Ep. 56: Jason and Duke Discuss Steve's Epic Mule Deer Hunt
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Welcome back to Cutting the Distance. September is now well in our rearview mirror and beagles are few and far between, if any at all. But that means we're in the thick of general mule deer seasons in most places and the rut's just about ready to kick in here at the end of October. Today's guest grew up down the road in Skapoose, Oregon. He spent a lot of time hunting black-tailed deer and Roosevelt elk with his dad growing up. And he was able to take some really nice black-tails over the years and he feels that this is where he kind of fell in love with deer hunting.

Throughout college, Duke didn't get to hunt as much due to college sports. He was a wrestler and a long distance runner at University of Oregon. Once they cut the wrestling program, he decided to move over to Eastern Oregon and that's where he was able to spend a lot more time in the mountains pursuing mule deer. It was there where he really got hooked on mule deer and had the opportunity to work for a fishing game in a heavily used winter range area for deer.

He also now works for First Light. I believe he'll correct me if I'm wrong. He tests gear and advises on some of our product lines. And he's one of the best. He won't admit it. He's as humble as they come, but he's one of the best and probably most passionate mule deer hunters and guys I've ever talked to about the deer themselves. So welcome to the show, Duke. Hi there. Thank you. So are you ready to explain to all the listeners why elk are better than mule deer?

I've got to say, I like elk hunting too, man. Yeah. I think one time we were talking and you have kind of a mindset where you like elk hunting, but usually you kill like maybe the first legal bull or whatever you can find. So then you can concentrate the rest of your time on mule deer though.

Yeah, that's, I would agree with you on that. And, and I feel like even when I'm talking to people, it, it, it always transitions over to talking, talking about deer too. So yeah. Yeah. Um, we're, we're recording this on October 17th. I think it'll come out on the 26th. So I know your guys' deer season there in Idaho has kind of already got started. Have you been able to get out much this year? You just getting ready to kind of give it a, a good go here at the end of season?

Shoot as much as I can, really. It's been tough this year, though, but any chance I can get, I've been out. Any luck yet or seeing any good movement or is it still a little early? Yeah.

Haven't really turned up anything too great, but I mean, I have been surprised. There are a lot of deer out this year. We had a pretty tough winter last year. I'd say both on the deer and the elk. One of the nice things is I do feel like a lot of the deer do move out of here for like their winter range and stuff. So it definitely seems like we haven't been criticizing

crazy impacted by the deer or by the winter, the deer. That's a, that's a good sign. Um, so I I've never asked you this before, but I I've heard stories, um, about, about some of your, your like early morning hunts. Um, you know, it stems from your wrestling and I'm sure your long distance running, but what some people would think is, is crazy. There's a lot of stories running around where you would run five to 10 miles into an area. So you can get a quick hunt in prior to

prior to work and then you'd run that back. So like for what would take me and whole day to run maybe 15 to 20 miles, you were doing it just to get a quick hour to two hour deer hunting. And that's how dedicated you were to, to making sure you were on the mountain every day. Is that, is there any truth to that story?

I would say more of it has been like in the summer scouting, like getting into certain areas before work and stuff like that. Um, definitely have done some stuff like that after work, say trying to get to a glossing point after work. But, um,

definitely in the summer for, for getting to areas to look right before dark or early in the morning, you know, that's, that's crazy. Like I'm not anybody that knows me. I'm not much of a runner and Duke's built for this stuff, but it's just those crazy stories. Like when you always think you're hunting hard, there's somebody doing crazy stuff like that. So, uh, I, I was just curious to ask you that, um,

So like all Cutting the Distance episodes, we're going to jump into a few listener questions. If you have any questions for me or my guests, feel free to email us at ctd at phelpsgamecalls.com, and we'll do our best to get it answered by my guests or myself. So the first one, and like I say, Duke's as humble as they come. He's pretty secretive too, so I already gave him permission that if we start to talk about something he doesn't want to talk about, he's got the...

you know, the freedom to get out of them. So, um, Duke, when, when we talk about Duke being a mule deer hunter, he's not just a good mule deer hunter. He's a, he's a good deer hunter of, of mature mule deer bucks. Like he, he targets, um, big bucks. He focuses on big bucks. And, uh, a lot of, a lot of what maybe he passes up is, is something that, you know, many would like not saying, but, but a lot of what I'm trying to get at is what he finds on big bucks is going to work even better on the rest of them. So I think what we can take, uh,

um, is everything that Duke does. And some of the strategies he uses are going to work on all mule deer, except for, uh, he uses some of this stuff to maybe find some of the bigger ones. Um,

So the first question is kind of right in your wheelhouse. Um, what, in your opinion, like what's the most important factor in finding big mule deer? Um, is it, is it an area or the genetics in area? Um, is it seclusion? And then is seclusion, is that different when you're scouting versus where the deer are going to be during season? Is it pressure? Like if somebody is trying to find big mule deer or something like that, like what advice do you have to, to like find those? Yeah.

Um, well, definitely in the summer, I would, I mean, my favorite thing in the summer is just to get to the highest point where you can look over like multiple different areas and not just say one basin. And sometimes, I mean, that could be going to 3000 feet up to, to get to where you're looking over tons of country, you know,

And, um, I feel like one of the best things I've been able to use say is I've got a BTX to where you're, you're looking over miles and miles of country, you know, to pick out different areas to get to. Okay. So I see these deer and then you start moving into that country. But as far as like, um, say hunting them, I would say, um,

The biggest thing I have found is just the seclusion. And it's not necessarily super remote areas, but it's an area where they can be safe and not be seen by people. I know that... Yeah, it's...

it just weird how the, the, you find consistencies with finding like really, really big deer. Like you could put on Google earth, like dang, that is literally the same exact type of area, like not necessary terrain, but like, it's the same type of area. All of the deer I've found are in, you know, if that makes sense. Yeah. But, but one has pressure, one doesn't, and they're just not going to be there. Yep. Uh,

