First trip west

[Hnthrdr]

Thanks! I really appreciate this perspective. I think it’s a good thing to just be in the moment and enjoy it. I do worry that I’m going to be having those constant mind battles of “should I move” and those constant arguments with myself. Going to have to remind myself that I’m still on an awesome hunt and I just need to rely on my scouting plan and just stick with it. I do have a good pair of danner boots but I’ve even thought about tossing in my hip waders just in case I run into a spot that I really think I need to cross water. I’m going to be wishing there was much more room to pack gear! Thanks again!

You are a thinking man… I’m not gonna pack hip waders around per se but a good think to keep if need them!

 

[willfrye027]

Thanks! I really appreciate this perspective. I think it’s a good thing to just be in the moment and enjoy it. I do worry that I’m going to be having those constant mind battles of “should I move” and those constant arguments with myself. Going to have to remind myself that I’m still on an awesome hunt and I just need to rely on my scouting plan and just stick with it. I do have a good pair of danner boots but I’ve even thought about tossing in my hip waders just in case I run into a spot that I really think I need to cross water. I’m going to be wishing there was much more room to pack gear! Thanks again!

If you can make it out to scout that would greatly increase your chances of a good hunt. Then you can figure out how to find mule deer without the pressure of the time ticking down on the actual hunt.

Be sure to come back here and tell us some stories and lessons learned for the other new guys who will be in your shoes 2026

 

[ILrutaddict]

If you can make it out to scout that would greatly increase your chances of a good hunt. Then you can figure out how to find mule deer without the pressure of the time ticking down on the actual hunt.

Be sure to come back here and tell us some stories and lessons learned for the other new guys who will be in your shoes 2026

For sure, I’ll definitely do a write up on the whole thing when I get back.

 

[UKwildcatfan]

Update: ended up deciding to go the muzzleloader route. Got lucky and drew a tag! First time shooting bullet to bore so I’ve been playing with some different bullets (Hornady boredriver is looking the best). Been trying to get in 3-4 runs per week to get the lungs as good as possible, and putting together a somewhat decent gear load. Oh, also been doing some summer scouting on the deer here at home, so I figured I’d add a pic to show you western fellas what “brow tines” actually look like . A lot to work ahead, but a lot to look forward to. Hope everybody is getting that tag they were after this year, best of luck! View attachment 893182

Nice 3 pt.

 

[ILrutaddict]

Nice 3 pt.

around here if you can hang a ring on it, you count it.

 

[GSPHUNTER]

around here if you can hang a ring on it, you count it.

That's what I have always heard. Wisconsin White tail hunting.

 

[Forestryman2010]

I might have missed someone else giving you this advice but one thing I highly recommend is rucking with your hunting pack. Load it with the gear you intend to take and if it has a meat shelf put sandbags on it. This will help you test your gear, build up strength, and get you used to having a pack on. A pack may fit great with 20-30 lbs but the moment you get over 50 lbs things might change.

I also recommend getting in some long rucks 5+ miles with heavy weight. Step ups, forward, and reverse lunges with a pack on are also incredibly helpful. At least from what I found in my limited western hunting experience.

I would also add beside advice on here, read Hunting Big Mule Deer, Becoming a backpack hunter, and So you want to hunt the west for mule deer now what.

 

[ILrutaddict]

I might have missed someone else giving you this advice but one thing I highly recommend is rucking with your hunting pack. Load it with the gear you intend to take and if it has a meat shelf put sandbags on it. This will help you test your gear, build up strength, and get you used to having a pack on. A pack may fit great with 20-30 lbs but the moment you get over 50 lbs things might change.

I also recommend getting in some long rucks 5+ miles with heavy weight. Step ups, forward, and reverse lunges with a pack on are also incredibly helpful. At least from what I found in my limited western hunting experience.

I would also add beside advice on here, read Hunting Big Mule Deer, Becoming a backpack hunter, and So you want to hunt the west for mule deer now what.

This is all awesome stuff. I’ve got my pack and most of my gear on a rack, so there’s no excuse why I can’t just load everything up now and start getting some rucking in. I have a hate/hate relationship with lunges but that sounds like a really good workout for hip mobility under a load, I’ll give it a shot!
I think you’re the first person to recommend books, I’m definitely going to check them out. Really really appreciate all this, thanks!

 

[cweaver9]

following.

