Where are you finding Muleys?

[Peaks&Creeks]

I’m in SW Montana and have been glassing mornings and evenings at open meadows bordering dark timber in the 7000’-8000’ range. So far I have not seen any deer. I decided to still hunt some dark timber and I busted a descent looking buck in a rocky bench around early mid day. Other than that have not seen any rutting activity.

Just curious what kind of terrain you all are finding the rutting going on?


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[Newtosavage]

Just got back from CO in a unit that went from 6500' up to 10,500' and I saw muleys at every elevation. Granted there wasn't much snow up high (just a few inches). The rut was on big time and bucks were chasing down low a-plenty. I preferred to hunt higher because there were fewer other hunters and I like the spruce/aspen a lot, so that's where I killed my buck (9400').

Where the sage meets the aspen is always a good place to start looking in my very limited experience. Out of the 36 deer I saw in my 4-day hunt, 24 of them were within a few hundred feet elevation of where the sage gave way to aspen groves.

 

[Trumpkin The Dwarf]

Montana deer herds are not exactly in great shape... have you found any old burns? That seems to be a good place for mule deer this time of year up there.