Um, and we're going to dive into that a little bit more. Like once you find a target buck, like what's the radius on where you think you might find him, or if you find him maybe somewhere in the summer where he's not getting pressure, but hunting comes in. So I'm going to, I'm going to pick your brain a little bit more on that, um, down, down the road in this podcast, but yeah. So you're saying seclusion and just an area where that buck has everything he needs, right? We need, he needs to have that, that good summer forage. He needs to be semi secluded. Um, you know, and so that's,

Same thing we found here is, you know, we don't have near the deer you guys do in Idaho, but some of our high country Washington spots is you just need to get away from people off the roads, off the beaten path. And we talked about this a little bit before the podcast. It's not necessarily always in, right? You can go five miles in, but if it's an easy trail, lots of hikers, lots of hunters, it might be better to go half a mile in, but go 1500 feet up the mountain. Like you said, it's that type of seclusion, not necessarily deep.

Yep. Um, the next question we've got for, uh,

What type of terrain is your favorite to target deer? Um, you know, you're where you're located. You've got a lot of what I would consider like similar terrain, but like, are you trying to get into avalanche shoots, more wide open stuff, like fringy stuff above tree line? Um, like, you know, entry line seems to be sometimes tough, but like, is there a, is there a certain thing you're looking for? Um, like, you know, finger ridges with timber, but openings in between, like explain kind of your ideal meal to your spot if there is one.

Um, specifically some of the stuff that I've been hunting out here, I would say, you know, timber pockets, small openings. It seems another consistent thing is around Rocky, you know, avalanche types shoots, stuff like that. Um, steep high elevation, you know, that's what I would say.

Is there, is there anywhere to kind of piggyback on that? You know, we show up sometimes in what looks like goat country. Is there, have you ever found like an elevation or an area where deer just won't visit or are those big mature bucks? They're willing to live like right in the rocks. Um, there's nothing that's necessarily too steep or too nasty or there, are there spots that you sometimes write off like a deer can't live in there or what he needs isn't here for him to survive? Um, I mean,

The only thing I can say that I've found is like, sometimes it could be a little bit too high where they have like no feed, you know, but I'd say just below like that upper tree or say, what's the best way to explain that? Like,

I've seen quite a few deer in goat country, you know, but like, I feel like just below the goats is a good, you know, that type of country. Yeah. Where they can come down and grab a little feed. And then sometimes those bigger bucks or those deer will go up in bed, even in those rocks, but they've got the ability to come down and grab food or go into the timber to escape if they need to.

And I think a lot of it too, is just safety too. You know, they've, they can hear anything coming into them. They can see from a long ways away, that type of stuff. Yep. Yep. Um, yeah, it's crazy. You know, I grew up in, in the lowlands, you know, similar to you and, and Skapoose and, and what you think we have around here, like, Oh, deer want to be in the fringes, you know, on the edge of clear cuts, or they want to be, you know, at these edges and fringes and you get up in the high country and you just can't imagine deer living there, but you know, avalanche shoots, uh,

It's, it kind of transfers. It's that fringe on the avalanche shoots. Cause you got brush that sometimes goes into timber or into rocks. Um, and that's where I always seem to focus no matter whether I'm in, you know, Colorado high desert or, you know, Idaho mountains or Colorado mountains. It's, it seems like you find the mix. Like you don't want to be out in a wide open area.

you know, field or meadow. You don't want to be in like never ending timber. You want to be like on the edges of where all these things intersect, the brush, the trees, the rocks, like find all of those, you know, intersections of, of, you know, changing vegetation, changing terrain features. And it seems like that's where you like to focus and kind of pick up. It seems like the majority of time you'll pick them up. You know, they, they always are where they are, but that seems to be the general spot is on those fringes and edges.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree. Perfect. So, uh, we didn't have too many listener questions. We're not really fully into mule deer mode yet, but once again, if you have questions for me or my guests, um, please email them to us at CTD at Phelps game calls, uh, dot com. And we'll do our best to kind of get those answered. And, and Duke kind of had to chuckle there a little bit. Cause I think he's always in full-time, uh, mule deer mode where I kind of go through the seasons. I love elk hunting and then I love mule deer hunting. And then you throw white tails on there at the end. So, uh,

Yeah. Now we're going to jump into some of my questions I have, you know, I always go back to, we, we got to, what was it? Two or three years ago, we were there, um, in, you know, in your neck of the woods and we were doing some team building, uh, skeet and trap shooting. And I think we quickly turned into as competitive as both of us are. We were done shooting skeet and trap and we sat and BS about mule deer and areas for the, for probably the next hour and a half and didn't really care about shooting shotguns anymore. Um,

But, but you know, knowing about, you know, you're as humble as they come. I can't reiterate that enough. Um, you're very successful at killing very big mule deer. Um, and you seem to kind of have a plan or a strategy to do it year in and year out. And you don't really accept anything, um, besides what you set out to do. And, uh, that's really why I wanted to have you on the podcast, um, and just pick your brain a little bit. So I'm going to kind of jump into some of my personal questions I had for you. And maybe we've talked about them before, but maybe some of this stuff is, is new. Um,

Can you, can you give myself and the listeners just kind of your overall approach to mule deer hunting? Like how do you pick an area? Um, you know, if you weren't, if it wasn't in your back door or a couple of units over familiar, like how do you pick an area? How do you decide where you're going to go and how do you decide on that area? You know, you, you talk about a lot of scouting, like walk us through just finding good mule deer and how you kind of break down an area, a unit, a part of the state, whatever it may be.

Shoot. I think the, I think the biggest thing for me is I do strike out a lot. That's the one thing is like go to as many different areas as I possibly can get into in a summer say, but the tough thing about a lot of the country out, you know, that I hunt out here is like, it seems like a lot of the deer in the areas I'm at don't get there till really late.

