Nevada FCFS archery mule deer... because why not?

[PRO MO]

I just grabbed a deer permit and I'm excited to hit the road for a hunt. It's only about a 10-11 hour drive, but my flexible job makes it doable. The real challenge is getting the green light from my wife on this short of a notice. If all goes well, I’ll head out the week of the 18th.

According to GoHunt, the unit has "generally" 150-170" bucks with 180" potential, i don't buy that, but it's at least semi-promising? I’m just want a solid 4x4 but won’t pass up a big 3-point if it just so happens to be in my way. This is my first out-of-state hunt with such little prep time, so e-scouting will be limited. That might be a blessing in disguise—I tend to overthink plans and stick too rigidly to them. This time, I’ll go in with an open mind, ready for whatever the hunt brings. Plus, it’s a great warm-up for elk season.
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[Rack Daniels]

Hope you get one, G’luck!

 

[Forkyfinder]

Incredibly tough to get a mule deer during early season archery - any mature deer with a bow is a trophy to me that time of year.

Good luck!

 

[Matthew57]

Good luck!

 

[mevertsen]

I voted yes.

Finding early season bucks is not particularly difficult.

Pinning down its exact location is the challenge.

Blown many stalks because I simply missed the location, and the mature deer will hold tight for a LOOOONNNGGG time.

 

[PRO MO]

first hurdle has been cleared. Wife approved my time off request. Think i'll head out the 19th or 20th. Not sure if i'll be solo, or if Old Man River is going to tag along, but i am going.

 

[rtraverdavis]

I think you’ll be surprised by what a quality hunt it turns out to be. Nevada is awesome. Good luck!

 

[JohnCushman]

Good luck!!! Looking forward to pics and story.

 

[PRO MO]

So here's my only real issue: I’m terrified of rattlesnakes. I hunt griz country without blinking, but snakes give me nightmares. i'm going to be around some Nat'l forest in central nevada, most likely hunting and camping above 8000ft. Are rattlesnakes slithering around up there? Will they invade my camp? Should I ditch sleeping under the stars? Are snake-proof chaps a must, or should I just pack a flamethrower? (Half-kidding on that one.) Seriously, any advice to calm my snake panic would be a lifesaver.

 

[mevertsen]

There's snakes, but not that many snakes.

Ive hunted rocks, heck most of the time, even out in the hills goofing off, and for most of my antelope hunt starting in 2 days, I'll be walking around in $15 Walmart slip on shoes.

Ive never warn chaps. Ive seen rattle snakes, ive stepped on one. Never felt threatened by them.

 

[Matthew57]

So here's my only real issue: I’m terrified of rattlesnakes. I hunt griz country without blinking, but snakes give me nightmares. i'm going to be around some Nat'l forest in central nevada, most likely hunting and camping above 8000ft. Are rattlesnakes slithering around up there? Will they invade my camp? Should I ditch sleeping under the stars? Are snake-proof chaps a must, or should I just pack a flamethrower? (Half-kidding on that one.) Seriously, any advice to calm my snake panic would be a lifesaver.

I was in the same boat as you hunting Nevada for the first time a few years ago in August. I just assumed they were behind every bush, so I bought snake gaiters and everything. Didn't end up wearing them once, never saw a snake either. Most days i wore tennis shoes honestly. As long as you're conscious of where you're putting your hands and feet, i'd think you'll be okay.

 

[Wallydeuce]

I've been roaming Nevada rock hounding and hunting for over 35 years and have encountered snakes less than a dozen times. The closer you get to water, the more likely you may come across one.

Scorpions at night are another story. I buy a can of wasp and hornet killer. I hit the bottom of each leg of my cot with a short blast. This keeps small critters away while I sleep.

Have a great hunt!

 

[PRO MO]

ok thanks, i'll (reluctantly) skip the flamethrower for this trip. The nightmares tell me differently, but i'll probably be fine. Guess, i will just carry the extra weight of my tent and sleep in the tent just to be safe. Scorpions don't bother me, i actually think they are cool little things.

 

[dan.kirkpatrick]

the challenge is getting a nevada tag in your hands,,have fun,the hard part is done.

 

[PRO MO]

