Muleys or Whitetails

[Ithaca 37]

Marv,

"WTF??? You can tell how wide, heavy, and # of points from his TRACK?? Wow Ith...you should have never gave up guiding- your tracking skill rival the Benoits"

Yup. You have to follow the tracks for awhile to learn those details, but it's usually possible if you have the right conditions. BTW, I grew up right near the Benoits and started learning their methods in the '60s. I have a couple of signed copies of the first printing of "How to Bag the Biggest Buck of Your Life" I'm going to put on eBay one of these days, they're pretty rare. I've heard there's a second printing out now. Read all his books and pay attention to what he says and maybe you can learn how to tell how many points and how wide a buck is by following the track. You can get a pretty good estimate of his weight, also.

Sounds like some of you guys don't know much about tracking. I can track a bird thru the air.

Carbon, I said, "I know it's harder to get big mulies now...". Not impossible though. The reason it's harder now is that there's more pressure and they're so dumb most bucks don't live long.

 

[JB]

but it's usually possible if you have the right conditions.

and a trail camera.


could you explain the "right conditions" a bit?
type slow for me if you dont mind

 

[MarvB]

Well Ith you're spot-on about one thing....me no heep big tracker man....since I primarily bow hunt and it goes hand in hand (at least in Cali) with 100+ degree temps, there's scarce snow on the ground LOL. When there is I've usually shifted to duck/geese mode!!

That being said, and I've only glanced at a copy of one of their books, I don't even recall the Benoit's being able to put a point count to a track....you heep good injun my friend!

And of course it's harder now to shoot big mulies...the wolves ate em'!

 

[IDHunters]

How about everyone who thinks that muleys are stupid post up all the pics of the big mule deer you have killed?

All's I have seen on this thread is pictures of really smart & really dead white tails? Am I missing something?

Big mature mule deer are very, very smart. Sure, throw in 36" of snow and the rut and they dumb down in a hurry. What impresses me about muleys is the way they can hide and survive in sparse cover.

Come on guys, post some pics of all the big stupid mule deer you have killed!

 

[carbonarcher]

Well Ithaca, I haven't looked but will check tonight to see how many Booner Mulies you have listed in the books, since you didn't really even shoot'em till they were 36", I imagine you must have laid down a pretty good track record in the books. Or silly me, I'm sure your one of those guys who doesn't put much stock "in the book", so your probably not listed, right? Man the more you post on this subject the more full of yourself you seem to get!

 

[Ithaca 37]

All right, you guys, I admit that any mulie that grows to trophy size these days is smart and probably relatively hard for you guys to get.

First of all, to compare them to whitetails you have to hunt both species a lot. Every mulie hunter I've introduced to whitetail hunting has said the whitetails were a lot harder to hunt. It's always funny when they compare them to ghosts and say they're impossible to hunt. Most of the guys were real good long time mulie hunters.

I quit shooting mulies about 1975 cuz it was too easy and they usually taste terrible. I wasn't taking pictures back in those days either. I shot a couple of thirty inchers but gave the horns to friends for coat racks because I didn't think they were anything special.

I posted the comment about the size of the WT buck to see how much someone didn't know about deer hunting. Thanks for identifying yourselves.

Here's a couple tips for anyone who wants to try tracking deer (which is the best way to learn how to hunt them). Read everything about tracking you can find, including Tom Brown's books, then spend a few hundred hours practicing on real tracks of every kind of animal and bird you can find and , by then, you'll start to learn a few things about how to deer hunt even if you never try tracking again.

Here's how I knew the size of that particular twenty two inch ten point 240 lb. buck.

First the weight: Look at the size of the tracks, length of stride, width of body, size of bed and how deep the track is when he steps in a soft spot by a stream or spring or some mud. Stomp your heel into the soft spot next to his track and see how deep it goes. Some small deer have big feet so take all the clues into evidence. A big buck has a wide body in the shoulders and hips, so his tracks will be further apart. A doe, for instance, will have tracks that go in a straight line like a cat. Then you have to compare all the clues to other deer you've actually seen or weighed.

I gotta go to a business appointment now and will tell about how to size the rack when you're tracking him later. If any of you want to start placing bets on whether or not I can tell you how to do it start getting your cash ready. This will be some easy money. Wanta bet?

 

[MarvB]

....starting to sound like this story is going to end with a punchline....

 

[carbonarcher]

It gets deeper, and deeper and deeper....hump

 

[sneakem]

Yeah yeah yeah... here comes the bit about following tracks, watching as the rack scrapes between tree for width...counting tine marks on the rubs for # of points. Approximating weight by depth and size of tracks...etc...etc...

As buzz would say..."Tracking skills that would kill the average man...."...

G-SUS.... They're both deer.... both species have "dumb" bucks and both have "smart" bucks... Its almost as rediculous as comparing the IQ of a mallard to a wood duck...POINTLESS!!! I've seen both species of deer do some pretty incredible things to escape...