So it's almost like you're going into these areas and you're not really seeing much at all. And it, it kind of seems like they show up like the, I don't know if this is completely true or what it is, but it's like, it almost seems like they show up like right at the end of August, mid to late August. And then you start seeing them like during bow season, you know, elk season. Um, but I feel like, I think the biggest thing for me, man, is just like cover as much country as possible, uh,

And you gotta be there early and you gotta be there late. If you're going to be, you know, that's the biggest thing, be there in the dark and be there at dark. And, um, you know, and I think the other thing too, Jason is just, just, okay, if you strike out, all right, let's go try it again tomorrow, the next day, the next day. And, and that one time it's going to pay off, you know? Yeah. And, and so during that summer scouting, um,

Will you go back to an area like you just said, sometimes those bucks don't seem to show up until late August. You know, I'm sure they're arriving at different times. Maybe there's a certain basin that they're there, you know, late July or mid August. Will you go back and check on them again if it's one of your better spots or you just firmly believe they're going to be deer there? Or like, how do you write off a spot versus how do you keep going back? And, you know, because I run into the same problem and I'm going to get into it here

a little bit with you is like planning your day because you can only be in one spot on one day and you want to maximize that time. Like you want to be in the best spot every day or, or a new country. How do you kind of determine like when you're going to write a spot off for a year or will you, will you come back and check on it a couple of weeks later knowing things have changed? Like how do you process that when you're scouting? Um, yeah,

I read the craziest things. I read an article a couple, it was a couple of years ago about a guy was talking that specifically how he, he went into an area, didn't see anything, went in there like three weeks later and it was full of deer. And some of the spots out here are like that. The other thing I'll say is it's not like most of the areas we're looking over a ton of deer in general, you know? And,

So I kind of think like, I'll check out this spot and then say, I'm going to go back there three weeks later to two weeks later. And if, if I'm not seeing anything, I kind of just start moving, you know, to the next base and over, maybe they moved into here, you know? Um, yeah.

It's tough because this year specifically has been really, really weird. Like I said, I had a couple bucks that I was really excited about from last year, and I wasn't able to turn any of those deer up this year. So you're kind of starting from zero, you know? Yeah, yeah. I'm going to probably get ahead of myself. When you say excited about last year, is that stuff that you found in the high country or stuff you saw like on the winter range?

High country, like scouting. No, it wasn't even July. More August scouting. I had found two bucks that were together, and then I found another single buck, and I wasn't able to turn up any of those this year. Yeah.

I'm going all over the place because you keep talking about stuff that spurs me in a direction. So you talked about two good bucks running together. Do you typically find, um, we, we talked about this actually prior to the podcast, one of our spots that you know about that I hunted and, uh, we found two giant bucks running together. Is that pretty typical that big bucks like to run with big bucks?

So what's that's interesting. You said that too, because what I've actually found a lot of the time is like, you'll see one really big buck and he'll have like, it's almost like, I don't even know if this is true or what, but it's almost like he has like a little scout with them, you know, or a couple little bucks with them. So usually I haven't seen where it's like two really big bucks together though. Yeah.

um, yeah, cause I mean, growing up, you always watch like the, the Kaiba, you know, videos and, and the, you know, all the hickory back when they had giant mule deer. And it seemed like some of those big bucks that even the famous bucks would sometimes run together for certain amounts of time, right up to the rut. And so I was just curious if you've noticed that early summer before they, you know, why they're still buddies before they hate each other and want to kill each other. If they were, if you see that they kind of run like that, um, we have some elk areas, um,

you know, our good buddy, Brian Sanders that we both know really well, like some of the elk spots, he's a firm believer that some of those big bulls for some reason, like they could go have their own herd, but sometimes some of those like subordinate big bulls will run a herd or run second to the herd bull. And even third, it's like, they just like to be around each other, which is kind of a crazy, crazy idea. Like you can go run any other herd in this entire area, but yet you're stuck with the one bull that won't let you have any cows, which, you know, similar, similar ideas.

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All right. Before I went on a tangent there, we were talking about like winter range bucks. Um, I'm getting way ahead of myself, but I'm just going to let it go where it goes is do you pay a lot of attention post-season? Like what's showing up on the winter range? Like is, is that to get an idea for specific deer or specific areas that may, um, have big bucks in it that you may want to look at in the, in the future? Like how, what do you do during that winter range time? And then how do you translate that into, you know, maybe hunting them the following year?

So we were actually just talking about that a couple of weeks ago here. That is actually one of my absolute favorite things to do is like as soon as the season opens, especially if we can get some snow. I like to be like be right back up on the mountain as much as I can to like

For one, finding like the migration routes, try and find where, um, where those deer are coming from and then see, see what, what's up there too. You know, that's, that's absolutely one of my favorite things to do. Um,

Shoot, I'd say from like the first week of November, almost all the way through November as much as I can. Be out there paying attention. And then if they're not in the high country and you catch them when they're down on, let's say, down on their winter range,

Do you have a plan that you put together? Like, I think he's going to go back up this drainage or when they get down to that winter range, sometimes it's a little messy, right? Cause he could have came from any direction. Um, do you have a plan or you just kind of put your feet, you know, but your boots on the ground and just try to start checking off like basins that look good or basins you think you might be in to, to try to find him when he shows back up in July or August. Um, yeah.

I would say like, it's more just, it's almost like a guessing game. Cause it shoot, those bucks could be coming from so far away too. But I think it's more of like, um, it's just kind of cluing in to different areas. Like, okay, I'm going to go check this base and maybe he's up in here or did he come through this direction? You know? And I feel like it has kind of worked well.

worked pretty good finding new areas to see deer migration routes and whatnot. Yeah. Gotcha. I mean, I live in an area where there's not a lot of migration, but we have hunted those hunts. You know, we talked about the area we were in in Idaho where we literally didn't see a deer take a bite of grass for a week. You know, every deer we saw was on its feet moving through the area and we just caught that migration right there.