 

[Walker88]

Looking forward to hearing your learnings from your prep and hunt. I am in the same stage as you with being new to western hunting. Been rucking a ton and just got a new pack I need to break in.

 

[ILrutaddict]

Looking forward to hearing your learnings from your prep and hunt. I am in the same stage as you with being new to western hunting. Been rucking a ton and just got a new pack I need to break in.

That’s awesome, I’ll make sure to do a write up when I get back home. I’ve got a few odds and ends to get together during August, mostly creature comfort stuff for truck camping. Ive talked to a couple of park rangers in the unit that I’m hunting this past week. They have provided some really good intel as far as road conditions and just getting around the unit in general, I highly recommend making some phone calls after doing a lot of e scouting and studying the MVUM’s. It helped the conversation a lot because I was able to talk about specific roads and terrain features rather than them having to explain every detail to me. Lots of learning and preparing yet to do though! Best of luck to you!

 

[ILrutaddict]

Okay folks, I’m back in the comfort of home, just put the kids to bed so me and the dog are watching some football before bed. So I figured I’d give everybody the update on the hunt! So the ended up picking up my second choice tag, it was a second choice tag with zero points so you can probably narrow the units down but I won’t give it away. After all the prep I had done prior to getting the tag there was no way I was going to turn it in, and I’m glad I didn’t. I ended up bringing my tag home but the experience was worth every last bit of money and preparation that I had put into this, and I’m only more excited for what next year brings!

My first night on the mountain I drove into a spot that I had e-scouted at around 9,400 ft elevation. It was a knob at the end of a large drainage that gave me good view of some hillside meadows pine/aspen timber patches. It seemed like the perfect spot for the first night because I would only have to hike about 3 tenths of a mile to my glassing spot, I was worried about overdoing it right off the bat and dealing with any kind of elevation illness. I parked the truck, and within about 2 minutes heavy fog and a rain/sleet mixture rolled in. It rained for about 30 minutes and the temp dropped almost 40 degrees. After the weather broke the sky had cleared some so I hopped out to my glassing knob, I didn’t see a thing the first night. After all the driving I was eager to get back to the truck, send a couple satellite messages back home and get to sleep.

The second day brought some more excitement. After glassing that same spot in the morning and not turning anything up, I decided to go try and still hunt some dark timber to fill the middle of the day. Still hunting proved to be pretty effective in seeing game. In my first 100 steps into the timber I had seen 3 does, one of which I busted. She got up and bounded uphill with that ‘mule deer pounce’ that I’d heard so much about. I grinned and thought to myself “man, how lucky am I to be here?” I was so thrilled to be hunting new animals in a completely foreign environment. A little bit after noon I had stopped to quietly get a drink of water and pull my binoculars up to my eyes, I saw a patch of dark hide on the ground. I felt my heart beat in my neck. Pulled up my range finder, and as close as I could figure I was about 84 yards from whatever I was looking at. I spent the next hour stalking this animal. I had closed to 37 yards. Wind in my face, pine shavings under my feet, muzzleloader ready to rock and roll. I pulled up my binos, now close enough to get a good look through the timber. I had put one hell of a stalk on a cow elk . I’ve seen elk from the road in Canada and in Yellowstone. But to be in her home, in her environment was something completely different. I sat there for the next 15 ish minutes and just watched her through my binoculars. I kept having these internal monologues about the beauty of what I was witnessing. It was the exact same feeling that I had as a young boy when I saw my first whitetail, turkey, or duck. Time just stood still, a patch of morning sun that was cutting through the timber and hitting my left cheek, and this cow elk had no idea how much she meant to the young hunter in me. Something that seems so routine to so many people, and I was completely amazed by her presence. I eventually had to get up and make my way out of the timber to make it back for some food and evening glassing. That night ended up being a bust as well as far as turning up any bucks.