alright, we're back! I'm gonna make this short as possible.
day 1 - the drive down (TLDR truck issues cause delay)
There's an uneasy feeling heading somewhere new by yourself. I had this thing in the back of my head leading up to the trip that something was going to happen, and the hiccup came about 8 hours from home - check engine light came on about an hour north of Elko, NV. I am not a car person by any means, i hate cars, and if it were up to me i'd rather just buy a new truck than take it to a mechanic. I feel like once you take it to a mechanic for the first time, things just keep cascading, and more and more issues just keep arising.
I made it to Elko, and went to an O'reilly to put a tester on it, which they said was only fuel pressure sensor - which they told me could easily be swapped out. an hour of youtube and nothing made sense. the parts they directed me to didn't even remotely match up to the sensor the youtube videos produced, and my frustration was through the roof. The kid at O'reilly told me it was easy, it's just a little part behind the alternator. There's nothing there that matches the part. i get ahold of a mobile mechanic who says for $200 he'll come diagnose it better and swap that part if it's indeed what it is. It's not, he runs his program on the truck and its that fuel sensor that is saying there's something wrong with the fuel flow (pardon my lack of proper terminology, this stuff makes my teeth itch). He says it's most likely the fuel pump going out, or maybe i just got some bad fuel last time i filled up. He said it seemed to be just a little off, and he could just take the check engine light off. Told me to buy a fuel pump just in case, and put some fuel treatment in now, and everytime i fill up. And use premium. This is the kind of solution to a problem i like. 3 hours in elko, $200 to the mobile mechanic, $200 to o'reilly for a fuel pump (that i have no idea what i'm going to do with even if mine goes out, but at least i have it), and i'm back on my way.
I get to my first spot i e-scouted, and realize i was way off base. Plan for the evening was to glass northslopes from the flats, but it was so far away even my 16x binos wouldn't have been able to spot a bedded buck. I drive around trying to find a spot that will get me close enough to either hike in, or a trail to ride the 4-wheeler in the the morning. I think i find one, set up for the night and get things ready for the morning. Nightmares of rattlesnakes make for a bad nights sleep.
day 2 - (TLDR basically scouting)
i am up early, but drained. think it's a 4-wheeler morning. my goal is to get to 8000' elevation as a starting point. i take off on the trail, and it goes about 3 miles into a canyon before hitting a deadend. Onx made it look like the trail went another 4 miles, and well into the higher country. it's just about daylight now, so i decide to just hike up to a spot and glass to the south. i glass all morning and see nothing but some horses. This spot is not looking great, think it's time to go back to the drawing board. Head back to the truck and plan to head to another spot i e-scouted. problem is, the country is way bigger than it looks on OnX. it takes me 3 hours to get to the next area, and by now its 97 degrees. AC feels nice so i spend the afternoon just driving around checking out the country. Head to the next range to the east, and find a good trail that looks promising. set camp up, ride the wheeler in the trail - again it's much bigger country than i think and it takes alot longer to get up into the high country, but i get there with about 40 minutes of daylight left. spot some does and small bucks. at least have an idea where to go tomorrow...

 

[PRO MO]

day 3 - (TLDR big buck vanishes, Matt's still very afraid of snakes)
spotted a very nice buck first thing in the morning, watched him bed in the middle of sagebrush near the top of the north ridge. waited until the sun hit him and watched him go into a shaded area along some cliffs. I figure this is where he'll be for a while. It's 800 ft up, and 1700yards away. Steep. Damn i'm out of shape. Early in archery season when i'm hiking up the steep hills i like to try to go 50 steps, catch my breath for 15-30 seconds and go again. i was making it as little as 20 steps and it was way more than 15-30 seconds to recover. Pathetic. On the bright side, i had perfect steady wind the whole way up. at Sun was already out and baking me as i climbed, so i went through about 40oz of water just on the way up. i get to the ridge above where i last saw him, wind still good i drop my pack and start sneaking in. i got as lucky as you could ever hope for. a good game trail that was pretty much all dirt, no gravel, no rocks to slide on, no branches to break. Just a straight silent stalk directly into the wind towards him. as i get the rock ledge over where he was, i'm thinking if he's there, he's probably no more than 10 yards on the other side of this rocky ridge. Wind dies down to nothing. absolutely weirldy calm and silent. i peek over and don't see anything. 1/2 hour of just creeping and crawling along the ridge and this buck is just no where to be found. I have no idea where this guy went. Must've known he was in a bad spot and boogeyed out of there is all i can think. it was bizarre.
Since i'm up on the ridge, i spend the next few hours glassing the further ridges to the south looking for any movement in the shadey spots. spot a few does, one little buck that did nothing for me. Heat has gotten crazy again so i head down and go back to camp. On the way down, i have to cross through a sea of tall sagebrush which in my mind is rattlesnake heaven, i use my trekking poles to poke and prod and beat the brush before every step to the point that my arms felt like rubber by the end of the walk. My heart was racing the entire time, not from walking, but just scared. It's ridiculous. i kept telling myself how stupid it is, but if i wasn't beating the brush, i was getting frozen in fear. Again, i hunt in grizzly country every year, sometimes by myself, have had multiple encounters and have never had this much fear. And the really ridiculous part is that i have had many snake encounters, mostly hunting antelope in eastern montana.
So that's in my head the rest of the day. Get back to camp get in the AC, head to Eureka for some fuel and a couple parts for the trailer and head back to camp. Got back a little later than expected, so i just shot my bow, had a good dinner and some whiskey went to bed early.
day 4 - (TLDR small buck i should've went after, maybe IDK)
that's it. i hiked to a ridge and glassed at daylight. i saw one little buck, should've went after him for a close look. was definitely in a killable spot. spent the hot ass afternoon exploring more on the wheeler. again, crazy amount of country for the real big bucks to hide out. It's hard to not waste a ton of time on glassing the south facing slopes. They are so sunny and glassable, and the sun is more at your back. But you just don't see deer on those slopes. Period, don't waste your time.

