You drew the tag. You burned four preference points. You have been dreaming about this hunt for years.
Then work got in the way.
Instead of spending the summer scouting the unit like you had planned, you found yourself showing up the day before the season opened in a state you’d never hunted before. You pull into camp, open the map and start looking around.
That’s when you see it. Roads. Everywhere.
Forest Service roads and two-tracks zigzag across the landscape in every direction. Your heart sinks.
This isn’t going to work.
There aren’t going to be any deer here.
I just burned four points on the wrong unit.
More roads don’t necessarily mean fewer mule deer. In fact, heavily roaded country can sometimes make your job easier…..if you understand how to use those roads to your advantage.
The first thing to understand is that roads don’t distribute hunters evenly across the landscape. They concentrate them.
On a Wyoming hunt a few years ago, I was amazed on opening morning by the number of trucks, Jeeps and side-by-sides moving across the unit. Hunters were everywhere. Some were glassing from their vehicles. Others had parked and walked 100 yards down the road before settling in to glass.
And there were deer everywhere, too.
The difference was that the deer were moving.
Mule deer, along with antelope and other wildlife, were constantly shifting away from the human activity. Every truck and ATV moving down a road was creating pressure. Every hunter walking into a draw was pushing animals toward somewhere else.
That’s when I realized the roads weren’t necessarily my enemy. They could be my advantage.
When you’re hunting a heavily roaded unit, look at where the roads aren’t.
Modern mapping applications such as onX make it relatively easy to identify the pockets of country that are farthest from roads and other easy access points. Those places don’t have to be enormous. A few miles can feel like an entirely different world when everyone else is hunting from the road.
My strategy is simple.
I’m out of bed at 3:30 or 4 a.m., giving myself enough time to walk several miles into the country. My goal is to be sitting in a good glassing position long before daylight, preferably in a place where I can see 270 degrees or more.
Then I wait.
I’m sitting there in the cold, sometimes shivering behind my binoculars, while the rest of the unit wakes up.
Eventually, the trucks start. The side-by-sides start. Hunters begin moving around the roads and trails.
And the deer start moving, too.
I’ve watched this strategy work more than once. The hunters driving and walking the accessible country are unknowingly pushing deer away from the roads and toward the places I’ve chosen to sit.
I’m not competing with every hunter in the unit. I’m working with them. They just don’t know it.
In heavily roaded country, the other hunters can become unwilling participants in your strategy. Let them cover the roads. Let them push the deer. Your job is to be patient, be prepared and be sitting in the right place when those deer decide they need somewhere safe to go.
So don’t despair when you pull up your map and see a spiderweb of roads covering your hunting unit. Look closer.
Find the places the roads don’t reach.
Then be willing to get there before everyone else wakes up.
You may discover that the busiest hunting unit you’ve ever seen is also one of the easiest places to predict where a mature mule deer will eventually try to hide.
Good luck this season.
Help Protect the Mule Deer We Hunt
Mature mule deer are more than a challenging animal to pursue—they are a symbol of the wild places we work to protect. If you value mule deer and want to help ensure they remain part of our Western landscape for generations to come, consider joining the Mule Deer Foundation.
Join MDF today and become part of the effort to conserve mule deer, their habitat and our hunting heritage.