Morning of day 3 came with the feeling of “the clock is ticking”. I made some very poor decisions on that day that ended up with me essentially wasting a day of good hunting, but that’s how you learn I guess. I wanted to hop over to the western side of the unit and hit some spots that I thought looked great from my e-scouting. The road was about a 25 mile loop. The previous rain storm had turned this road into an absolute mess, and once I had got so far there really wasn’t much of an option or good reason to turn around. Almost every spot you could pull in already had a camp with wall tents and side by sides, which is completely fine, but it kept forcing me to go lower. I ended up stopping in one spot that I could get my truck in around the 8,300 ft elevation mark. It was all aspen timber and there was no way I could put a stalk on anything even if I did spot it. I started having those internal arguments. I didn’t know what my direction was, I was mad at myself for leaving a spot where I was seeing deer just to end up on this shitty road and lower in elevation that I wanted to be. I hopped back in the truck and followed the loop around to lower sage brush country and glassed there until dark that night, didn’t see a thing. I followed that road the rest of the way back to town and ended up costing myself another hour of driving just to get back where I was on night one. I just wanted to get some sleep and put that day behind me.

On the morning of day 4 I glassed that original spot and turned up 2 groups of does but no bucks. Mid day I decided to go north of me a little ways and still hunt some more timber around 10,500. I was back into the does and that brought some peace of mind. At around 3 o clock that day I had finally cut my first set of definitive fresh buck tracks. They were headed into a smaller patch of pine timber next to a pretty large meadow and I decided to sit the edge of that meadow where I knew I would have wind and concealment to my advantage, and just rolled the dice on him feeding out into that meadow that night. I still wonder if that was the right decision or not, but I did not want to be too aggressive. No bucks ever showed up that night, but I did have a group of 7 turkey come out and 3 does. BUT, about 5 minutes after sunset, I heard my first elk bugle in the wild. My heart raced, my head snapped in his direction and my eyes were dead locked on the edge of the timber that I thought he was in. About another 5 minutes after that, 2 cow elk had come trotting along the edge of the timber with him in tow. He was a young bull (3x3 maybe?) and he trotted over the knob of the hill and out of sight. He was about 280 yards away and I was only able to see him for about 10 seconds as he crossed over the knob at the end of the meadow, but I was absolutely awe struck at what I’d seen. I sat until dark in pure bliss. I remember sending a satellite message to my wife on the walk back saying “babe I just saw my first bull elk!” to which she replied “that’s awesome honey, be safe, we love you!”. I was emotional when I got back to the truck, I had spent the rest of that walk in the dark thinking about home, my twin girls, and my wife that had been so supportive of this trip since its inception. I had allowed 7 days for this hunt but I hadn’t seen a buck yet, dads birthday was 2 days away, and I was starting to feel that homesick feeling. I told myself to give it another hard day and see how I felt.

That night I ran into 2 local hunters who had hunted that unit for 23 years. They both had elk tags, so I’d showed them on my map where I’d seen that bull earlier. They ended up being great guys, welcomed me into their camp and we shared some good stories for an hour or so. They told me that turning up a buck in that unit could be done, but it was going to be a hard task that early in the season. Although they didn’t have the best news as far as hunting, the camaraderie was nice to share with some like minded folks on a mountain far away from home.

Day 5 I glassed a smaller drainage close to where I’d seen the bull elk the night before. I ended up seeing a group of deer a hell of a long ways away but from what I could tell were all does. Still hunted some pine timber through the day again and bumped 2 does. As the evening of day 5 came, so did the weather. Right around 5:30pm a driving rain had come in and it didn’t let up until dark. I sat in my pickup waiting for the rain to break just about 600 yards from a glassing knob that I could make it to in short time just in case the rain quit, but it never did.

At that time, I had decided it was time to head on home. I hadn’t seen a buck in 4.5 days of hunting. I was worn from the hiking, hungry, and ready for a shower! I made it to the Mexican restaurant in the nearest town 30 minutes before they closed, and I had the best plate of enchiladas that I’ve had in ages .

On my way down the winding switchbacks, I was content. I saw about 30-35 mule deer, 3 cow elk, and one bull elk. I got to hike through some of the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen. My body held up to the hiking and elevation. I was a happy man who had just completed his first western hunt. After a lot of driving I finally made it home. That first hug with my little girls and wife after a week away was unexplainable.

Now that I’ve had a couple days to process it all, I have nothing but more excitement and determination to hit it hard again next year. Im starting to build points in different states now and trying to get a plan worked up for what I want to do in the coming years. But for now, the whitetail rut is right around the corner and I couldn’t be happier.

I want to say a big THANK YOU to everybody on here who gave me advice along the way. You’ve all shared knowledge that has helped me become a better and more versatile hunter, and I appreciate you all.

Best of luck to everyone who has a tag in their pocket this year!