anuone use a tripod on treeless plains

Going to a small lease to try for mule deer next year..no trees on property..too small to spot and stalk much,,,any one use blinds or low tripods

Our Mule Deer lease is in western Pecos County and it is fairly flat to rolling terrain with a few deep draws, ridges and then hills. You can find a location that is higher to look into lower areas that will work well. It can just be a steady elevation change downhill from you. Our lease does not have a very high deer density(2-8 deer per section) so we have to spend a lot of time glassing. Hardest thing for me when I first got on was trying to look for Mule Deer in what was the better looking Whitetail cover. Big mistake since the Mule Deer were more open range if the food was there and it usually is. We spend a lot of time sitting in a UTV and glassing for hours. We have no feeders on the lease at all. Once we find the areas (flats, gravely ridges, etc) that deer are feeding in then it narrows down the amount of wasted time we glass none productive areas. Our deer seem to water around every 1-2 days for the does/fawns and 3-5 days for bucks. We seem to locate them around 3/4 miles from water in general if they are up and feeding. They also seem to feed in from one direction then feed out another direction ( IMO this is due to predators). I have seen coyotes chase MD before on the lease. A lot of how you can hunt depends on your deer density and terrain. It does not take much elevation to allow you to glass. A good pair of binoculars(that allow to glass 6-8 hours per day without eye fatigue) and then a good spotter with tripod will save you from stalking something that is not what you wanted. Also I do not think a tripod will give you the mobility you will need. Not to say you could find an area that year in and year out has deer and a tripod would benefit you, but be able to move every few hours is more beneficial IMO than sitting over one spot like you would for WT.

Very good information, use it myself.

Just use a pop up blind for when it's really cold and windy. If you are on a small property in Mule deer country preseason scouting will be required to try and pattern their feeding circle to try and be there when they are there. They migrate in much larger areas then whitetail. There also needs to be a steady food source fo them to frequent the property at all. A wheat field would be a big plus if the landowner would agree to it and it's possible on the terrain your hunting. Good luck.

We do not do any pre-season scouting since what we have found is that when it freezes their feeding patterns change. That and fall rains can move deer a long distance to a new food source. In the past 8 yrs we have gotten a freeze in the first week of MD season on about half or more of those years. Where the deer were feeding and what they were feeding on would change. It make take us 2-3 days to find or figure out where they had moved to.
For us we also found that running TC cams was never very productive. Most of the deer we killed were never seen on TC it seemed. We could go to a water trough that had fresh tracks all around it, set up a TC and not get a single deer pic the next 2-3 days. Left TC at water troughs for 2 weeks and kill a deer not far from that water trough and never get a picture of that buck.
For others sitting on water and using TC has been very productive. Each ranch will be different as to how you hunt it IMO.

Here's a trick that might help. If the whole area is relatively treeless, try "planting" a couple of appropriately sized cedar posts near a trail. Good chance the bucks will start rubbing them and using them as markers.

And yes, I've used a tripod on a bare knob before. You have to be super still and quiet, but it will work. It was also the coldest place in Texas, at least as far as I could tell.