And, uh, you know, we would happen to be, we stayed high on the mountain, you know, up in the snow, trying to catch them high in that migration. But if you would have caught them a day later down in the bottoms or two days or however, wherever they finally staged up, you wouldn't have known that that deer came off the ridge we were on and down in there, you would have just been kind of had to guess, like, did he come from the West, the East to say, you know, you would have never known like where the heck that deer came from to get there and putting that back together may be tough. Like.

Like, all right, in a year where there wasn't snow, you know, you want to go find him next year. Like where, where would he be? It's sometimes a lot of guesswork and, you know, a lot of scouting to try to try to find him or find him where he's at when you can hunt him before the snow. Especially, especially in a situation like that, when they're, where they're covering so much country in such a short amount of time too, that's what makes it really, really tough.

Yeah. Yeah. It was literally, I, and I don't know if it's like that everywhere. Like some deer seem to have more like winter holding power, but in some of these units in Idaho, it's like they get a skiff and they're like, we're out, we're going down until there's no more snow. And it was, it was crazy to, to see that in some of these areas, which makes it very difficult. And, um, you know, it, it was on the opening day and it would really almost, um,

All that scouting he did leading up to rifle season almost make, I don't want to say useless, but you were in the right area, but now they're gone. Now you have to go hunt them in some transition spot that makes it real difficult.

Um, do you have any tips or strategies for in that transition? Cause I mean, it's, it's pretty typical. You guys get that, that weather early, right? In the middle of your season, um, these deer end up in a spot they're not so familiar with. Like, what's your strategy at that point where deer end up in, I don't want to say foreign, but not where they in an area where they didn't spend their entire summer and we're kind of patternable. Um, yeah.

What also seems weird about that, too, is it's almost like it's an internal clock more than, yes, when they get the weather, because there's quite a few mountain passes and stuff they got to go over. But I feel like it does seem like there's an internal clock at this date, roughly, say, the middle of October, no matter what, they kind of start moving. Yeah.

The tough thing about that for me is it's, it almost just seems like you just kind of are getting lucky in a sense, you know, like you're just hoping that you're going to find a big buck as they're moving through more, more as like, okay, I got them found in the summer. You know, that's, that's the one deer I'm going to hunt, but it's like,

There are some like, it's almost like they have these little staging areas to where you can go into an area, say next week and you'll see 50 deer, but all summer, you're not going to see anything in there, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's that staging area kind of between where they summered versus where they're going to rut and where all the does are going to end up. So they're kind of just, those bucks don't want to jump in yet, but they're just kind of off, you know, or, or just off of that group of does is what it seems like here at the, at the end of October.

middle to end yep and i've always had it in my head too that like the really really big bucks i don't know that they go like it's just hard for for how many people that are out hunting these days it's hard for me to believe that those deer are going somewhere not remote or secluded you know like for them to be that big say five plus it's it's like

I don't know. That's, that's what's so cool to me about deer in general is that like, where the heck are they going? And that the fun thing is like finding where the heck they're at, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a,

Yeah. It's, it's a big mystery. And that's what I think is hunters that can do it over and over. Like, you know, your assumptions, your guesses, your, your ideas on where these things are hanging out and going. Um, it really, you can only luck into it so many times before it's like, all right, you're starting to figure it out, like where to find them or where they're going to go. And you just start to understand mule deer a little bit better for sure. Um, to be able to, to, to figure out all those clues and figure it out. Um, so kind of on the same, uh,

In the same realm of scouting, have you found that certain areas tend to hold similar age class deer or are you always moving around trying to find the one or a group of deer? Or have you found like if you find a good buck in a certain area, like the next biggest buck is going to take that buck spot or be in the area and do they come back to the same basins year after year? I will say I found certain areas.

little pockets or little areas that do have a lot more bucks than other spots. I mean, the country can look the exact same, but there's 10 bucks in this little draw, but there's nothing in the next one. I do kind of feel like they're there for a reason, you know, and I feel like obviously if, if you are able to kill a big buck in there,

There's some reason he was able to hide and stay away from people. He's got good feet, he's got water, and he's able to bed down where he can hide from people, you know? I feel like the...

I don't know. It's tough because it's like you find a really, really good spot and you can go back in there three years after that and you don't see anything that much bigger, say. So I feel like eventually, yes, you're going to get a big buck in there, but it may just take quite a few years to find them, you know, or from...

It's just tough because so many people are just shooting deer in their couple years before they're even able to get that big, I think is a big part of the issue. Yeah. And nothing against, I always have to, you're doing what you want to do. We're not necessarily, but we've always talked about a mule deer's brain doesn't turn on until about four and a half. And it seems like up until that point, he's very susceptible to being killed by

Maybe, maybe any, any hunter or any, any idea. But then as we're going to get into is like, do these big bucks start to bed in different spot? I almost, I always tell myself like, how would a hunter hunt this?

