Mountain Whitetails

[savage30-06]

I am learning as much as i can about whitetails, and it seems most of the info i read is always centered around farmlands,does any one have any experiences or information about whitetail hunting in the mountains?The reason i ask is the area i hunt has Mulies and Whities in the mountains and it seems the Whitetails push the Mulies out of certain areas.Just trying to figure out there travel routes at certain times of the year.

[Pre '64]

Whitetails love the lowlands. Bucks will bed on high ground but travel and rut in the valleys where the does are. look for rubs and scrapes starting mid to late october and you will soon see where they are travelling. The bucks will travel from one doe group to another looking for one in heat The second or third week in November is when most of the breeding takes place. The larger bucks can be hard to find until the rut starts, then they travel at any time of day.

[TyTy]

They will in habit up the bottom 1/2 of a valley. we got two last year a stone throw from where i passed on a fork mulie. I figure they will travel as far up the hill as the logging goes.

[Tuffcity]

Where we hunt whitetails you'll find them from the valley bottom up to the sub-alpine. They'll inhabit the same "zones" as the mulies (haven't seen one in the true alpine ... yet). I don't think they change their territory all that much from winter over summer- at least not where we hunt them.

Whitetails are where you find them.:)

RC

[Buckmeister]

I hear that up east from Kelowna that the mulies hang low while the whitetails are up high, a little strange I thought.

Most of the areas I have hunted in has seen the whitetails on the lower 1/3 of the mountain. Thats not to say that some do travel up quite a bit higher. The big bucks like the THICK heavy cover, the stuff that is nasty to hunt in. Look for sign...track, droppings, game trails, rubs, game camera pics, water holes, bedding areas....if you can establish a spot that is a travel route between food/water and the bedding area then set up tight and wait and see what comes walking by.

[Stillhunting]

In my preferred spot for whities in region 3, the white-tail bucks tend to prefer moose like habitat. This is more rolling hill, plateau type terrain, but heavily forested with a good mix of various aged plantations and fresh logging. I usually still hunt thick timbered ridges and draws between small lakes and a big swamp with a decent amount of success. The bucks really get going near the end of Oct. This area use to have more mulies but lately they are few and far between, and whities are everywhere. In my preferred spot for mulies, which is fairly high on a mountain, there are a few whities mixed in, and the bigger bucks are right in the thick stuff with the big muley bucks. This area isn't near any alpine though, but ranges between 3500-4500 ft. Hope this helps.