Nasty Hike = Better Hunt?

LarzMang

Member
Messages
17
Most of my hunting has been near Strawberry Reservoir (and a few seasons in West Tintic) and I drew a muley tag for Wasatch East to include Avintaquin this year. I've been looking for a challenge, rugged terrain, deep canyons, but what do you think?

Does a tougher more remote hike make for better trophy hunt odds?

I'm looking at the Avintaquin topo maps and I'll be honest, I'm not sure I'm up for the challenge and even if I were, I'm not sure this terrain would pay off.
 
I see just as many people deep in the back country as I do 1 mile in now. The get deeper farther steeper more rugged movement could be capitalized on about 10 years ago I feel.

It seems like the last big buck hangouts are coming from thick country that cannot be glassed easily or by running many trail cameras and getting creative nowaday.
 
I see just as many people deep in the back country as I do 1 mile in now. The get deeper farther steeper more rugged movement could be capitalized on about 10 years ago I feel.

It seems like the last big buck hangouts are coming from thick country that cannot be glassed easily or by running many trail cameras and getting creative nowaday.
Does seem like more and more that people are going after those 'harder to reach' places in hopes that they'll find the big one. Can't say a blame 'em. I'll start looking for more think country to scout, thanks.
 
I’ve seen just as many 170-180 bucks shot from a road or popular trail as I have seen shot 5+ miles back in somewhere. The big deer are where you find them. Some of those places are the stupid little draws that everyone drives by on their way to the top of the mountain.

but yes, in theory, the farther you get away from the main traffic, the better your odds of finding big deer get.
 
The biggest bucks come from the farmer's fields!

Let that sink in for a minute.

Easy feed, water, cover and to top it off, YOU cannot hunt there!!!
They grow big and old but they might as well be on the moon.

Aside from that, yes, getting away from the roads and crowds will help but my bro and I have made the comment many times "we got so far from the roads that we got away from the deer"

Not always but usually the roads go to the water sources and best forage areas since they were pioneered by ranchers. Many times the roads transect the very country the deer need. That's why all the travel and traffic is so hard on the deer.

There's my 2 cents....for free.

Zeke
 
My best deer hunting has been "just over the ridge". You don't need to be ten miles back. Just get back in a little ways to where you are glassing a hillside that doesn't have a road running through it.
 
old bucks are smart. they know those spots where folks drive/hike by them on the way to more distant places. i will still go further to get away from crowds. i am willing to come back later in the hunt but i can't start there where the crowds are.
don't know the area you are specifically talkin about but i would say it does NOT always pay off to get too deep. no use killing off your energy and motivation and there is no game back there...

you may find an untouched honey hole though!
 
Was up on Skyline over the weekend. Plenty of does and small bucks on top, all you had to do to find the bigger bucks is to drop off the top out of view of the roads. My experience is that you can find them without a difficult pack/hike trip, but it needs to be where they can't be seen from the roads. Terrain dependent, sometimes that is farther away from the roads than others. My $.02
 
The words Trophy buck and wasatch east tag doesn't mesh well together. That is where half of Salt Lake and most of Heber go to hunt. Avintaquin does hold a few good bucks same with wasatch east. But there are alot better units out there. You just have to drive a little farther
 
The biggest bucks come from the farmer's fields!

Let that sink in for a minute.

Easy feed, water, cover and to top it off, YOU cannot hunt there!!!
They grow big and old but they might as well be on the moon.

Aside from that, yes, getting away from the roads and crowds will help but my bro and I have made the comment many times "we got so far from the roads that we got away from the deer"

Not always but usually the roads go to the water sources and best forage areas since they were pioneered by ranchers. Many times the roads transect the very country the deer need. That's why all the travel and traffic is so hard on the deer.

There's my 2 cents....for free.

Zeke


This is the truth.
 
To me its about pressure. If a buck or bull gets away from pressure, that's where they will stay. It may be going nocturnal. It may be a juniper thicket. And it may be a deep canyon rougher than most folks want to hike into. But I've killed great deer a quarter mile from camp on a sage brush flat when every other hunter was leaving at 4 am to be on top of the mountain at daylight. The buck thought he was safe until I flushed him like a rooster pheasant. Big deer and Elk need groceries, water, shelter and age to get big. They learn where the safe zones are. We have to be smart enough to find them and hunt them right. Good Luck
 
Just an FYI when I relocated I went through this exact scenario and found the furthest point I could get to from any road in the Avintaquin area. I littered this area with cameras and spent 7 or 8 days, morning and night, scouting throughout the summer before the hunt.. Never turned up a single buck worth shooting in that area. I know there are some good ones in every unit, including the Avintaquin area, but I found much better bucks closer to the roads.

Don't overlook the areas close to the roads, the old smart bucks know how to hide in plain site. It is fun to get away from people though and have an area to yourself.
 
