Pine Valley Early Rifle

tjbowser

Member
Messages
29
Hello, new here.

My 13 year old son and my 16 year old nephew both have tags for the Pine Valley Unit. I am not totally new to the area and hunted it myself in 2016 before they split the season. I focused on Motoqua then. I am looking for advice and personal experience regarding if the deer have begun their migration during the early season. I see this has been touched on a bit in previous forums but most of the answers appear to be in PM's. I contacted the local wildlife biologist who told me they don't start their migration until after this hunt, and to focus on the northern part of the unit. I felt pretty confident about that until recently speaking with a local in the industry who told me they get pushed down by the muzzleloader hunters. I am going up a few days early to scout and will be towing a 33 foot trailer, so I would really like to park it once and not have to move around. I am thinking the Enterprise Reservoir might be best, at this point. I (by the grace of God) got my 12 year old daughter an elk off the South Slope last week, so now I have a happy daughter and an envious son I have to hump for. Thank you for any help.
 
Welcome to Monster Mulies. I had the tag a few years ago. The enterprise area has seen a significant drop in deer numbers since I was there. My buddy hunted archery 3 of the last 4 years and the report was bad. Having said that your trailer will fit fine at the lake and you can access more country than you can hunt in a 5 day season. Hike over a ridge and you should find something to shoot at..
 
Thank you. Their tags actually allow them as a youth hunters to go up for both the first and second seasons. I was going to go with what I know and just do the later dates, but decided to put all of our effort into the first season and have the second as a plan B. Thanks again.
 
Lots of deer.....small bucks is what we found last year. Your son should fill his tag no problem. Good luck!
 
Back with an update. Had a good trip and stretched it to the last day. Got out 2 days early so we could scout and drove probably three to four hundred miles in that unit looking for where we wanted to be. Started out low with the intent on working our way high, and mostly just saw does and a couple forkies combined between public land and hayfields in Gunlock area. Most after shooting hours anyway and was feeling a little discouraged. Unfortunately my brother and nephew did not make it because my nephew's Aoudad hunt in New Mexico took longer than expected, but was worth it in the end with a filled tag with a monster. As for us, we got into dear the second afternoon of the hunt and spent the rest of the time in the the same area. They seemed to have begun moving down and every deer we saw was headed in the same direction.. The boy missed two shots 2 days in a row, one on what appeared to be a decent 3 x 4 or 4 x 4, and another on a large frame older mature looking forky. Both shots were near 300 yards. On the last morning we went out just to glass for an hour before packing up the trailer and spotted another group of all forkies across the conyon. He ended up taking the larger of the group with a well-placed 280 yard shot. He was a little bummed to have missed the bigger deer but could not have been happier to get his first. Just wanted to say thanks to those that reached out, especially a couple in particular who put us onto areas we were unfamiliar with. I won't throw the individuals under the bus on the foum, but you know who you are. I did hear a few groups in Veyo on separate days talking about tagging out in good deer in the Tobin Bench and Baker area. Sounded to me like as expected, the snow on Tuesday probably started them moving down the hill.
 
Any pics? Congrats to your son for filling the tag and at least having opportunities at larger deer.
 
Congratulations and nice meeting you. We finally got on some bucks the third day of the hunt. Our youth hunter had 2 stalks but came away empty handed.
 

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