Awesome thanks for the info! Very helpful
Idaho unit 11 Mule deer rut
- Thread starter NIdaho87
- Start date
I hunted the late muzzy elk tag a few years ago and hunted all over from top to bottom. The top had maybe 4" of snow, we saw way more deer halfway down from the top and all the way to river. we used the jet boat hunt a lot between heller bar and down river to where private starts. We saw 1 buck Id shoot and it was in the drainage just north billy creek, it looks like a bowl if you look on a topo. Buck was a 27-28" 4x4 with a few stickers and great forks and fronts I woulda put him at 180"ish. We found pockets of big herds of does with small bucks, but the rut looked to be all but over by Nov 25th lots of bucks grouped up by then. If you have a gmail account Ill send a map to you where we found the deer they were great areas that you couldn't see from river and looked to be used a lot. I would definitely take drift boat to cross.
Hey thanks for the advice I’ll take all the help I can get. My email is [email protected] I think we are going to end up bringing my friends raft down so we can be more mobile. Cause there isn’t much access
Irrelevant
Well-known member
Unfortunately I tore my meniscus during elk season just prior to the hunt and ended up having surgery 3 weeks prior to it. So i was extremely limited on how I was able to hunt. But I did get into a ton of deer. The quality wasn’t quite what I expected and I ended up passing on about 5-6 deer in the 130-140 range and only saw one buck that was over 150 and it was after shooting light. All in all it was a fun hunt and a good experience just extremely difficult hunting on a bad knee. Again sorry for no response I wasn’t recieving notifications on this post. And I’d be happy to help if anyone has any questions
I actually drew the early tag this year as well. Do you have the October or November tag? What questions do you have?
Sdbeaupr
New member
I’ve got the November tag. Mainly curious about how are the roads? And what kind of elevation bands did you see animals in? I think I’d hunt top down, because I don’t have access to a boat.
Honestly I saw deer from the riverbanks all the way to the highest peaks. There’s no lack of deer. I would say we actually saw more in the lower elevations. We took a small inflatable raft an crossed where were able. The main roads are okay but i would definitely be in a 4wd truck or suv though. Atv or sxs would be very handy. It’s been several years since I hunted it so take that with a grain of salt. Message me beginning of November and maybe i can give you a better idea.
Sdbeaupr
New member
Sweet. That's about what I thought. I live just north of there in Moscow, and want to put some good time into this hunt, so I plan on taking a whole week of and spending time in there. I've got a tacoma, and a bunch of recovery gear. I thought about doing a raft and coming in from the bottom, but that's extra gear that I just don't have at the moment.
One other question I've got, is how far of distances are you glassing? I need a new spotting scope for this, and I am debating on what type of magnification I need for this. To me, it doesn't seem like you are glassing super far distances, it is more open country, and with it being the rut, deer should be quite active. This makes me want to look more towards the Vortex Razor 13-39, for it's small size and packability (which I am not as worried about for this hunt, but I want this for my other styles of hunting more) or if I should be looking at a 15-45x65 or even a 20-60x85. I run a set of Zulu6 Hdx 16x42s right now for primary binos. This also all looks like country you would want to day hunt, so i am thinking the lighter I keep my day kit, the more country I can cover. Especially since I think I will be doing this solo and carrying any buck out alone.
I used my 15x binos more than anything. If it were me I would go with a 13-39 for the spotter but you can’t really go wrong with 20-60 either. Really just comes down to how much weight you want to pack. But i don’t really no shit about optics to be honest
Sdbeaupr
New member
Can't say I know a ton either. I don't even own a spotter right now. But yeah I agree, I think the 13-39 would be plenty.
I know this is a hard thing to define, but how far do you thinking you were glassing normally? Half a mile? a mile? Couple miles? To me, with how steep it is, and how it is layed out, it looks like it is more pockets and you'd be glassing a mile or less, but I haven't been in the that country much, besides driving down the grande ronde or going to that first trailhead on red birds ridge to hunt chukar once.
Definitely true. If you need a 60x spotter to see it you’re probably not getting to it that day.
Only time I could see doing any real long distance glassing is if you were looking from the road on the Washington side. Id say under a half mile typically but it really is just dependant on where and how you hunt it. Being so close i would just go scout for a day or two before making any big spotting scope purchases
