Is it really mule deer rifle season? This warm weather feels like we should still be chasing antelope. And it feels like deja vu, as last years early season was warm and for the most part weatherless.
My wife and I made the trip up for the area 6 opener in hope of filling her tag. We hiked up off the road in 062 and spike camped for a couple days. We saw numerous bucks (about 25 total), mostly young three points and forkies, but did see a handful of four points, with the biggest at about 150ish inches or so. She passed on him in hopes of uncovering bigger.
About 80% of the deer we saw were observed during the first two hours of glassing light, and it was nearly dead throughout the rest of the day. Everything is hunkered down in the thick and snoozing in this heat.
We did have a little competition, as two different hunters made the hump into the country we were hunting....but define competition. Both guys just hiked and barely stopped to glass, and one of the guys walked right by a buck group at about 100 yards. He probably would had seen them if he would stop to glass to see antlers sticking up out of the brush. Talked with other hunters on the way out and the consensus was very few deer observed and killed.
I know the heat is making it tough to find deer, and I believe that the average hunter is generally pretty ineffective (evident of the poor hunting efforts I observed over the weekend). This equates to poor success rates, just like last season.
My suggestion is to cut back on the whining and keep the "Anybody get shot today" dramatic statements on ice, and just simply hunt hard and effective. Folks that do just that will fill tags. I love the depressed and discouraged hunters like you guys - makes the competition easier.
Good thing the state didn't put out 2,200 tags out for area 6 like they did back in the late 1980's....it might of been a real sob story and tier jerker then.
I think Kleenex is on sale at Walgreens by the way.....