Don't waste your time and $$$ hunting mule deer here. The 2011 drought killed 99% of the deer and the hunting pressure has even increased . You have just as good a chance of killing a good mule deer buck in your living room watching TV as you do on this ranch.

I hunt in Western Pecos County and have for the last 9 years. The hunting was very tough this year with all the green from the rainfall. It rained also on the opening weekend and hunting went downhill from that point on as temps rose and it greened up even more. The deer did not have to move for feed or water. We saw very few mature deer and know we have the numbers. So not sure if you were experiencing the same hunting conditions or not. The drought had some effect on deer but Mule Deer can and will move great distances to rainfall. Our numbers are not down on deer.

Hunted 7 days and 5 out of 7 hunters shot a fork horn or 3 X 3 which was the only mule deer buck that they saw. The same for the 2014 hunt which was not this good. One spike was seen the entire week. I would say numbers are down and not coming back.

First week or second week of the season? Our first week was the best hunting then the second week we saw very few deer in same pastures where there were a lot of deer seen the first week. We had 18 months of .5" to 2" of rain across the whole ranch but still had deer after that drought period. Fawn numbers were off that year but the last 4 years now have had really good fawn crops. Just really hot weather last year for the whole season and only 4-5 days of good weather this season made very difficult hunting. These past 2 season deer in the hotter days the deer were down by sunup and did not get up until sundown or even later, 6 pm. We are mainly either drive or spot and stalk hunting though with no blinds or feeders. We had one buck killed the first Monday and one on Friday of the first week. Then one on the 7th and one on the 11th the second week of the season. Total of 8 hunters. Some of hunted all the season. Last year we only took 2 bucks out of 8 hunters.

We are just allowed to hunt the first week of the season only. Another full group of hunters come in as we drive out and hammer the same country that we have just hunted hard !!! There is no possibility of any decent deer here as there is no incentive to not shoot every mule deer buck that you see except spikes. We know one hunter in the second group well and they treat it the same way. Also not seeing many does and no fawns. Oil activity on every end of the ranch and wind turbines with service personnel also limit the deer numbers. Also found many dead deer during the 2011 drought .

How many hunters on how many acres?

I would doubt they would come back if every deer seen is shot.

You can analyze it to death (acres per hunter, days hunted, % of hunters successful) but when you see more hunters in a week than you see total mule deer of all classes something is going South fast.