hunting opportunity for no logical reason.
The Game and Fish Commission voted, approving these changes, without listening to fact. The recommendations were based partially on educated guesswork, and was done in the name of hunter recruitment and retention, at the expense of bowhunting.
Some of us feel that it will only be a matter of time before all archery deer will be in the draw process, making it difficult to draw a tag, and also making hunters choose to apply for either a rifle or archery tag. There will be no 2 season hunters anymore.

Garth Goodrich of http://arizonahuntingtoday.com has this to say about proposed Arizona bowhunt changes:

The end to what we, as Arizona bowhunters, once knew, is coming to an end.
Earlier, I wrote a blog titled, “bowhunters under attack”. Today, the Commissioners of the Az Game and Fish Department passed the hunt recommendations for archery deer.
This means that units 1, 3ABC, 7 12A, 13A will go to a draw, meaning we have to apply for a tag to hunt these units. All other units in AZ will be monitored and, if the bowhunters achieve more than a 20% success rate, based on rifle hunters success, that particular unit will also go to a draw. If the success continues to climb, then that unit will be removed from the archery deer hunt in January of each year.
The sad thing is, the decision was based on partially guesswork as, rifle hunters do not have to report their success, but Game and Fish somehow came up with success numbers per unit for gun hunters, then based bowhunters’ success rates from gun hunters’ success rates.
This was done so the game and fish department could follow the new trend, “hunter retention and recruitment”. But, as it seems game and fish will actually push resident hunters to other states, in their quest to hunt.
Just so you know, this decision was contested by members of the Az Bowhunters Association, Mojave Sportsmen Club and, the Az Deer Association, plus several individuals. But, all of their commitment and perseverance fell on deaf ears.
Times are changing and , it does not appear to be for the better for bowhunters in Arizona.