Like what's the easiest way up the ridge? What's the easiest way to this base? And I'm going to do it a different way. Like I'm, I honestly feel those bigger bucks sometimes know like, well, this is how every hunter would approach me. Like I'm going to bet on the opposite side or under a rock where you couldn't see me. And, and are you starting to think like a big mule deer? I, we're kind of always joking, like,

would a mule deer expect us to approach from this way? Would he expect us to be able to see him from here? Cause he's probably not going to be there. We need to do something different. Um, you know, whether it takes walking across the base and they're coming in from a different direction. Um, but yeah, I, like you said, I think it's that buck.

for a buck to get there, like he's got, he's got to be of age and he gets smart enough to like figure out how to not be seen. Or he just got lucky in the spot where he started to bed, just, you know, kept him safe. But I, I doubt that that's, it's a little bit of smarts and they're, and they're putting more into it and they've seen people and they've escaped people. Um, they're, they're, they're just getting smarter. So, so we kind of walked through scouting kind of what you're, we've talked about hunting a little bit. Um,

How do you take what you find scouting and then translate it into season? Um, are you assuming that the buck, and of course it's obviously going to lead up to, if you've seen the deer the day before considered scouting, you know, he's probably going to be there the next day, but will you, when you scout something, will you, if it's something you really like, will you stay on that deer and see, you know, is he moving basin to basin? Um,

Or are you staying on that deer to make sure he stays in that basin? And then as season gets here, like how do you, how do you take your scouting to help you be successful during, during season, aside from knowing he's, he's in a certain area? Um, I think the biggest thing is just, I mean, the, I can give you an example from a couple of years ago. I, I spent, I can't even tell you how many days I spent after this one buck. And I think I saw him total, um,

In a full year, I think I saw the thing like five times. And two of those five times, it was literally me walking in to the area. It was almost the exact same scenario. I actually put a trail cam in there.

And I saw this deer twice and I had sat up probably 800 yards away both days that I saw him in there and glass making sure he wasn't in there before I went in there. And both times I saw the dang buck. He was bedded behind. I don't know. I don't even know where he was bedded or what, but I jumped him out of his bed twice. And, um, I ended up killing the deer like twice.

I think I had missed him the year before and I ended up killing him like less than 200 yards away from where I'd missed him a year before. But the crazy thing about that deer is I found him in June. Then the year after I had missed him. And I think I shot him within a hundred yards of where I shot him in October and I had found him in June. So that buck was living in a real tight circle. Tiny little area. And, and I mean, I had spent so many days in there and I would never, I

I mean, I saw him...

in season once the year that I got him. And that was a crazy thing because somebody had jumped that deer and there was a bunch of bucks all running together. And I watched them from, there were 600 yards down in this basin and I watched all of the other bucks run down into the basin and he peeled off all by himself and stood behind this other tree. And they, they went down in the basin and he went all by himself out of there. And, and,

I think he was, we aged him and I think he was, the aging came back and he was at least six and a half. And it was crazy to see those bucks were three and a half, maybe four and a half. And he did his own thing away from all the other deer. Just thought differently than the rest of those deer.

Yep. Yep. And that leads me to another, is that another thing that you found is, which is obvious by that story, but in general, do you, you know, a lot of guys talk about like seeing a big buck and they can never relocate them. And I know it's going to depend on area, but are you a firm believer that that bucks around somewhere? You're just not able to see him. Like if he's in an area that, you know, the reverse migrations over or like, is there a, it's got to come from your gut, right. Or, or.

putting all this together. But is there ever a time, like when should you pull the plug versus like when you should stay in like, like pound an area, just knowing that that deer is probably there if he's anywhere. Well, that was, that's one of my best examples is like, how can you look over an area so many days and never see the thing and never

I just doesn't, I don't get how he could have been there the whole time. As many days as you've looked and you haven't gotten eyes on him. But I have another example from a couple years ago where I had watched this buck for two summers in a row and he had been in the exact same spot both years and certain date, both years. It was, I think it was around, it was three days before bow season started. He would disappear and,

The first year I could never turn them up again. The second year it had been like almost two weeks and I'd been back there almost every day and could never turn the thing up again. Well, I went in there on the other side one morning and I looked up on the hill, like 300 yards above me. And the thing was standing up there. And all he had done is he'd went from the open hillside, super rocky country. And he had moved down across the Canyon into the timber and

And that, I mean, that was the last time I ever saw that deer, but he, he just went into the thickest, gnarliest patch of timber. It, I don't, it's hard to imagine how you would get them out of us as steep as this country is and thick blow down, you know, but, um, I think they're, I kind of think they are there. It's just, um,

they just get so good at hiding, you know? Yep. Yep. And that, yeah, that's, that's like mission impossible when that big buck gets comfortable in like a big patch of timber. Cause you can't, you're going to make too much noise. You're never going to sneak up on him. And he's got a huge advantage if he's not out in the open, you know, and we, we hunted Colorado in 2016 and we had a big, big buck pushing that like 200 inch range,

um, that he, he bedded in the timber, but then would come out above. Um, and then we, we bumped him one night and then we saw him run in there and never came out the rest of the trip. And it's like, well, at that point, you know, what do you do with them? We know he's there. We would keep hunting that Ridge, but he just, once he's in that timber and once he decides to leave the opening, because he's got a little bit of pressure, um, it's going to be real tough to, to hunt them, um, you know, for sure.

Uh, do you have any examples of, of how far big mule deer will move or mule deer in general? Like you always hear the stories of like, Oh, this bull is rutting here, you know, cause it's some unique bull. And then he's killed seven miles away, three days later, you know, are these mule deer, have you had the opposite where some mule deer will just sit at home versus like some mule deer willing to travel two to three miles as the rut gets close or, you know, for, for no good reason to go to that staging area or whatever it may be.

