Resources for a New Hunter

Runnin_Chupacabra

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Joined
Mar 10, 2020
Messages
483
Location
Central Coast, CA
Hey all, next year I'm planning on doing my first out of state deer hunt in Colorado. My only experience deer hunting was last year being my first deer season on the Central Coast of CA and didn't see anything besides a lone doe. I've been spending almost every weekend during COVID checking trail cams in different areas and putting boots on the ground to get more experience. My quarantine hobby has been learning everything I can to prepare myself for next year, watching Randy's E-scouting series and other instructional videos, listening to his podcasts, attending Colorado's Fish and Wildlife's weekly webinars and studying the CO Hunt Atlas as well as my OnX. Needless to say hunting the coast of CA will be different than hunting in Colorado. My current goal is to learn all I can about mule deer and I have some books coming in the mail. Are there any other resources out there that I may be missing that you all would recommend?
 
Sounds like you’ve got a lot of the bases covered. One thing that might be valuable and fun for you to do is a high country backpack trip this summer in the Sierras to find and watch mule deer. A lot of the eastern Sierras have similar topography to much of western Colorado, and you could cover some country backpacking, and watching deer. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in that area, but many of the high basins I explored as a kid had deer in them, and you could learn a lot by putting some binos on a tripod and watching deer be deer all morning.
 
I am not familiar with mule deer yet so I can't speak specifically to them, but adding to what was posted above, time spent observing the animals that you are interested in and studying and learning to interpret their sign would be number one on my list no matter what species we are talking about.

That advice will kill two birds with one stone as it will get you out on the landscape giving you experience in the outdoors practicing your woodsmanship.

Win, win.

Good luck and welcome to the madness.
 
Sounds like you’ve got a lot of the bases covered. One thing that might be valuable and fun for you to do is a high country backpack trip this summer in the Sierras to find and watch mule deer. A lot of the eastern Sierras have similar topography to much of western Colorado, and you could cover some country backpacking, and watching deer. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in that area, but many of the high basins I explored as a kid had deer in them, and you could learn a lot by putting some binos on a tripod and watching deer be deer all morning.
That's a great idea!
 
Leupold BX-4 Rangefinding Binoculars

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