C
Chameleon
Guest
Hi there.
I would like to start bowhunting mule deer and am looking for advice on best areas to check out. I live in central Texas, and would like to keep the drives to under 13 hours....Ideally, I'd like to pick a place that I can return year after year and learn more about. I'd like to do spot and stalk, but I hunt with a longbow so the ability to get real close will matter a lot.
I can get to San Isabel or Pike forest areas in Colorado in about 12 hours. Not sure whether this would be a good spot for a beginning mule deer bowhunter, and how many points I'd need to hunt a decent area?
I can get to Southeastern Arizona in about 12 hours, and get OTC tags for units like 28,29,27,30a, etc. This area offers easy tags, and a late season running into Jan., and I like the idea of getting points for elk, deer and antelope. But I'm not sure whether hunting those desert mulies with a longbow is realistic for someone without much experience?
New Mexico is the closest option. The absolute closest would be the sand hills in unit 31. But this is all draw now, so it would be hard to get back year after year unless I found a landowner that was agreeable. I wonder if it is likely to get longbow close enough in so little cover? Or would I be better off in a mountainous unit like 36?
According to the NMGDF, unit 31 has around 25% success rates, while unit 36 has around 50% success rates(!?). Meanwhile, according to AZGFD, those OTC units have like 5% success rates. Is a unit like New Mexico 31 really harder to kill a deer than unit 36, or are these statistics misleading? And is the Arizona desert really much harder than the New Mexico areas, or is that really just more about different ways they tabulate the statistics?
Any help would be great! Thanks!
I would like to start bowhunting mule deer and am looking for advice on best areas to check out. I live in central Texas, and would like to keep the drives to under 13 hours....Ideally, I'd like to pick a place that I can return year after year and learn more about. I'd like to do spot and stalk, but I hunt with a longbow so the ability to get real close will matter a lot.
I can get to San Isabel or Pike forest areas in Colorado in about 12 hours. Not sure whether this would be a good spot for a beginning mule deer bowhunter, and how many points I'd need to hunt a decent area?
I can get to Southeastern Arizona in about 12 hours, and get OTC tags for units like 28,29,27,30a, etc. This area offers easy tags, and a late season running into Jan., and I like the idea of getting points for elk, deer and antelope. But I'm not sure whether hunting those desert mulies with a longbow is realistic for someone without much experience?
New Mexico is the closest option. The absolute closest would be the sand hills in unit 31. But this is all draw now, so it would be hard to get back year after year unless I found a landowner that was agreeable. I wonder if it is likely to get longbow close enough in so little cover? Or would I be better off in a mountainous unit like 36?
According to the NMGDF, unit 31 has around 25% success rates, while unit 36 has around 50% success rates(!?). Meanwhile, according to AZGFD, those OTC units have like 5% success rates. Is a unit like New Mexico 31 really harder to kill a deer than unit 36, or are these statistics misleading? And is the Arizona desert really much harder than the New Mexico areas, or is that really just more about different ways they tabulate the statistics?
Any help would be great! Thanks!
