Favorite method

[AJ]

What is your favorite method to hunt the mule deer?

I have had good success with glassing a hillside or canyon, then getting within range and shooting them. Another is just jumping them while hunting for elk. It is so much easier than hunting a thicket for whitetails.

 

[BCBOY]

LAST EDITED ON Jan-18-04 AT 10:47AM (MST)[p]AJ,
My favorite method of hunting muleys is to still-hunt thick timber. In BC, there ain't much for open country. 90% of the deer I've shoot are under 50 yards. My closet was about 8 feet. Alot of the timber I hunt you can only get a shooting lane of twenty yards or less, that's how thick it is. I've hunted whitetails this same way. When it comes to trophy caliber bucks, I find that muleys are more challenging. They wander through the timber very randomly. They cannot be patterned. Whereas a whitetail typically uses the same trail every time and can be patterned.

 

[Gator]

Driving the roads and shooting out the window, BUT I only will shot 180" and above because I'm a trophy hunter. I hate driving since I shoot left-hand, so if I could get a friend to drive, I will call Shotgun and ride in the passenger seat. It's getting harder and harder to find good areas that aren't over-hunted wish they would close some roads to just white trucks(only ones allowed) and ban all those other ones,then it would be like the good old days.

 

[ICMDEER]

I like to spot and stalk. I like open country - either brush, plains, or above timberline. And I really like the challenge of finding a big buck before the seaon , then locating him again and whacking him during the season. I like to hunt the same way whether I'm carrying a rifle, bow or muzzleloader.

 

[polarbear]

Leg snares and pit traps.
Eric

 

[Wes]

I like to wait till the heavy snows have em all concentrated down by the sub-divisions. Then I can sneak thru other peoples yards useing the houses for cover. This method works great cuzz they usually die in the driveways or out in the middle of the road so you can just back your Monster truck up and get one of the homeowners to help you load him. Hell you never even have to unload the quad!
Wes

Screw the wolves, save the Cowboy

 

[kingfish]

Hit'em with my truck.....

 

[willyqbc]

Lot of logging slashes where i hunt so the preffered method is to still hunt the timber all around the edges of the slash cuts. Glass the cut for deer, still hunt in a loop around it, glass again, then move on and repeat at another slash.

Chris

 

[TheKnack]

LMAO- you guys are hilarious.
Spot and stalk is my favorite way.
Tracking is another that many overlook that works well.
Let's see your pictures of the huge mulies you say that you have got that are so much easier to hunt than whitetails.LOL
This post could get real interesting.
Best,
Jerry

 

[polarbear]

A good conibear baited with apples. A pile of corn with a 240v line running through it. Trip wire and shotgun combo. Chute planes. Hanging out at the winter feeding stations with my cross bow equiped with a night vision scope. Look for fresh cougar kills and just take the head and tenderloins (if any left). Shooting them on the golf course at night. Picking up road kill. Stealing them out of the back of other hunters trucks while they are in the bar celebrating. Or following accomplished hunters, beating them to their kill and slapping my tag on it before they get to it.
Eric

 

[AJ]

Exactly where in my post did it say I have taken "huge mulies you say that you have got"? I said I have been successful thats it. I don't waste my money on taxidermy. I can get a new rifle for the cost of an elk head. No thanks.

The places I have hunted for mulies have been wide open. You can see for miles. Its not an extremely hard hunt, just long walks. Bridgeport, Kalifornia was one of the best hunting areas ever for them. Glass the plateau and look for a manzanita bush that moves, its actually a mule deer turning its head. Put on the little stalk and shoot it. Not extremely difficult.

 

[Justice]

I want to wait till I am 350 pounds with a big beer belly and drive over to my wifes brothers house, which is also my brother, and he has some property with an alpha alpha feild where this whitetail buck has been getting really fat, watchin all the people drive by and go sit on the only trail this buck has used since he was a fawn going into this field(which no one else can hunt but relatives, because it is private property) and anyways, the buck couldnt leave even if he wanted to because there is a fence around the property that he cant jump, its called a fair chase fence or somethin like that, im so stupid from being inbred and all I have short term memory which is why my sister, or i mean my brothers wife has to remind me that we can shoot 25 deer a season because there are SO many friggin deer out here that they let you shoot that many.

ya you tell me how easy it is to shoot a trophy deer, I see pictures all the time of a house FULL of stuffed whitetails and trucks full of big whitetail deer in them, but if you have just one trophy mule deer in a truck or just one trophy mule deer in your house your are doing good.

and one more thing you should stop kissing your cousins it isnt healthy for you. can you imagine the offspring of your imbred offspring how stupid they are going to be?

