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.

 

[Big west]

So, I am going rifle hunting this weekend with a buck mule deer tag in the high desert mountains East of Bakersfield, CA.

Am relatively inexperienced, and when I was planning on going this hunt months ago, I thought going deer hunting in early October would be great.

Now, there is record breaking heat that is going to last through the weekend.

At the lower elevations in the unit the highs will break 100 and the highest elevation I can hunt in is only about 7,500ish' so it will still be pretty warm during the day up there.

I'm suspecting the deer will probably not only be less active during the day, but maybe just basically be nocturnal during the high heat.

Kind of thinking this trip is going to be just more of a scouting/hiking trip for me, but if anyone has advice on how to best hunt for deer during a record-breakingly hot October I'd appreciate it.

Southern Utah I had problems due to the heat come out at last light gone before light enough to shoot.

 

[mxgsfmdpx]

I moved down to 2,500 feet on Thursday night to a spot where I used to kill good bucks.

This is a non migratory herd and has constant access to water due to human interaction.

The deer were/are not nocturnal where I was. They were up feeding in the morning and evening. 6 total bucks spotted and I was able to kill one yesterday evening.

Here’s a video of a doe and fawn walking 30 yards by me from my glassing point, about an hour before I killed the buck. Time stamp on the video is 5:58 PM. There was a different buck with them that I never saw. He came in about 10 minutes before the doe and fawn, stamping and wheezing, as I think he smelled me.

 

[OutdoorAg]

Well I don’t give a shit if it’s
Well received. It’s there. “Historic heat wave” is a leftist statement if I ever heard one. Regardless of your pansy ass statement, the deer/elk will do their thing..and you have to figure out their movement and adjustments. Lighten up there, political analysts, we’ll be ok.

Bless your heart

 

[cjdewese]

So, I am going rifle hunting this weekend with a buck mule deer tag in the high desert mountains East of Bakersfield, CA.

Am relatively inexperienced, and when I was planning on going this hunt months ago, I thought going deer hunting in early October would be great.

Now, there is record breaking heat that is going to last through the weekend.

At the lower elevations in the unit the highs will break 100 and the highest elevation I can hunt in is only about 7,500ish' so it will still be pretty warm during the day up there.

I'm suspecting the deer will probably not only be less active during the day, but maybe just basically be nocturnal during the high heat.

Kind of thinking this trip is going to be just more of a scouting/hiking trip for me, but if anyone has advice on how to best hunt for deer during a record-breakingly hot October I'd appreciate it.

Did you see anything? Anything you would do differently in the future.

 

[AntelopeEater]

Did you see anything? Anything you would do differently in the future.

It was a very disappointing learning experience.

I saw no deer, and almost no sign of deer such a tracks or droppings throughout the unit.

I saw lots of other hunters, everyone I talked to had not much better luck than me.

I will never buy a "premium" deer tag OTC in California again.

 

[huntnful]

It was a very disappointing learning experience.

I saw no deer, and almost no sign of deer such a tracks or droppings throughout the unit.

I saw lots of other hunters, everyone I talked to had not much better luck than me.

I will never buy a "premium" deer tag OTC in California again.

Yeah the East desert is tough hunting. We don't have "premium" OTC tags lol. They are far from that. We barely have premium draw tags haha.

 

[AZGUY]

Hunting here in AZ I’ve found it simplifies things a lot but still is really uncomfortable to hunt in. Stick to North facing bedding areas, shade and more shade, I’ve found in that kind of heat those deer like to stay VERY close to water and won’t travel at from it. I’d focus on finding good water sources away from roads and work back from there.