Hell yea, because I was hunting a different unit each of the seasons, and the 4th season unit takes 10+ years to draw. I was elk hunting both seasons and seeing deer incidentally while glassing.
4th Season Mule Deer CO
- Thread starter GBrokx
- Start date
Bluffgruff
Well-known member
I'm not sure I'd go after old burns. As trb stated, deer will be clustered. Find does, wherever they are, watch them close to see what bucks are around. Move to the next glassing point and look for more does. Focus on winter concentration areas first, then try just uphill from that too.
I drew a 4th season tag last year in a "migration area" and there was zero snow to move the deer it was a rough hunt saw almost no deer and went home with tag soup. Talked to a guy who had the tag 4 years earlier and he said they got pounded with snow a week before the season started and they averaged 150 deer a day, said it was unreal, pray for snow.
squirrel
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2013
- Messages
- 709
Unless you are hunting after /santa comes you will not be 'post rut". thanksgiving is premium rut time.
If you think having a wheeled vehicle and chains means you are "ready" you may very well be re-educated in a most forceful way. Of course being the CO mtns you may be able to road hunt out of a corvette, one just never knows.
To be ready would be to have a snowmobile at least on backup/standby status
Better too much snow than too little for the hunting. But chaining and digging sure do get old.
If you think having a wheeled vehicle and chains means you are "ready" you may very well be re-educated in a most forceful way. Of course being the CO mtns you may be able to road hunt out of a corvette, one just never knows.
To be ready would be to have a snowmobile at least on backup/standby status
Better too much snow than too little for the hunting. But chaining and digging sure do get old.
Sounds like the consensus is the rut will still be good around Thanksgiving.
In my 10 years of hunting I have been able to easily get around in my Tacoma TRD off-road and only rarely needed chains. The times I have needed chains I have been able to get by others stranded on the side. Always carry a shovel just in case. Luckily the unit I am hunting for this 4th season mule deer hunt has a fairly maintained road that runs through the middle if it happens get THAT nasty, but at the elevation (8,000ft) I will be hunting, I have never seen it get that in late fall. I live at approximately the same elevation in the mountains, so I am well aware of how bad it could get. Where I hunt elk is a completely different story. Seen pretty bad weather in mid-late Oct, but still nothing that has made we worried that I couldn’t get out with my Taco.
South Park region. Not so much East, but I understand the rut runs later the further south you go. Good to know you see rut action into December. Fingers crossed for snow and rut action at the end of November!
One piece of advice I have is to research the migration triggers for Mule Deer in that area. Some deer herds in Colorado migrate almost like clockwork regardless of weather, possibly due to the length of daylight or some other internal instinct that causes those deer to suddenly head for winter range. Meanwhile, a different deer herd in another part of the state may migrate lower as needed due to the weather, so if it's a mild fall they may not be concentrated in winter range yet. One member already mentioned in this thread that on one 4th season hunt he saw nothing, while during a different year on the same 4th season hunt that had winter weather, a lot of deer were seen. I would say the most likely scenario is that you'll see a lot of deer and rut activity in the wintering area of wherever you are, but if it's been a warm snowless fall and you don't see many deer in the first two days of your hunt it may be beneficial to move around the unit until you find the numbers as opposed to waiting.