 

[WAmuleyHunter]

my favorite is to wait till late winter, when the department of transportation digs the pits and puts all the road kill in there taht other drivers have hit. Its like a buffet and you dont even have to be a very good shot.

 

[BCbucks]

All except for one of my mulie bucks have been taken while in a ground blind to ambush mule deer.

I will typically find and scout an area that has does feeding in the same area regularly. I keep close watch on them and if I see no small bucks or medium bucks hanging around the does before the rut.....then I assume there's a real big buck hanging around but won't show himself until the rut gets them checking the does more regularly and putting the buck in the open during shooting hours with the does....... and once I find a bunch of does with no small bucks hanging around them consistently .... I'll set a blind and watch that same bunch of does regularly until I see a buck with them ...... and the odds are good that it will be a good one. Worked every time since I took up this tactic.

Its boring to sit there for hours on end without seeing many bucks but I see the does every time and as long as I don't see any little bucks around the does - I firmly beleive there's a hog around.

I find it to be my most successful method of hunting giant bucks.

The buck below was the latest victim of this tactic.

http://www.monstermuleys.com/photos/PhotosID2/932.html

 

[BCBOY]

Come on guys, you're pretty hard on this poor Whitetail RT import. LMAO!
Kalifornia has some gooood bucks, some reeeeeal goooood bucks. Lets see some pics of those easy muleys (easy, because keep breeding with them dang blacktails all the time. LOL!)

 

[MrBaitnFish]

My favorite method is the buddy system. I try to find good escape routes like a saddle. The wind has to be blowing pretty strong and the thicker the terrain the better. I have a few buddies get upwind about a half mile or so. Then they all start a brush fire. Well before you know it all those deer are running right to me (I learned this from the movie bambi). And I just take my pick and I shoot a couple for my buddies too because they can't see the deer (there's a forest fire in the way). This is a lot easier than a deer drive because you don't have to walk as much. I've had a couple close calls myself with that fire, you just gotta be careful and know what you're doing. This method has worked great the last few years with the drought, stuff burns like crazy! This is good for the economy also, it creates a lot of jobs, what with people fighting the fires and having to reseed and all that. So it makes me feel good about myself creating all those jobs and just doing what I can to help our economy.

P.S. be sure you're gone before the forest service shows up.

 

[cmiddleton]

my best way is to hang a 20' pipe out the side of the truck then drive 90 mph to gellete then just fill your tag on the biggest one if you drive fast enough they cant get far enough off the road in time

 

[Skunkterd]

4 feet of snow in January. Shoot it by the road so mosback can pat me on the back & tell me what a great hunter I am.... LOL

 

[AJ]

Shooting trophy anything is not easy. Passing up the smaller bucks to get the big boys take patience and practice.

Sounds like you are jealous of how many whitetails are out there. If mulies were not so fragile, they would flourish like their superior cousins.

 

[TheKnack]

AJ- Any pictures will work. LOL
Another good method for taking mulies is to borrow a ski resorts snow slide 80-120mm.
You need to take it where the mulies are wintering which usually is not far from the resort and BLAM, start a snowslide. Works every time. Is a little hard uncovering the bucks but is fun because you never know what your gonna get.LMAO.
Best,
Jerry

 

[Ant]

Hey Aj, you hunt in Bridgeport? That's a pretty tuff area to draw here in Cali. I think that is X12 or X9a I'm not 100% sure but I know it is hard to draw. I will say that I have heard of some real nice bucks taken in that area.

As for myself I like to spot and stalk. I have been doing better the last few years. I have taken at least one buck out two tags I can get here in southern Cali. Little ones nothing big. I hunt mostly D11 and D13 and A zone.

 

[Hawkk33]

Out here in Eastern Oregon the method I use is spot and stalk. I am just now learning to have the patience to sit for hours and glass and have tried to stalk a herd of deer after season was over to see how close I could get.

 

[Justice]

I usually only hunt the places that have really big fences around their property. Its still hunting, I still have to drive up, get out of my truck, glass for the biggest whitetail on the property, have patience enough for all of the other deer to get the hell out of the way, and then bam I let him have it on the first shot, since he is only 50 yards away I have yet to fire more then two shots.
The biggest pain is actually driving right out into the field and backing up to load it up,(why do you think you NEVER see a whitetail being boned and quartered up for the long hike out)

 

[muleyqueen]

Spot and stalk then shoot with my bow.