River canyons for Desert Muleys?

[garneroutlaw]

Hi all, I drew a unit this year that is pretty hard to hunt. It is dominated by pine woodlands with large tracts of pinyon juniper and plains. Very little desert-like habitat is present. It is a world class unit for elk, but deer are a different story. My scouting trips this year has led me to focusing in on a river bottom which is loaded with willows, bitterbrush, and all sorts of goodies. I just spent an evening/morning glassing, but with no success (wish I had more time). Being so close to season opener, I an going to opt to stay out until the season starts. Was wondering if you guys have any success stories of hunting river canyons and tactics you may have used to bring one home. My biggest concern that comes to mind is escape routes. Will the deer take the risk to come down to the river bottom at all? They seem to be predator traps to me, and right across from my camp was an obvious cougar den in use. Should I purely focus in on terrain that provides the best escape routes from the river bottom or am I digging into it too much? Thanks for reading.

 

[Hunna_wunna]

We hunted a river bottom this year on the muzzleloader hard, we knew there was 3 bucks within this 3 mile stretch of river that would both go over 180”, the problem was that they were in willows, Russian olives, and even tooeles that were so thick, that they could literally take 2 steps and disappear. But, one of the bucks that ended up getting killed went in the 210” s.

Moral of my story; I think that deer are likely going to that riverbed to feed and water, if not even making the river bed their full time habitat, and it could be something similar to what we experienced which is simply just way to thick to see them without actually being on foot down there. Hopefully you can catch them coming from somewhere up higher on one of their escape routes or daily sneaks! Best of luck to you!

 

[heartshot]

I have a friend who has been successful a couple times by finding new tracks and following them in that type of country

 

[littlebull209338]

Use to hunt the Colorado river bottom on Western slope of Colorado. Big bucks were always there. From Debeque to Utah state line. Get a tree stand on trails and wait em out . It works but is boring.