Az Unit 30B

[mtn.scoutin]

Hi, I'm Mark and I live in S.E Az. My wife, my father and myself have Mule Deer tags for Unit 30B this November (2016). I as wondering if anyone has any advice. I have hunted this Unit once before for Mule Deer with no luck. Only saw a few whitetails. I don't have a crazy big amount of hunting big game. I have hunted Elk twice and Mule the time I mentioned before. I do some recreation shooting in the Unit and have jumped some nice deer several times but then no luck during hunting season. Thanks

 

[mtn.scoutin]

I guess no advice. lol we shall see what we come up with.

 

[Biscuit Hunter]

Sorry brother. I don't know anything about 30B. Are you looking for more general advice as well?

If I were you I'd start with thinking about where you saw those deer. In a general sense...what type of terrain were they in? On the side of a mountain? Out in mesquite flats? Try to remember what the terrain was like where you've seen deer, and go out to similar areas to do some scouting. Get into a spot where you can cover a lot of ground with a pair of binoculars, and get to looking. Be ready to start looking as soon as it's light enough to see. Early morning is when you'll see the most movement.

And to throw this out there, hoping someone with actual experience down there will chime in-- I think I remember hearing that the muleys down there are generally at lower elevation than the white-tails. As in, go up to the sky islands for the coues, stay down in the flats for the muleys....

Best of luck on your hunt.

 

[Gr8bawana]

My brother who live in AZ says the whitetails inhabit the higher areas of the mountains and the muledeer tent to be down lower. Last summer I saw a muledeer doe about 3 miles outside of Tombstone down in the desert which was incredibly thick with cover. We also saw some whitetail deer on the shores of Patagonia Lake.
Good luck on your hunt.

 

[Tylerm]

I have never hunted 30B but I have archery hunted southern AZ for mule deer but always during archery season which is during the rut.
I know that time of year is difficult in that part of the state because the bucks are in their pre-rut patterns and mainly nocturnal.
My best advice would be to look for areas within a mile or two of water if the weather is still warm. Draw a radius from the water and start picking it apart with your glass if you can. Also, I would find areas with some topography where I can glass from with water and focus on them. The one constant you are going to find is the bucks are going to try and bed in the shade during the heat of the day so pick apart the shaded areas. You may pick up some rutting activity but its still early there.
Also, a predator call can work great for standing deer up just sneaking into areas and setting up where you can see escape routes and basically predator hunting but a lot of the time the deer will stand up and try to get a visual on what is causing the noise.
Good luck and let us know how it goes.