I am going after Wy mulies for the first time and had a few questions for you guys with experience hunting them. I'll be hunting some mountain areas and will drop down into some low sagebrush areas. Will be glassing to try to stalk, but I have marked water holes, and thought about setting up on them. I guess my question is, are hunting water holes a productive way to hunt up here or would I be better off glassing ant trying to stalk them.

Thanks

Patiently glassing for deer is considered optimal from here. Finding a big boy bedded down can prove sweet.

Do both till the deer let you know which is better. If it is warmer temps water may be important. IME with West Texas Desert Mule Deer hunting water is not nearly as productive as glassing is for them. Desert Mule Deer do not need nor go to water quite as often as other Mule Deer in other areas do. They do feed multiple times per day whereas water is not that often. When I hunted Alberta we just used elevation to glass great distances and found the deer. Then used the glass to decide if we wanted to stalk in closer for a look. We might have been able to glass water but I do not remember ever seeing a deer at water during my hunts. I know they needed and used the water, but we never found a deer at water. Where I hunt in West Texas we have found that when a deer does go to water(once a day to every other day for does/young bucks to every 2-4 days for most bucks), they will feed in and then feed out a different direction. We usually find them about 3/4 mile or so from the water source also. When I hunted western Kansas for mule deer they would hit water very early before sunrise to sunup after they left crop fields from feeding. Same in the evening they may go to water then to the crops to feed, this might have been in the daylight till after dark. There was no pattern or normal daily routine...it varied day to day. This was the 2 yrs I hunted them and it was 2 of the driest years they had in a long time. Temps in late Sept were all over the place from right below freezing in the mornings to 90's in the afternoons. I always concentrated on glassing feeding areas or travel corridors in the mornings to late evenings.

For me, I've found that getting as high up the mountain as I can before the sun rises and then glassing works the best. That might mean you start hiking at 4 am to be up there by sunrise. They tend to move all day, but they also take naps and rest during the day to. Around noon, take a nap like the deer do. There are too many water holes, springs, creeks and water sources out there for you to find. If there is a farm with a nice crop, they will walk a very long way to feed there at night, and then head back up to the tops of the mountains for the day.

Sitting still and glassing is the secret. Do not move your binoculars around, hold them steady and look at every branch, every leaf, every single thing that you can see, and then do it again before moving our binoculars. Guys that are really good at finding game are the ones who can sit still the longest and keep glassing the same thing over and over again until they find them. Look for the back of the deer, it's an odd line in the brush. Watch for ears, they move all the time when they are not alert to danger.

Stay on the mountain until dark. First light and last light is when they are most active. You can eat dinner in the dark. Stay out there as long as you can see.

Glass, spot, stalk.

Most of the time, mule deer need to be hunted.

Productive? I doubt it. Never heard of anyone using that method on mule deer. But it might be....who knows.

Glassing is probably more productive. But then again it's been dry this year, depending on the part of the State you're hunting.

Spot and stalk……get up parallel to where they bed, travel and feed. Make sure you are glassing with the sun at your back…..look for their white rumps and antlers reflective of the sun…..good glass is a must…..range finder and shooting sticks are important as well….

What time in Oct ? Later is best if you can and hunt the doe groups.
Wondering too what part of the state, that can affect how you might hunt them.
Some areas they are put in the sage, some up in the higher basins of the mountains. We have open country hunting too and they bed at rock outcroppings.

If the wind blows, and I mean Wyoming wind, then they will be bedded out of the wind.

We hunt open country and glassing is what we do. Watching at first and last light and looking for bedded bucks during the day.

pm sent furdown

Doing any trapping this winter ?

I spent a couple of days in Utah on a hill top overlooking a remote water hole. It was a great spot in general to glass from or I wouldn't have wasted my time. Saw exactly two does come to water in those two days.

Thanks guys, honestly I'm not expecting much out of this hunt, except learn the area some.

What area? You can turn up good deer in any unit, just takes persistence and luck. I'll be backpacking into a general unit with hopes of a 160 or better buck. You never know...just gotta keep hopes high!