12 A east Muzzle loader ?

foundation · Dec 20, 2010

I'm curious if any body has hunted the 12 A East Muzzle loader hunt for deer . I'm kicking that hunt around in my head , and just curious what people have to say about it . I'm a non resident with 11 points , so looking at the drawing odds I think I should be close .

I know the dates are not the best , but I liked the low tag numbers . Any information from people that have hunted it in regards to pressure , quality , and just general rating of the hunt would be much appreciated .

STEELSTUD · Dec 20, 2010

12A & 12B late hunts are are my app. every year. The dates are more important than the weapon.

kelco · Dec 22, 2010

Had a buddy hunt it this year. Bad dates and a very bad hunt. Save your points.

kelco · Dec 22, 2010

Friend had the tag this year. Tough hunt.

Christian · Dec 23, 2010

Can be hit or miss, Most guys agree not to spend a lot of points in it

The Christian

foundation · Dec 23, 2010

Thanks for the info .

DonMartin · Dec 24, 2010

ditto on tough hunt...

Don Martin
AWO

we_B_huntin · Jan 12, 2011

A freind and I had that hunt this year. We hunted hard the entire hunt and never saw a shooter buck. I feel like I wasted all those years of points but hunting is always a blast even if you dont get an animal and it is some of the most spectacular coutry you'll ever see.

Bwht4x4 · Jan 13, 2011

Had the late 12AE rifle hunt in 2008. I wasted max points on this hunt and I'm sick about it to this day. Don't even bother, go somewhere else. You'd be better off with a December Coues tag!

I got to the unit 4 days before season opened and stayed until the day after season closed. Never saw anything big. Biggest was a 25" 4X4 that I passed on for days on end.

Maybe buy a bow and try to draw one of the 13A or 13B archery hunts.

chompy · Jan 13, 2011

Wow tough crowd, I had the tag this year, passed a 180 with a dropper the first day, saw alot of good bucks, was hunting a 9x11 around 230 gross almost got him one evening except a old man on a quad came down a two tracker right before dark andd spooked out the buck. I didn't even know the road was there, when I asked the guy what he was doing he said, scouting for his son. The deer are there you just need a little weather and patience, every hunter I saw the whole trip was road hunting and hunting up high because thats where all the does were, all the bucks were down low.

Bwht4x4 · Jan 13, 2011

LAST EDITED ON Jan-13-11 AT 03:15PM (MST)[p]Eventhough I didn't have a good experience the possibility of shooting a monster on a 12AE late hunt exists. On my hunt a guy killed a toad driving the loop in the lower areas on the southern side.

I did manage to figure out how to hunt that thick lower stuff and was successful in seeing 40-50 deer a day (just nothing big). If I had the tag again I'd hunt high regardless of the weather. Midway through my hunt it snowed 8-12 inches on top and the deer just stayed up there.

If you get drawn hunt high and in the burned portion of 12AE.

Another piece of info is that the muzzleloader hunt is short and the rifle guys for the 12AE will be running around and scouting like crazy the last 3-4 days of the mz hunt. This may and will cause you grief. I'm sure I caused the mz guys grief by scouting early for my late rifle hunt.

CAelknuts · Jan 21, 2011

My son drew the late rifle tag in 2006 or 2007, and it was a tough hunt. He did end up killing a 188" buck on the 9th day, but it was the only good buck we saw the entire trip. I do remember talking to the biologist during the muzzleloader hunt, and he told me about 2 big bucks he'd seen just a few days earlier. Of course, we never saw either of those bucks, but his comments did help remind me that even though this is a tough hunt, it does have the potential for a very big buck from time to time.

I think one problem with that hunt is that most hunters don't get out of their vehicles, or very far from them. We found the buck my son killed by sitting up high a that ridge that comes up from the Saddle Mtn. trailhead and glassing. I don't recall us seeing a single other hunter who was more than a few hundred yards from their vehicle, and most were behind their windshields.