Mule Deer hunting during this historic heat wave?

[Rotnguns]

OP, people's points about them not wanting to be moving during the day during high-heat are solid. There's one additional point I can make that adds to that in context, which you can leverage: this weekend there's not much of a moon at all. I find that they typically will feed a bit later into the morning when the moon's minimal, and seem to get more feeding done during the full moon and bed back down a bit earlier at that time. I typically don't make too much of a big deal about moon phase, but at the extremes of the cycle there seems to be a slight pattern shift.

Between the heat causing them to stay bedded down a bit longer, and the moon phase being dark this weekend, I'd offer that your best chances will be for you to be overlooking feed or a very well-worn trail as absolutely early in the morning as humanly possible. You want to be in-place before you can see without a flashlight, ideally, absolutely silent, paying attention to wind direction and remembering that thermals are still cooling and will be carrying scent downhill a bit. After the sun comes up, plan on glassing hard until at least 11am - they bed down twice, and will generally get up to move to second-bed between 930am and 1030am, so keep your eyes peeled.

All that said, with mule deer, everything I pointed out in the second paragraph is generally an excellent approach regardless of heat or moon phase.

Good luck this weekend!

Great advice here! Especially about the thermals in the morning.

 

[ChrisAU]

Look hard up under every bushy tree on somewhat bare hillsides. They seem to like those I’m finding.