I have spent a lot of years hunting high for Blacktails (Olympics and Cascades) along with Muleys. I see the low success rates and understand why, but it’s not impossible. My kids and I get our deer on public land every year. A few tips that helped us are as follows.
- Blacktails in the high country of the Olympics are creatures of habit more than their counterparts at lower elevations. I scout in July for these as they generally don’t go too far from that summer range by the time Sept rolls around.
- Muleys in the high country start low, move up higher with the snow recession and then hang out high (June-July) during the early to mid summer months. I scout this time of year to find bucks, but understand once August starts they will likely be at a different elevation band. Most of the time lower.
- In early September, most of the bucks we find are in the shaded timber and lower elevation meadows a thousand or more feet below the highest points. This is unlike high country hunting in say Wyoming, Montana and Colorado where we find them much higher. The best we can conclude for WA is the feed is just better for them at these lower bands.
- In October most bucks move back up higher until the snow pushes them out.
- The heavily used hiking trails going deep bring you to some beautiful areas, but we don’t see many bucks. Scouting is huge, you will find tons of areas that seem devoid of deer in Sept. They are definitely in pockets, and when you find those pockets they will hold multiple bucks in a relatively small area.
- If you know deer are in an area, be super patient. We have spent days seeing very little or nothing at all in a basin. But we know there are bucks in there and then one day they just come out for whatever reason. I believe too many people glass for a few days, don’t see anything and move on. If there is fresh sign, there are deer there. If you are glassing a nice area and don’t see anything for a few days, walk through the areas you expect the deer to be and make sure there is fresh sign in there. If not, then move on.
- Set your camp up in an area you can glass from and don’t move around. I make sure my water source is not in the same basin. We sneak into our glassing points and don’t give the bucks an opportunity to see, smell or hear us. This is huge, and one of the most common mistakes I see people make.
- Many of the pockets we find our biggest Muleys in are very steep with lots of boulders, rock ledges and or slides.
