Muley country

[Bigmuley]

Hello Randy,

Thanks for the opportunuty to talk. My name is Chad and I live in Ga. I have been watching and love the shows. I bought the season one and two. I have wathced the same episode several times trying to see if you mentioned the area on a particular hunt. Do you mind giving me some leads on the area in Montana that you hunted with you friend Terry for Whitetails. What I am looking for is a place like that that is a good mule deer area. That reminded me of the pine ridge in Nebraska. I have been to Chadron Neb and taken a good 4x4. We made another trip to a little place called Mitchell Neb just west of Scottsbluff and did not shoot. Very few deer, but the Pine Ridge seems to be loaded. I would like to make a DIY hunt on public land but would like to find a sleeper spot that was not over run with orange vest! Was that a limited draw unit? What was the closest town? I also would love to go to Colorado. What do you recommend. Basically I am ready to go to The Nebraska National forest, Ogalala grasslands, and have viewed maps on Metcalf WMA which are all around Chadron, but hate to fight the crowds if any. Do you know of a spot like the one in Montana that is not high country, but would make a good hunt for Mule Deer? Once again, thanks for your time.

 

[Big Fin]

Chad - Welcome to the site. Glad you like the show and the site.

We don't give exact areas where we hunt, or you would have to bring your own rock to stand on once you drove there. Plus, part of the fun is finding spots on your own.

With that, here are some general ideas. That hunt was in Region 7 of Montana, but lots of great hunting exists in all the units of eastern MT. Adequate public land and lots of Block Management property to hunt. There are good mule deer in that area, and as shown, the buck Terry (Oak here on Hunt Talk) took was a very nice whitetail. The whitetails are not as plentiful, but some goods ones exist.

Pretty much all of eastern MT are general hunting units, with exceptions being units 530 and 652. Once you obtain your deer tag, or elk/deer combo tag, you can hunt those general areaa without a special draw. First of all, for a non-resident, you need to get your deer tag in the non-resident draw.

Eastern Montana is not high country, but has some steep breaks. As with most places, you find the deer in places people don't want to go. I think you see on the show how we were carrying that deer on backpacks. People are not going to hike in there and drag a deer that far, through that terrain. By going where most people avoid, we found good deer.

Probably the most simple part of the equation in hunting out west is this - go where people don't want to go and you will find animals. Not sure how that works in GA, but when I have been to GA, it looked like most all of the country was easily accessible by motorized travel.

I suspect most the guys on this site, and like we illustrate on the show, know how to break down an animal into "packable" portions once they shoot it far from the roads. If I can kill an elk this month, we are going to do a big segment of how to break down an animal in the woods, quarter it, hang it, and pack it out. We can now do that as a segment with Sportsman Channel, where we couldn't show such "offensive" stuff with the previous network.

If I was looking for an area that is not high country in Montana, I would also look to Regions 4, 5, and 6. All the eastern MT units have a mix of muleys and whitetails. And all have some good amounts of public or Block Management ground avaialble to public hunting. In fact, if I am looking for a big buck with less hunting pressure, I am probably looking outside Region 7, though access might have some challenges.

As far as Colorado, they lack "not high country" spots. Or last there are not many I am aware of. CO has some amazing hunting for those willing to get off the trail. In our hunt there last week, we hiked in to all our locations. Saw very few hunters when hiking in, and saw lots of elk and deer. It would have been four heavy pack loads to get an elk out and would have taken two guys the better part of the day. If a deer, two pack loads and a couple miles through the jungle oak, and we would have been done.

Best part of CO is that the rifle elk tags for Second and Third Season are over the counter in 92 units. Tons of elk in those units. Deer tags are on a draw. Lots of good deer units that don't take a ton of points to draw. The area I hunted elk last week is not known as a great deer unit, but I could have shot three bucks that were bigger than anything I have ever shot in Montana.

Hope that helps. Sorry to be so vague. We just cannot post coordinates on the site or tell exact locations in the show, or we would ruin it for everyone. Not because we are experts or shoot big animals, but due to the nature of hunters hearing about an area and thinking that is enough research for them.

Best of luck. If you research and plan, you will have a great hunt in MT or CO. And if you are discrete with information and have some information to share with others, you might get more exact details by using the private message system here on the site. As expected, guys are not inclined to answer questions on the open forums in a way that might let out a hard earned spot they share only with close friends.

 

[JohnCushman]

If you want to hunt elk in Colorado, I would recommend doing it during archery season. For one thing, the weather is much nicer and you get the bulls in the beginning of the rut and can sometimes call them in with bugles and cow calls. Archery tags are over the counter for a good portion of the state, and you're not stuck to one unit with the archery tags...so if where you are isn't panning out, you can try somewhere else. The other nice thing about archery season is that you get almost a month to hunt.

 

[Bigmuley]

Thank you for replying. That helps a bunch. I will order some maps for region 5, 6, 7 and try to find a sleeper area. Just looking for a good mule deer hunt. Love'em!!

 

[mixedbag]

I just got home from a region 7 deer hunt on block managements lands and had a great time.The deer numbers are down but if you put in some leg work you'll find deer.I can help you a little more if you want thru pm's