Hawkeye, the Pauns Rifle hunt is ALWAYS a tough hunt. It is normally hot and dry, and the deer are migrating from high ground to low ground during the rifle hunt. They migrate regardless of weather conditions. Some say they move if we get weather, but expect them to be moving rain or shine.
The hotter it is, the less activity you will see during the daylight hours. Deer will be up and moving for only about 20 minutes after first light, and will not get back up again until dark thirty.
The middle ground is mostly private for a stretch of several miles and the deer will bail off the pink cliffs and into the private starting about when 200 camp trailers and quadrunner equiped hunters arrive on Thursday two days before the hunt opens. After the first day you will see less and less deer up high, and more and more deer below the white cliffs, all the way down to the Arizona border.
There are only a handful of bucks that live in areas where you can scout them during the summer and expect that they will still be there after the opening day of the hunt in October. If I were to scout I would scout roads, and country, in addition to looking at the deer. It's a slim chance your deer will still be there when the hunt starts.
Some good bucks are killed on this hunt, mostly by outfitted hunters with private access, or intimate knowledge of the migration trails, and water stops along the way. And of course the occasional lucky S.O.B. that is driving down the road and a monster buck trails across the road and stops to look at the truck screeching to a halt in a cloud of dust!
Good luck. Saddle up for a tough hunt, and enjoy some beautiful country.