 

[schmalts]

killed?

All's I have seen on this thread is pictures of really smart & really dead white tails? Am I missing something?
you have killed!

I dont think you know what a big WT is since you say you see them here all the time... I see very very few WT here that would make the all time B&C book. It seems that there is a stereotype from both sides. Guys out east think 185 inch Muleys are on every mountain, and guys out west think 170WT are all over the woods. Wisconsin is one of the leaders of book entrys and they enter less than 20 a year i believe. Until the last few years that QDM has been around it was around 10 a year.
If you think a 145 inch WT is a huge deer, well i guess they are all over but a 170 buck is very rare on this site. I think i can remember maybe 3 guys here who got one that is near or over that mark. Greenhorns teenage deer, Little Nuts buck, and Osoks hog. I would bet everyone of those guys will also never beat their current biggest WT either, and admit that as well. Now ask greenhorn and Osok if they think they have shot the biggest MD they will ever get. I would be interested to see what they say.

 

[MarvB]

I think sneaks has summed it up rather well!

...kind of like the ol' college (collage for some...) days when you went out hunting.....sometimes you were meat hunting, sometimes you were trophy hunting, somedays it was easy, some days the quarry gave you the slip!

 

[IDHunters]

"I dont think you know what a big WT is since you say you see them here all the time"

Schmalts you better read my post again. I said "All's I have seen on this thread is pictures of really smart & really dead white tails?"

I never said "big" and I never said "all the time".

I simply stated that this thread has nothing but dead white tails on it. Its funny to read a post about how smart whitetails are compared to muleys and follow it up with a dozen pictures of dead whitetails and no mule deer.

Maybe I don't know what a "big" white tail looks like. I think a 145 whitetail would probably qualify as a mature deer. I consider the one on my wall to be mature, certainly not a trophy.

My opinion is that a 185" muley is a harder trophy to come by than a 165" whitetail (those would be comparable wouldn't they?). This is due to several factors, including population, terrain, available tags, hunting during Oct vs. hunting the rut, etc. Not necessarily that one is "smarter" than the other.

Like many of us on this site, brains go out the door when rutting time comes!

 

[noharleyyet]

I'm waiting on Ith's punchline then Sneaks hijacks the thread with wood duck IQ's!

 

[A-con]

As buzz would say..."Tracking skills that would kill the average man...."......

I would say Ithaca has some BSing skills that would kill the average man

 

[Ithaca 37]

Well, I see we have no gamblers here. I was hoping to make some easy $. Sorry, there's no punchline, just tracking experience. BTW, Black Ducks are the smartest and wariest.

So, I suppose you nimrods don't believe all those clues I mentioned won't give you a pretty good idea of a deer's weight?

I'm having a tough time figuring out where to start with the rest of the explanation on judging the rack from tracking the buck. Should I assume you can tell buck tracks and doe tracks apart if both deer weigh the same, or is that too far over your heads? How basic do we have to get with this lesson?

It sounds like Carbon doesn't know anything about tracking.

My idea of a good WT is anything scoring over 150. Weight and age mean a lot, too, even if he's over the hill and not growing much antler. A real old buck on his last legs might not be growing much bone, but he's a lot smarter than most. That's a trophy too.

 

[sneakem]

I'm having a tough time figuring out where to start with the rest of the explanation on judging the rack from tracking the buck. Should I assume you can tell buck tracks and doe tracks apart if both deer weigh the same, or is that too far over your heads? How basic do we have to get with this lesson?

Bucks front feet are wider apart than the rear because they have a wider chest....

BTW- black ducks are retarded... they all look the same...a drake could hump a drake and he'd never know...

 

[carbonarcher]

Please oh please master Ithaca, learn me some of your tracking skills, I just don't think I can hardly go on not knowing them. I bow to your all knowing skills, please sensei, teach me.

 

[BuzzH]

A couple facts:

Mule deer in heavily hunted country dont get old...therefore they dont get big.

Whitetail in heavily hunted country die of old age. Anywhere they're found theres potential for a booner, from suburbs to prairie and damn near anywhere in between.

End of story.

From my experience, mule deer are less wary, more likely to be in the open, and once found are an absolute piece of cake to get close to. The only thing that makes them tough to hunt is that there arent many old bucks in areas of good genetics. Thats why the all-time minimum was lowered...just not enough bucks around scoring over 195 net.

Whitetails rarely lolly-gag in the open for long, move constantly, much more wary.

All you have to do is observe each and its real apparent that whitetail look around more and they're just more in tune with their environment.

 

[sneakem]

Of course there is no such things as a big muley that lived so long he's found out its safer to become nocturnal and never be seen during the day...

 

[BuzzH]

Carbonarcher,

I guarantee Ithaca has killed more trophy game in his life than you'll likley ever see...and thats a fact.

Maybe instead of running your mouth you should open your ears.