 

[PRO MO]

day 5 - last day of the hunt (no TLDR, just read it)
Forget to set the alarm so i'm only up 15 minutes before legal shooting light. The spot i want to get to is at least 15 minutes away... more like 30. i get there about 45 minutes after legal light and immediate deer start popping. does, little bucks, i didn't count, but i did see one buck way off on the distant ridge. immediately knew he was worth going after, and watched him and the others feed for about an hour and a half. these deer were up way later than any other deer i saw this trip. I'm making my plan to go after the lone buck up high. he is in a little aspen thicket which ends about 50 yards from the ridge which looks like it's just open from there to the ridge. two other bucks went up to him as he went to bed, both looked like they said hi and went back down to the thicket another 100-150 yards below him. This isn't as steep of a hike as the first stalk, but its still 700' higher and winding around the mountain to play the wind made it about 2 miles. wind wasn't perfect by any means. it was steady and blowing every direction on the way up. i make it up to the ridge, and the wind actually starts to cooperate. it's blowing left to right across my face, but the gusts were pretty substantial.
i find the thicket he was in and actually find a pretty good path to sneak closer, i get about 15 yards down the ridge, and i hear some rocks to my right - downwind of me. i see a small buck, feeding in the open - in the sun, at 10:00AM. WHAT THE $%?! are you doing out there?? Well he obviously smells me and whips his head up and blows at me. i hit the dirt (scree) and start glassing the thicket for my buck. I see antler tips, nice 4x4 with a little whaletale kicker off the one side. i sneak up so i can see the full antlers, and he is looking my directions at the buck that blew. He quickly stands up, i had a feeling shit might get quick here arrow already nockes rangefinder in hand, but i did not expect him to stand up and take two steps into the open so quickly. 52 yards. Draw, holy shit this is the steepest angle i've ever held my bow. Maybe only other time was bow fishing. It's like a 60-70 degree angle. the wind is whipping still, i'm having trouble staying on him. I let off. calm down. draw straight back, angle at the hips, anchor on behind his shoulder, and release the arrow right as the wind lets off. i don't know if it was the wind letting off or the 3rd axis with the angle but i shot so far off target i don't know what the hell that was. the arrow sailed clear over his butt and exploded into the rocks below. I watch him run off for what seems like 10 miles.
I go retrieve my the parts of my arrow that i can find, sneeze and blow all the rest of the deer on the hillside into the next county, and climb back up to the ridge to start glassing again. a little bit of cell reception at the top of the ridge did the rest of the job ruining my morning, work issues. takes about 1/2 hour to get that sorted out, but it's now getting hot and the wind has only gotten worse. bail off the mountain again. on the bright side, i was so pissed and dejected about what just happened, snakes were an afterthought.
I had previously told my wife that this was my last day hunting, but a monsoon came and cooled the world off so i went back up and glassed for another evening, watched lightening strikes, and a just nice deer-free, cool evening. Told my wife i was going to stay for one more morning, which she was cool with. But with the rain brough out the bugs. and they got bad. beetles of some sort were just everywhere. It got warmer after dark than it was all afternoon so it was too hot to be in the sleeping bag, and beetles crawling on me woke me up probably a dozen times through the night, and made me lose probably 2-3 hours of sleep that i needed. my alarm went off at 4:45. i got out of bed at 6:45. I packed up and headed home.
Strangely enough, the check engine light came back on at damn near the same spot in nevada it came on before, about an hour north of Elko. But i made it home.

 

[PRO MO]

I would absolutely do this again. i'd maybe try to plan it around cooler weather (if possible), be in better shape (i could say this almost every hunt), not going solo. having a spotter would be great for just knowing what went wrong, and having company is usually always good for motivation. Oh, and obv. i need to like desensitize myself to snakes. All in all i saw one snake - some sort of boa in a display at the NDOW office while picking up my tag.
Oh and i found a steep spot to set my target and shoot my bow and it is left every time, and thinking back on a bow shoot i did earlier this summer the downhill shots were my worst shots. i need to go get this 3rd axis thing figured out...

 

[PRO MO]

oh and free handing a scopecamadapter through sig zulu 6 16x makes deer look like this -

the one i circled was the big buck that disappeared after he moved from the sage brush to the cliffs. The little bedded buck was the one i should've went after, and the standing buck was just one of the smaller guys in the groupd with the one i missed. i wish i could've got better pics of the two bigger bucks, i tried. but i couldn't get any to come out.

 

[mevertsen]

The snake at the NDOW office is a Rosy Boa. (If its the same one I'm familiar with) She's pretty cool. I volunteer for NDOW, and we use it for the wildlife education. They also have a rattlesnake and gila monster (in either Reno or Vegas).

Good job on the hunt.

It's tough out there. Amazing that deer will be up all day, even in the heat, but generally the pressure is so low, that they just don't seem to care while they have velvet on.

They just get up and move and feed and water at random times.