To me its about pressure. If a buck or bull gets away from pressure, that's where they will stay. It may be going nocturnal. It may be a juniper thicket. And it may be a deep canyon rougher than most folks want to hike into. But I've killed great deer a quarter mile from camp on a sage brush flat when every other hunter was leaving at 4 am to be on top of the mountain at daylight. The buck thought he was safe until I flushed him like a rooster pheasant. Big deer and Elk need groceries, water, shelter and age to get big. They learn where the safe zones are. We have to be smart enough to find them and hunt them right. Good Luck
I’ve also found that big deer don’t like to hang around the freeloading mooching mountain maggots. They prefer to hang out in areas on public lands that weren’t destroyed and fed off for private gains. ??‍♂️
 
Last edited:
In my experience big animals are where I find them. Sometimes that has been 7 miles in and sometimes right off the side of the road. Good luck, but in my experience time in the field increases odds of finding a good buck, but not necessarily how far you are from the roads.
 
Great question and comments from the group. I would add that I am always amazed at the number and size of animals that you can find within 1-2 miles from roads (not too far back). With the proliferation of ATVs, UTVs, etc. it seems that very few hunters get off the roads these days.
 
Also, I would add that you can find nice animals in hiking areas no one focuses on. For example, I have seen big bucks cross dirt roads in areas that I would never think to hike in (can't pull off road on that stretch of road, thick cover on both sides of road, etc.). Like DesertRanch said - pressure is a factor. If there is a logical spot to pull off and hike, you can be pretty sure someone has also been hiking in that area (path of least resistance).
 
The biggest bucks I’ve ever seen have been on the Internet!

lately, that’s the highest trafficked area around!

I’d focus your efforts there!

Might just kill a slammer from the arm chair!
 
The nasty hike will only help you if the bucks are in the tough to get at places the entire season. In Montana there are lots of places that require lots of effort to get to. Often the case is that the deer that live in those places in Oct leave in search of does or to winter range in November. Many of those bucks will take a trip to the meat processor. No back pack required.
 
Avoiding any and all trails, and getting to where few go is what works best for me. I know of big bulls within 1 1/2 miles of a paved road.

But that 1 1/2 miles is straight up, and about as steep as it is possible to hike up. There is no trail at all. You will on occasion be using your hands to hike. I have never even seen any signs of a human there. There are always a couple of big bulls there in the summer.

There is an area I hunt deer in, same thing, only a couple miles from a road. It is marginal habitat for the deer, but there are simply never any people and no trail there. I see trophy class bucks, and no other deer ever, fairly often there.

I used to see these animals where all the books say they should be.
But there are now too many people on the trails in that area now, and I haven't seen one where I could used to always find one in years.

So a big YES is my short answer. The more you go where others do not, and the more difficult it is to get there, the better hunting you will have. IMHO.
 
The biggest bucks come from the farmer's fields!

Let that sink in for a minute.

Easy feed, water, cover and to top it off, YOU cannot hunt there!!!
They grow big and old but they might as well be on the moon.

Aside from that, yes, getting away from the roads and crowds will help but my bro and I have made the comment many times "we got so far from the roads that we got away from the deer"

Not always but usually the roads go to the water sources and best forage areas since they were pioneered by ranchers. Many times the roads transect the very country the deer need. That's why all the travel and traffic is so hard on the deer.

There's my 2 cents....for free.

Zeke

Really good insight Zeke. Thanks for the input.
 
In my experience big animals are where I find them. Sometimes that has been 7 miles in and sometimes right off the side of the road. Good luck, but in my experience time in the field increases odds of finding a good buck, but not necessarily how far you are from the roads.

GREAT POINT! I know the surest way to increase my odds is to get my glass out and start hitting the hills as much as possible before mid-October.
 
We used to archery elk hunt in a little "pocket" (maybe 1/2 mile wide X 2 miles long) right off the divide road in Colorado unit 62. It was a natural crossing point from unit 61 to 62. We took 3 bulls in 3 years in there. Then I made the mistake of showing it to a coworker who swore he wouldn't tell a soul. Nothing but quad tracks & bootprints last time I went in there!
 
You all are over thinking this, right now one of the bigger bucks on this site came from downtown in a city! Little bit sof he’n and she’n goin on over it, but the guy shot him in street clothes and tennis shoes, probably could have pulled it off in flip flops? Sounds like a guy just needs to pound the pavement in the cul-de-sac’s!
 
I like the to be up top in the saddle that separate the two valleys before the "hikers" start up from the bottom. Sometimes you get a good one other times you just get to watch the parade come by.
The escape route is the best place to sit and watch.
 
Nope. People drive by nasty stuff just off main roads that hold animals. The animals go where the feel safe and aren't pressured. A lot of times that is a few hundred yards from a main road that the orange army drives by to get to that nasty spot on Johnson ridge.
 

Click-a-Pic ... Details & Bigger Photos
Back
Top Bottom