Kamloops Mulies?

[len173]

Just wondering if anybody has been around the strawberry hill area lately and if there is much for mule deer up there?

I went up towards Mt. Lolo road and then started climbing up hill on foot from the sign that says 'strawberry main'. I don't know the area well and was wondering if there is a better spot, or if maybe I should be driving further down the road before heading up the hill.

It was a fun hike, but sh*t weather this weekend.

[Laurence_Erickson]

if you climbed the hill towards the burn I think you may have beeen on reserve land .might not be a very good idea uptowards the burn at mcclure might be a good place to start.:)

[Darksith]

your either in the reserve and askin for trouble or your on 7 O ranch and doin the same. Continue up the road towards the top of lolo and hunt past where the gravel starts and ur ok then

[Looking_4_Jerky]

Yes, the Strawberry Main does traverse some reserve, and then also accesses some the the Seven-O Ranch lands as well. There is some Crown there, but it is a good idea if you know exactly who owns what where you're hunting, and that happens to be a tough spot to figure out. You can try using ILRR to get a better idea, but if you've never used it even that will take you a while to learn. There are actually good pockets of whitetails there as well, but most of the better are on either IR or Seven-O. Depending on who has been hunting (with permission) on the ranch and on the reserve, some spots may be picked over for the best bucks. The area does put out the odd big, old veteran buck, but I wouldn't say much more than other spots.

The McLure fire has a good population of deer, but has grown exceptionally popular in the last 5 years. I used to see many mature bucks in some areas of the fire, but now find that most of the bucks don't get a chance to grow old there. After the extensive salvage logging that occurred after the fire, there is a ton of wide open country and the deer are very vulnerable (easy to spot). Coupled with the fact that there was (and maybe still is) a lack of enforcement on some vehicle closure areas, the area has been hit hard by hunters and big bucks are hard to come by. There is still a good population of deer in general and young bucks, and smaller bucks that would still be legal right now (4 points) are not too hard to find.

Good luck and throw us a report if you check it out!
Jerky

[len173]

Thanks for the info guys! I definitely don't wan't to hunt, or even hike on anyones land. Good thing I was just exploring and not actually hunting anything. I'll just avoid that one completely because I don't want to try to figure out what's crown land and what's not with no obvious markers.

I'm brand new to the land, so how would I get to the McClure burn area? I might scope it out in the next week or so.