Big Buck location year to year

[hobbes]

This evening I drove to the top of the mountain that I'll be spending most of my time hunting this year for mule deer and elk. I'll be hunting elk there mainly because it is the unit for my deer tag. This will be my first attempt at hunting mule deer, so I will more than likely concentrate on them the first couple weekends unless an elk presents an opportunity.

Anyway, I did not see the activity during the last hour of dark that I had hoped to see from my glassing point, but I did see a big buck on the way up the mountain in the heavier timber. While driving the switchbacks up the mountain, I had just thought to myself, this is the switchback we saw the big buck on last year along with several smaller bucks. When I came around the slight bend in the road, there stood a big buck in the road with a smaller buck up the hill from him. I got the binocs on him pretty quick and got a look from the front, side and rear. Of course the one photo opportunity as he walked off down the slope resulted in a low battery signal and the camera shutting down.

He appeared to be a big 4 point with at least one additional sticker point on one of the front forks. I think he also had eye guards, but couldn't say for sure. The rear forks were very deep and the buck was really tall and swept forward really nice also. I'm not familiar with looking at Mule deer widths, but my initial guess would be at least 25" inside spread.

Considering the location and the exact time of year and time of day as last year, and knowing last years group had one really good buck in it that I couldn't quite get a look at, I'm tempted to say it is a buck from the same group. I will definitely be in the area this weekend hoping to find him again and get a really close look.

Do mule deer consistently use the same area from year to year, much like a whitetail?

 

[driftersifter]

I would say that they use the same drainages from year to year and they train the young bucks that hang with them to use the same terrain. Big Bucks tend to use the best the area has to offer.
Driftersifter

 

[Gator]

Same drainage, same bedding area, Alot of times I will look at a tree on a hillside that I have jumped bucks from and sure enough there is another buck in the same bed under the same tree, I have a place that each year we watch bucks bed under the same tree and if we kill it, next year another buck takes his spot sometimes they are big sometimes they are small but it fun to glass up the tree to see what is there..

 

[Dub]

I often find deer in the same place year after year.

Dub

 

[Nelly]

OK how about this, what if you kill a buck and one that was with it got away would the one that got away return next year? Or if you shot and missed a bacholer group of bucks would they return to that spot a year or two later?

Thanks
CW

 

[nickman]

Deer are creatures of habit and opportunity. They use the same routes, feeding areas, bedding sites and rut areas because they are the best available year after year. If they get burned out of last years feed, they move. If the feed or water isn't there they move. You can be there year after year with them, and as long as they don't see you as a threat, they will stick around.....make an aggressive move into their comfort zone and they will split...maybe for half a day.
As much as most folks on this site would like to disagree, there ain't no way a deer will ever remember that you killed his daddy in the same spot last year....they simply have no capacity to remember anything long term.
If they could learn anything at all, there would never have been a deer or elk killed after the first Model A hit the woods on any kind of road...they can hear your vehicle for eight miles and smell it for three.
I could take off on several of those old beliefs, like fresh gutpiles running them out of an area, rifle shots, shooting a deer out of a group and having the rest scatter. Mostly all BS.
Bottom line; If they don't see, hear, or smell YOU, they pretty much are going to continue doing their regular thing.
Deer never watch TV, so they don't know what a gunshot is, and when "Bob" tips over for no APPARENT reason, nobody else in the herd really gives a damn, except "Ted", 'cuz now he gets the girls.
They eat, sleep and make baby deer, but since they are prey animals,they are very wary at all times....(except the rut) and every thing else is just "Disneyland". They don't think, plan ahead, or do simple math....they simply react to the current situation.

OK boys, let fly.....

 

[overton]

I would think deer use the same areas year to year. What feed, cover, shelter and safety brought them there in the first place should bring them back.If I ever draw back to back tags I'll try to confirm this, slim chance of that though.


Ransom

 

[Nelly]

Nickman, Thanks for the insite I really never put into those terms!!!! Good post and welcome to MM.


CW

 

[kilbuc]

Yes, deer are very traditional. Radio collored deer have proved this.

from the "Heartland of Wyoming"

 

[muzzhunter]

Nickman, that is too good man! That's one of the best posts I've seen on this site for a while. Thanks for keeping us entertained and educated.

 

[bighornhunter]

I know for a fact that mule deer use the same area from year to year. I have been hunting a huge deer for the last three years, each year gives me the slip. Each year I find the buck in the exact same canyon to the exact same hill side to even the exact same bunch of trees that I saw him the year before. The buck also has the exact same patterns and routes when he gets pushed from year to year also. So, yah I can think and believe that mule deer use the same areas from year to year.

 

[old_man_of_the_hills]

Where a big buck is is never an accident...there is something there that they recognize and prefer. Until the rut comes, that is.

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