The only real example I have of that is it's kind of the opposite. The first year we lived out here, I found it was a really, really good buck. And I saw the thing one day and I want to say, let's see, it had been four weeks since basically saw it, wasn't able to make it happen and could never turn the deer up again. Like I want to say about a month later,

The deer was like about a mile away and it was during a late season tag and he ended up getting killed, but it was like, how in that small of area was he able to hide out? You know, he'd like, he literally didn't even go anywhere. So yeah,

Yeah. I hit it in there. Um, yeah, the only examples we got and it's, it's a different setting than where you're at, you know, high mountain with, with what I would consider wintering range pretty close. Um, like in our Montana spots where they kind of live in their winter range year round. Um,

you can get some of those bucks, you know, in the coolies or in some of the ag country. And it seems like they can go three or four or five miles in a night. Um, but it's different. You know, I think those mountain mule deer are a little bit more homebodies and they kind of, they, they stick to that and you know, the rut can pull them off or does can pull them off. But for the most part, they, they don't move as much as, as the, the, you know, desert mule deer or the hike, you know, the, the high desert deer or, or the breaks deer, whatever you want to call them. Um, um,

So you talked about it a little bit earlier. You're in there early, you're there late, which kind of leads to glassing. You mentioned you have a BTX, which for those that don't know, it's the dual-eyed Swarrow setup. We run big spotters, which I didn't learn until I had talked to a guy that used, there's a company called Dr. Optics, right? And we went to a unit in Colorado and this guy would just drive up to the highest knob

and uses 20 to 40 by 88 binoculars or whatever they are. And he would tell me where every deer was in the country. And I was only able to hunt one drainage, you know? Um, so it's like mule deer and optics maybe go together better than any other type of hunting. Um, you know, so what's your glassing strategy? Um, you know, are you only using that BTX during scouting? Are you bringing it up during season? Or are you more focused on like, uh, close, close to you at that point? Like you're in hunt mode versus like looking for any deer mode.

I feel like I do use it a lot more during the summer. Just get into those big high ridges or whatever to where you can look over as much country as possible first thing in the morning. I will say I have a pair of 12s that I've been using the last couple years, the In-L-Pures, and I do really, really like those binos. But I feel like...

You get to like, say it's the range between the 12s and the BTX that like I'll hunt. I got a buddy that I hunt with quite often and he's got a pair of the 15s. And for that mid range, I mean, he kicks my butt for for spot and stuff. And so I do feel like I'm going to try and get a pair of like either 15s or 18s.

It just makes your pack really freaking heavy, you know? For sure. Yeah. And, and I've even went to a, uh, you know, like on, on Steve's mill deer hunt last year. Um, and really coming from the coos deer hunt, like,

I'll scan with my tens, you know, anything close or within a thousand yards. And then I've found I spot more just going straight to my spotter, like go from tens to spotter. That 15 to 18 range might be, you know, the right solution, but we just crank our spotters down to 20 or 25 or whatever the lowest setting we can. And like literally just walk it along the mountain, especially after you kind of

cream, the easy stuff. You know, if there was a deer out there, we would spot it and then we just go to work and pick things apart with the spotter. And we've started spotting way more deer going to a spotter on a tripod. And then the other thing is like, even if it's just a monopod or something like binoculars on a stick for mule deer is, you

you know, you need to get those things stabilized. Like I was always like the elbows on the knees, hat on the brim, you know, my hands are on the hat brim and it just, you can't keep still enough to spot ears flicker or a horn or whatever it may be at distance. So as much as I hate adding weight, it's like we're adding, you know, even if it's a trekking pole or a tripod, like we're trying to stabilize our optics at all times. Mm-hmm.

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So you're, you're glassing, like you're, you're going through that. Like, do you go as far as thinking like, all right, the sun's going to rise on the West. Like you're trying to put yourself in basin so that the sun's at your back. Like, do you, do you overthink that? Or do you just like thinking I've got a good 45 minutes before sunrise that I can glass everything and it doesn't really matter which direction or. Um,

That's a good question because I have screwed myself up pretty good getting into like getting way back in places and not even thinking about that. But I do feel like the first, I mean, if you can get in there the first 45 minutes or so, for the most part, you'll be okay. But I mean...

I need to get better at that. Put it that way. Yeah. I, it seems like the morning you can get away with more, but sometimes that night sit where you're like, if you don't put it where that sun's on the horizon, you're like, well, I shouldn't even came to glasses base. And I should have thought about glass in the other way or looked at this at a different direction. But, um,

Yeah. I just, I've always caught myself and I always wonder if like guys are thinking about that or if they've got a different strategy. Um, so, so how long will you glass an area before moving on? Like, do you, as far as coverage, are you going to look it over a couple of times? Is there like a, a, a

point in the morning, like, Oh, he may be bedded to start with. Like he's going to get up an hour and a half later. Does it depend on weather? Like if it's raining, they're going to be on their feet or if there's snow and they're on their feet, like, how do you decide like, all right, I've glassed here long enough. I'm going, I'm hiking out the ridge to the next basin or to a different area.

You know what's kind of interesting about that is I've noticed that when it starts getting colder, like last weekend, for example, I was glassing into this basin and I had not seen anything in there. And I think it was, it was...

been light for what, 730 or so. It was about three hours before I started seeing anything. And so I, gosh, I kind of feel like I'm becoming more of a believer. You gotta, you gotta just kind of wait it out, you know, maybe take a little break back on the glass start. I feel like it doesn't really matter in the, when it starts getting colder, I feel like, you know, that 10, 11 in the morning, that two, three in the afternoon, I feel like,

it's all good. Especially if you're in an area where you can pick apart a ton of country too, you know? Yep. And that's that balance. I mean, it's that internal fight. We always have like, you should have probably put yourself in the best spot or at least what I thought was the best spot starting the day. Are you willing to leave that to go find deer or she just grinded out? Like, and a lot of it comes down to what you just said for me, like

what, what percentage of ground can I see? Like if I can see a whole bunch of ground versus I'm going to go only see 25% of that ground from hiking up and over, like, is it worth it? But then there's always that like other, other guy talking to me on my shoulder, like, but that big buck could just be standing in that little 25% patch. And you know, right now, like, should you go check it out? And that's always one of those internal fights I have with myself is like,

When, because, you know, as time goes on, the day's changing bucks or deer getting out of their beds, moving, you can catch them. We've, but we've seen it both ways. Right. And so that's really like that. One thing we struggle with is stay in glass or move and get to a new area. And I don't know if there is a right answer. I just didn't know if you had a preference or, or if you're more inclined now, it sounds like maybe just staying to what you think is your best spot.

