Senior Member
I had a heck of a time finding my Muley leh this year. Usually I see tons this time of the year. I did probably 10 before work hunts and the same number of after work hunts as well as 6 full days. That was just this November.
I did 2 fly in hunts that were unsuccessful early season as well
It was the toughest hunting season I've ever had.
Senial Member
I have been having a bad season too! Lots of time in the bush but very few opportunities. It felt like all the deer just had a 20 point IQ boost or something. None of them (except for wee ones that even I would pass on) were dumb enough to stumble out in front of me.
VFX man it sounds like you have a small case of badluckitis, just missed opportunities. Which is cool that every year you had opportunities to miss. As I see it you have tons of trail cameras out at a cabin where you can stay in comfort, space to explore, and more stomping grounds to learn about. Sounds like a pretty cool setup to me.
Senior Member
True True. Saw areas that I had never seen before and have a nice list of lakes to get in and fish in the spring/summer. PLUS my goal is to track down these guys next year -- that are within 300 meters to 3km of the cabin. Just need to figure where they hide during the hunting season.Originally Posted by brian
I think part of the issue was . . . had too many things I was hunting and was hunting for everything. If I focused on the WT only, am sure I could have found these guys, but the LEH moose was my primary focus and trying to understand them [moose] was a learning experience.
HuntingBC Champ
vfx man i am going to go hit those guys know...
just kidding
Walk the talk.
Sounds like you are doing the right things. At least you are seeing animals... the rest will come together.
Advice - 1) close the distance & shoot that WT buck. What were u thinkin? Better for conservation to shoot a young buck than a muley doe. Lots.to learn after you pull the trigger, also...
2) Get out there in the snow & follow all the tracks u can. They will teach u a lot...
Good luck.
Last edited by steepNdeep; 11-25-2017 at 09:49 AM.
The mountains are calling & I must go. ~Muir
Senior Member
It was a hard year for lots of us... I had a three year run where I connected with mulies, but this year I didn't spot anything legal.
The lesson for me was that you have to have several good spots in your bag of tricks. Those three mulies I mentioned earlier, they were all out of the same area, and this year that area just didn't hold deer. Despite searching elsewhere, I only managed to find does (seeing ~80 in a three day period), or two pointers in four point season. Last Sunday I bumped a good buck, but wan't able to determine legality, so he snorted twice and bounced out of my life. I did manage to get a new hunter onto his first deer, with an LEH doe tag, which was very gratifying, so I was in on one kill.
Anyway, I think it's all about exploring and finding spots that hold animals, and then learning about what works for you. In other words, despite not connecting yet, in a way you're doing everything right by getting out there, trying new things and then thinking about it and learning from your mistakes. For every big game animal I've harvested I've probably put in 15-20 days... As we become better hunters that number might come down, but the fact is that the best part of hunting are those days in the field, and success is all the sweeter for the difficulty.
A conservationist is an environmentalist with a gun.
Senior Member
LOL, private property for those guys
But wish I knew where they hung out the rest of their days . . .
Senior Member
Vfx,
I know you won't like hearing it, but it sounds like your outings, by and large, are successful! It has just been the perfect combination of events that has left the freezer empty. Had a few things been slightly different, you would have been successful on a few different occasions.
If you are passing up animals, you can't complain about your success. So many of us would go years without a buck on the ground if we passed up the one or two bucks that are realistic to see in a couple days hunting.
If you're hunting WT, find an area with deer traffic (being there in snow really helps this), and sit, preferably over a pre-baited site. You'll see the odd little guy bombing around in cuts, etc, over random parts of the season, but more mature WT are notorious for being reclusive and nocturnal for all but the rut, although my observations have always been that the opening of the season (in Sept at least) offers a few days of promise before they get cagey. The number of days you have before this happens seems directly related to the pressure the area gets. If you can't bait your spot, try rattling, calling, raking starting around the end of Oct. Not much point before that and not much point unless you know there's animals, ideally in good densities, around.
I don't know your moose spot, but Nov cow LEH can be tough to fill. Some can be gimmies, but lots are on the other end of the spectrum. Without intimate knowledge of the area, you are generally playing a luck game, which can go in your favor, but more often doesn't. That intimate knowledge can cost you plenty of gas, time, boot-miles or all of the preceding. You might rely on discussion with others who really know the area to decide if it's worth pursuing in that MU or if you should look for greener pastures.
Mulie doe LEH - what to say? When you don't have it you see dozens, when you have it sometimes it feels like you have a repulsion magnet or deer alarm on you. By Nov, most areas will start to see deer (mostly does) congregate toward lower ground, especially if there's decent snow at elevation. If they're bunched up in places, getting them becomes very much " all or nothing". If there's no snow, they will be very spread out elevationally and it can be tough, especially if hunting or predator pressure is significant.
That's a longer answer for what could just have been, "stick with it and it will all come together".
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