Has anyone been mule deer hunting around the Trans Pecos area? What's the hunting report? When do you think the rut will start? Does anyone have any pictures?

Lots of mule deer in the Trans Pecos area. Rut won't happen until normal season is over in mid December or early January. You will see bucks with does before then, but actual rut is later than whitetail rut.

I hunted the Sanderson area for lots of years, but haven't now in about 15 years. The problem out there was that a lot of the land is owned by absentee land owners and the locals would poach the hell out of the area. I hardly ever saw a buck, none that were really worth shooting, but a number of does. That may have changed since I was last out there but that was my experience.

It's funny that you say that. Lots of absentee land owners where we hunt for sure....

Were we hunted was southwest of Sanderson. I can't remember the road we turned of off 90 onto (seven mile road or something like that) and went thru Eisenglass Canyon to get to where we hunted. The place we hunted actually had a dirt landing strip on it.

9 mile road is the one you are referring to more than likely....and it goes for alot further than 9 miles let me tell you. Lots of smaller tracts in that area believe it or not, even though it does not look like it.


Better mule deer hunting is West and north west of Sanderson. East you start running into more whitetail and smaller mule deer.


Mule Deer won't rut until late December around Christmas.

It’s called 5 mile road and called so, because it’s 5 miles from Sanderson. Had to have a local explain it to me, because we knew it was a hell of a lot longer than 5 miles. We looked at a place for sale at the very end of it (the left branch), absolutely brutal drive and if I recall, it took about 1.5 hours to get back there. Didn’t take too long to get that one out of our head.

One of the first ranches I ever looked at ( I actually don’t think I had my license yet) was way down that road into Brewster county. Thank God we didn’t blow a tire or bust a belt cause we were walking out of there

Do you remember that awesome rock house on the hill about halfway down?

We leased about 4000 acres outa Bakersfield for about 20 years and I left in the late 80s when I got the Trophy hunting bug. Moved around a lot always looking for a better lease and always finding one.
We had close to half and half on WT vs MD. Back then we shot so many that the big ones pretty much played out. Management mindedness has changed a lot since back then. Beautiful country and it really hooked me on hunting. I may go back some day but likely Panhandle or further NW.

I do not, but we turned left and you probably went straight through a gate. The place we looked at, had a wooden cabin on it, with nothing but a wood burning stove in it. Really cool place, if you owned the 20 sections around it! This place was right on a straight walled bluff, all I could envision was a mountain Lion killing me out there.

Gonna send you a PM.

Common scenario back then, even so now in a lot of places, was that people just wanted to kill a mule deer, so they shot any buck that had double forks. Buddy of mine leases a place south of Bakersfield and they are also about 50/50 whitetail to mule deer. Lots of animals but the muleys tend to generally top out around 140ish, a 160” buck is a huge one there.

Other side of Ft.Stockton is where I would look for a legit shot shot at a trophy MD

One of my good buddies gets to go on a Halliburton hunt on one of their leases near Bakersfield. He showed me a picture a couple of years ago of a cow elk walking across the desert. I know there's getting to be quite a few of them South of there, but never heard of one that far North. The Trans Pecos in general has been plagued by drought for over 10 years. That, and a booming population of lions hasn't helped the mule deer hunting at all. I grew up in West Texas and hunted from Sanderson to Marathon, to Valentine, Balmorhea, and up near Ft Stockton. There are big bucks killed annually, but a 160-170 class buck nowadays is a really good one in those areas. It's still loads of fun though in some awesome country.

rut will have a few bucks cruising and maybe an early cycle doe, but typical hard ruts Christmas

There is a lot of Elk south of Bakersfield. The ranch owned by D.R Horton is covered up with them. Herds is 50-100 are not uncommon.


Drought has hurt, but Lions are an issue. Ranch we hunted didn’t seem to have a lion problem but we didn’t have a real high deer density either. A 160” deer was a respectable buck but we were fortunate to have legitimate chances at 180” deer and a few were taken, along with a buck scoring over 200”.

The big deer now are coming from ranches with consistent feed programs and predator control.

I hunted just north of Big Bend on a huge place and got lucky and killed a 180 in 1992. Won the south of I10 buck contest outa Van Horn. They separate that contest into south and north of I10 and they were so shocked i killed it south that I had to do some verifying to prove it.

ours was habitat issue. getting choked out, Needed roll chopping bad.

We got ambushed by two game wardens one night ( and that was about what it was ) and after the dust had settled we talked to them for awhile about what they see as far as deer quality go. I always assumed that the bigger deer came from South of Alpine up into the Ft. Davis area but they both stated that the deer they had seen come out of there were not as impressive as what they saw further north in the flatter country close to I-10.

A friend of mine has a ranch in Marathon and they kill would kill some deer in the 160's but nothing overly giant. They do have alot of cats though and typically kill 1-2 a year just riding around. Now they are on a dedicated feed program and hunt MLD so they can hunt during the rut and they kill deer into the 180's now.

I think it would take a big fire. Would take 10 years to roller chop that ranch. Across the road it was so bad i couldn't hardly drive in there anymore with a UTV

I believe it, protein will work wonders if you feed year 'round and have the money to commit to it. The difference in deer size, both body and rack, is astounding when you compare those Trans Pecos bucks to those sandhills muleys. I've seen elk near that Longfellow place S of I10 25 years ago, so I know there's always been elk down there.

I know exactly where that rock house is. One time we saw a huge buck off the road below that house. The house is about half way to where I will be hunting. I'll let you know how we do

Tracks and roll chopper make quick work but ya fire damn sure wouldnt hurt.

Good luck on your hunt, I hope you get a Mulie and a Cat.

Thank you very much!! Hopefully I get to send some pictures