Yeah, I would say that, like, especially from like scouting in the summer and stuff like that, I feel like, okay, I'm going to get here to where I can spend like two plus hours and just keep going back over this stuff, checking it, you know? Yeah.

So, yeah, no, I like that. And, and it's what we usually end up deciding to is that you, you know, not to repeat myself, but you put yourself in the best spot, your best vantage, your best spot to spot deer. Let's just stay here. And, and some people may think it's like the lazy way out, but, um, it's just, I think it's just your best chance, you know? Um,

I don't know if you, Ryan Lamper is one of my buddies. Like he's, you know, he's similar to you hikes all over the mountain. Like physical never gets in the way. Um, but like he talks about his, his, he killed 190 inch archery buck there in Colorado. And he's like, I didn't move for seven days. Cause the thing just went in bed in the right spot for me to approach. So it's like, you know, you ultimately killed this buck, but he's like, it was one of the easier hunts. Cause he didn't move for seven days straight until the thing,

you know, bedded in the right spot. And so it's, I think it's just being patient, um, you know, having faith or confidence that they're there. Um, you know, it can be, can be huge. Yeah.

That's the other thing too. I know as hard as it is to find a big one, that's the nice thing about putting in your time to scout and find one. It's like, okay, this is where I've seen them. And the other thing that I've noticed is it doesn't take very much cover for them to be able to hide. For example, like I was saying last week and the bucks that I turned up, I had looked over that spot probably 10 times that morning. And then I...

gave it a break for 15 minutes looking at some other stuff and I came back and there they were. And I mean, there was so little kind of

cover for them to bed down in and that's where they they were in that little tiny patch of timber you know yeah yeah so and i think you know as a hunt goes on like i i don't get the chance especially on our out-of-state hunts to scout near as much as i want so you're kind of learning on the fly but you can pick up little things off the bat like uh oh the deer on their feet for the first 15 minutes and and it but it's like so you're in that area but as soon as they bed down like if you

I'm sure we've all been there where you follow a deer, right. Or something that you're maybe interested in, or you kind of just keep tabs and it was in the wide open, easy to see. But as soon as that thing beds down, like you won't see it for the next four hours and then it gets up out of bed. And then, so it's ideas like that. Like if you don't catch that buck in the exact right spot at the exact right time, you're not going to see him no matter where you're at. And he may be right there, which is kind of the underlying story on, on some of these things. Like they're typically going to be where you think they are. You just might not be able to see them. Um, yeah.

So, so rolling through, you know, you're, you're about what your seven days into your Idaho season, you've got another 13 left or, or, you know, some units close off a little bit earlier. Um,

Do you, do you change the way you hunt from start to finish? If weather doesn't come into play, do you assume that if, if, you know, there's no, or are you going to start like a season progresses? Are you going to start checking in on those staging areas that are a little lower on the mountain or the ridge? You're like, how do you, how do you change your hunt or do you at all as season goes on, you know, through the end of October? Um, well, this year has been a little bit different. Cause like I said, I wasn't able to turn anything up.

that great, you know, but it's like, what has been kind of fun this year is like, okay, I'm going to hunt till say 12 or one, and then I'm going to get out of there and I'm going to go to a completely different new area and check that out until dark. And like, typically, I mean, if it's, if it's a deer that I'm after, I would probably just hunt that. Gosh, I would probably just hunt that thing the whole season. Um,

Or as long as I needed to, say, you know. Yeah. Yeah, so it really depends. I mean, I feel like

Especially around here, if you are getting the snow, so many of the deer do move out of the country. You just have to be content with not seeing very many deer, period. You're just kind of going off your gut whether you think that target deer stayed up in the high country or hopefully didn't move down and you're probably second-guessing yourself all along the way. It seems like typically those big bucks are the last ones to bail off. If you're still seeing deer in the area, I like to assume that they're still around, but you just never know.

Mm hmm. Yeah, I agree. So I want to talk a little bit, uh, me and Steve got to go to Idaho last year on a, on a mule deer hunt. Um,

yeah, I don't know if you've even been in that area or not, but it was, it was one of those cool hunts. Um, you know, it was a little bit of a special area, but it was one of those things where, you know, we, we implored some of the strategies we're talking about now. Um, we, we, you know, stayed high on the ridge and just, you know, glass as much country as we can, you know, he had a few little hot tips here and there. Uh, but, but we found, as I mentioned on that hunt, um, it

At that time of year, those deer were on the south-facing slopes. They would come out of the bottom, and you would get about a 15-minute chance to spot them between where they were starting in the creek bottom or somewhere on that ledge versus when they would flop over to the north side, the brushy, timbered side of the ridge.

And so we started to use that to our advantage. We would look at, you know, maps, like where can we go to see the, you know, as many South facing slopes as we can. And, and it's just stuff like that, like throughout the hunt, like we didn't have necessarily a target buck, but we were kind of just trying to put as many, uh, many options in our lap as we could. Um, you know,

it was, it was an amazing hunt because, you know, the first day you pull up and see a 30 inch plus three point and you got to like walk away from it. And then, you know, around the next corner, you see, you see a one 80 plus, you know, buck. And so it was, it was a different hunt, a very, very special place, but I'm trying to like roll some of this, this, you know, what we've talked about into that, like, you know, getting to a good vantage spot where you can, um,

you know, where you can look into where you found the deer, you know, on the first day we realized kind of what the deer are doing the second day we kind of, you know, took advantage of that. So we're trying to be educated deer hunters as we go on. Um, and, and it was one of those things where we didn't have a target buck. So it's, I think having a target animal, maybe like you are versus somebody who's just looking for something, um, that's

that's in, you know, what they want, it makes a different hunt. It makes a lot different hunt where you might not be willing to leave the base in the entire day. We would, we would do what I would consider kind of your normal hunting where, where we would glass for two, two and a half hours. Like, oh, there's just the place is dead. We've glassed 90% of it. Like let's move. Um, and so that was kind of our strategy and throughout the day. And then the one downside is, is we moved, you would never really know, like,

Is this place dead? Because it's not first light anymore, you know, and you're kind of like, well, I don't even know if this is a good spot. Like you don't want to write it off for tomorrow. Um, you may want to come back and check on it first thing. And, um, we just kind of evolved on that hunt, but, uh, it was one, the other thing I really wanted to take away from that hunt and talk about a little bit is.

