Recommend Mule Deer hunting book?

LanceS4803

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New to mule deer hunting and am wanting a book to get me started. I've been told their behavior is nothing like the whitetails here in the South. I take 3-4 of them a year.
Interested in food, habits, hunt techniques, etc.





NRA Life Member
VFW Life Member
 
Jim Zumbo 's Mule Deer Hunting is a good general book briefly covering all types of terrain you may hunt. For more specialized types of terrain Mike Eastman's Hunting High Country Mule Deer is great. David Long 's Public Land Mulies is great, The Edge written with Mike Duplan is okay, Robby Denning 's Hunting Big Mule Deer is okay..
Valerius Geist 's Mule Deer Country is essential for understanding mule deer behavior- it will help you become a better hunter than any of the "hunting" books in my opinion. These are ones i'm familiar with, they should get you a good start.
 
LAST EDITED ON Oct-07-18 AT 08:06PM (MST)[p]MUCH appreciated!
I've got some research to do.

Add: ebay is an amazing thing!
 
Those listed above are all solid books. I'd add Mule Deer Quest: Thirty‑Five Years of Observation and Hunting Mule Deer by Walt Prothero, and Hunting Big Mule Deer: How to Take the Best Buck of Your Life by Robby Denning. Both add some dimensions and methods not covered in most of the other books.
 
I' ve read all mentioned except Dwight Schuh's Hunting Open Country Mule Deer, which i have heard is good. Plus a couple others. I ll read every new one that comes out! Love reading about mule deer.
I still say start with Mule Deer Country by Valerius Geist. I hesitate to bag on some of the books mentioned, as you may get something out of them that i didn't...
Buy em all if you can find em at good prices on ebay, you won't be wasting time learning from anyone with the expertise necessary to get a book published on te topic.
Good luck in your quest learning about mule deer. I hunted for five years -with only knowledge of sitting in a treestand over trails hunting whitetails- before i started bagging any mulies. Been a fun journey in the most beautiful country you can lay eyes on!
 
Just found the Mule Deer Country book by Geist on ebay for $15

not bad I guess, shipping from a Good will in CO. Springs
 
i have read Eadtmans, Long’s, Denning’s and pretty much anything I can get on the subject. You will learn something from all of them but there will disagreements with them as well. Great place to start then spend as much time as possible watching, hunting and scouting them. I have been hunting them for 40 years and am still learning a lot.
 
The greatest Mule Deer book ever written was
Kirt Darner “How to find Giant Bucks”.
Yes He was a poacher and Liar.Long before anyone else thought about killing Monster Deer.
But his book is amazing and he started Big deer hunting long before anyone else thought of it.
His hunting techniques like long distance glassing etc. were the standards every trophy hunter employees to this day.For better or worse
He was the Father of Trophy Deer hunting.
 
The greatest Mule Deer book ever written was
Kirt Darner “How to find Giant Bucks”.
Yes He was a poacher and Liar.Long before anyone else thought about killing Monster Deer.
But his book is amazing and he started Big deer hunting long before anyone else thought of it.
His hunting techniques like long distance glassing etc. were the standards every trophy hunter employees to this day.For better or worse
He was the Father of Trophy Deer hunting.
I second you
 
Got my book today
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Any deer book could help you with mule deer hunting. Don't let the title of a book fool or make you look elsewhere. Lots of great mule deer tactics in blacktail and whitetail books.

Blacktail Trophy Tactics 2- By Boyd Iverson
Trophy Blacktails: The Science of the Hunt- By Scott Haugen
Mapping Trophy Bucks- By Brad Herndon
Mule Deer: A Handbook for Utah Hunters and Landowners- By Dennis Austin
Mule Deer Strategies: A Handbook of Hunting Techniques- By Walt Prothero
All Weather Whitetails: Forecasting Your Next Hunt of aa Lifetime- Jeff Sturgis
Whitetail Success by Design: Designing Your Next Hunt of a Lifetime- Jeff Sturgis
Mature Buck Success by Design- Jeff Sturgis

Check out all the information on Western Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) website:
https://www.wafwa.org/committees___groups/mule_deer_working_group/publications/

Also, go to Google Scholar and search for as many research papers on deer that you can. Learning and knowing everything you can about your target species will help your hunting success.

If you ever decide to hunt desert mule deer.
Deer of the Southwest- By Jim Heffelfinger
 
The greatest Mule Deer book ever written was
Kirt Darner “How to find Giant Bucks”.
Yes He was a poacher and Liar.Long before anyone else thought about killing Monster Deer.
But his book is amazing and he started Big deer hunting long before anyone else thought of it.
His hunting techniques like long distance glassing etc. were the standards every trophy hunter employees to this day.For better or worse
He was the Father of Trophy Deer hunting.
I got my muledeer fascination at an early age, found that book at the library and checked it out and read it several times before i could even hunt. The book is definitely solid advice. Maybe i should try and fond it and read it again. Lol
 
New to mule deer hunting and am wanting a book to get me started. I've been told their behavior is nothing like the whitetails here in the South. I take 3-4 of them a year.
Interested in food, habits, hunt techniques, etc.





NRA Life Member
VFW Life Member
Back Country Bowhunting by Cameron Hanes
everything you need to know for hunting mule deer
 
All the books I like and have read have already been menionted:

- Hunting High Country Mule Deer by Mike Eastman
- Public Land Mule Deer - David Long's first book
- Bowhunting Open Country Mule Deer by Dwight Schuh
- Robby Denning's book

I've been interested in picking up David Long's latest book as I really like his first one and I heard his latest one is updated and has more detail on bowhunting, which is what I mostly do
 
I probably have read most of the above mentioned books. If I had to choose one, it would be Darners book Finding Giant...
 
I agree with Darners book being great...in spite of being proven a trophy fraud, his insites are awesome. Still haven’t figured out his theory about the big bucks biting the balls off the little ones tho!
 
The thing about Darner is he really did kill some of those huge bucks legally.
The problem is you don’t know which ones.
He also guided a bunch of guys to monsters that that you never even heard anything about.
Plus,he was hunting big Mexico Muleys long before anyone else knew anything about that country either.
Way ahead of his time.
 
the worst thing about Darner is that he put ON THE COVER of his book a buck that he did not shoot. evidence is out there that he bought that buck that was already entered in B and C records and then claimed he shot it. his convictions are for killing sheep and claiming they were from another state... carrying across state lines.
if somebody is that bad a liar you cannot trust anything they say or lay claim to. I do love his book though.
 
Well
They only thing We disagree on is the picture on the cover isn’t the worst thing he ever did.
LOL But I get your point.
He was just the only one in that group to get caught.
 
Lotta book threads lately, I usually refrain to post anything related to Kirt Darner, but his book is truly second to none on muledeer. He’s why I shot a Remington 7mm and began an early passion for garage sales. Unfortunately there were a few more secrets in the ole box and I’m not talking about the Fish Hook ? ?.

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If your into Make believe photo shopped calendars, and “Hunt n biz” pyramid scheme companies promoting tax loop poles and CPA night mares, don’t under estimate Lindsay Parker’s book mostly about Dennis Wintch. With that said Dennis was a real menace on monster muledeer for years and is a wealth of knowledge.

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The Walt Prothero books were the most useful to me.
The stories he finishes them with are some of the best hunting fiction I’ve ever read.
 

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