We had, you know, me and Steve, you know, Kent was on that. We had multiple pieces of glass and it was crazy to, to like how well a mule deer can hide. Um, like I had picked up a mule deer, um,

um, the buck that Steve ultimately had killed and we couldn't get any other spotters on it, but I was in like the worst spot to like keep track of him. Like I had a bunch of brush and sticks and Jack strawed brush in my way. And, uh, it was just one of those things. And it really kind of led me to believe like,

I don't want to keep tying things back, but it ties back to one of your original examples of like those deer are there. You just, they are at times impossible to find. And we knew they were there because we had watched them flop over the ridge, you know, an hour before, like we, there was nowhere else for them to go and they had did it two days in a row. Right. And that's the other thing when deer are making these patterns and doing, you know, cyclical movements from food to bed, from bed to food, um,

Um, you almost have to go with they're there until they're not, but, um, you know, picking them up in the glass is a whole nother story. Like we had put ourselves in the position to glass into there and just got lucky and picked them out of there. Um, did you guys, were you guys able to get them the first day that you found them? We did. We got, we got real, um, real fortunate. Um,

and we didn't even know he was a shooter buck um we spotted him from two plus miles away just six or seven deer working up a ridge um and you could tell that two of them through the spotter like you could tell that two of them had frames right it's you hear about people saying like they've got good frames but there was no way in hell we were telling you if you had a any sort of forks if he's a three point a four point like what it was and it was so far away that you

You know, you pulled out on X and you're like, all right, I think this is the bridge he's on. And I think this is how we get there, you know? Um, and we walked out a trail, maybe a mile and a half to, to look into the backside of that, to get a good vantage. And we, we sat there for even an hour before just like all glass on that thing, picking it apart and just happened to in the middle of the day, it, it

And the hard part is you don't know if he got out of bed, right? He could have been bedded. He could have been feeding the whole time, but we didn't pick him up until about one 30 in the afternoon. Um, you know, and then we, Steve had ended up shooting him by two, but it's just one of those things that like, man, you know, where, where you go in with, with what's a low percentage is cause it's so hard to see, but they're there. Like the mule deer, especially until you bump them or get winded, like they're going to probably keep doing the same thing back and forth, you know, until they're the rut comes along, weather comes along or something bumps them out of their pattern.

Go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say, I'd be curious too, because it would be curious to see what that would like. Was he getting any pressure at all from people too? I mean, with it being a limited hunt, there was another deer hunter around and there was one other elk hunter in the area, but nobody was really up in that zone that we were in. And so, um,

That also adds into the hunt, like how aggressive you need to be, how comfortable you are that that deer is not going to get bumped. So yeah, it was nice knowing that nobody had been really messing with these deer, which is a huge advantage. What you're talking about is a lot of this over-the-counter stuff where you can get crazy amount of pressure, where you get into deer like this and it changes their behavior. It changes maybe how reluctant they are to be out in the open because nobody's really laying eyes on them or even bothering them.

at all. Yeah. And, and what's interesting too about that, that I've noticed is like the deer that you see, the big ones like that you see that are not getting screwed with. It's almost like they even have a completely different, they're just so much different, like compared to the ones that are getting very pressured, like some we've seen like out here that are in a high pressured area, uh,

I mean, they don't really get up. And if they do, they're moving like really, really fast to get to more cover. Yeah. You know? So you almost think it's like, it's like a switch goes off in their head. Like they're the same age class, but yet this deer recognizes all the pressure. He's like, I've got to step up my game or I've got to be safer where this other deer is like, I haven't seen anybody. Like I can continue to do this and get away with it in some sense. Yeah.

Um, yeah. Um, just, just a note for all the listeners, like, uh, Steve's Idaho mule deer hunt will be coming out, I believe on November 2nd. Uh,

meat eater season 12 episode 4 i believe so for anybody that wants to go check out a meal deer hunt where i explained to steve why elk are better than meal deer um well you can go tune into that one but it's a great hunt we had a lot of fun um you know it's sometimes cool to get to hunt real special places like that it's not like the majority of the places that duke gets to hunt um

you know, it's a lot different, but I wanted to have Duke on, like I say, he's, he's as humble as they come. He won't talk about what he's killed, but just, you'll have to trust me when, um, the guy kills some real, real big mule deer and, uh, he knows what he's talking about, um, when it comes to that. So I really appreciate you having you on here, Duke. Normally at the end, I would say, let people know how they can find out about you, but you probably don't want anybody to follow you or pay any attention. So, uh, yeah, yeah. I won't put you through that. So,

Yeah, thanks. I honestly haven't been on the social media stuff for quite a long time. So, you know, yeah, I don't really have any of that stuff. I don't blame you. And, you know, I grew up real similar. Like, everything was a secret. We never talked about where we killed stuff. And so I can really, really respect...

all of that. Um, no, I appreciate having you on. Um, like I say that you probably know more about mule deer forgot more than most and, uh, appreciate having you on and sharing a little bit of what you know, and, uh, good luck. Um, I know we had to squeeze this podcast in cause you're getting ready to take off, I think for the rest of the season or at least this week. So, uh, wish you the best of luck and hopefully you can find one of those target bugs. Thanks, Jason. Thanks for having me. Yep. Take care.

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