by: Michael “Micky” Luby
Every hunter remembers the bucks they tagged. We all have photos of those animals hanging in the garage or tucked away in old albums, and every set of antlers carries a story. But if I’m being honest, the hunts that shaped me the most weren’t the successful ones. They were the hunts where I got something completely wrong.
Experience isn’t just measured by years in the field. It’s measured by mistakes you’re willing to admit and, hopefully, never repeat. Looking back over decades of chasing mule deer, there are three hunts that stand out, not because I filled a tag, but because they taught lessons I still carry with me every season.
If sharing those mistakes saves another hunter from making the same ones, then maybe those hunts weren’t failures after all.
The Mountain That Wasn’t There
Several years ago, I drew a tag in a unit I had never hunted before. Like most hunters today, I did my homework long before the season opened. Evening after evening I sat in front of the computer with onX Hunt open on one screen and Google Earth on the other. I marked potential glassing points, likely bedding areas, water sources, access routes, and backup plans if my first choices didn’t pan out. By the time opening day arrived, I felt confident. Maybe even a little too confident.
When I finally drove into the unit, I knew something was wrong before I even parked the truck.
The landscape in front of me didn’t resemble the hunt I had spent weeks planning. Hillsides I expected to be covered in mature timber had been logged. A ridge I intended to glass overlooked fresh clear-cuts instead of dark north-facing slopes. Roads I thought would be hidden behind trees now cut across open country. It wasn’t that my maps were bad—they simply weren’t showing me the newest version of the landscape.
For a few minutes, I was frustrated. I blamed the maps. I blamed technology. Then I realized the mistake wasn’t onX or Google Earth.
The mistake was mine.
I had spent hours studying one imagery layer but never stopped to ask when that imagery had been captured. I hadn’t compared the available layers or looked closely enough at the dates attached to each image. That’s rare these days because both onX and Google Earth update frequently, but it can happen, especially in areas experiencing active logging, wildfire recovery, or new road construction.
Instead of hunting the country I thought I knew, I spent the first day essentially scouting from scratch.
Thankfully, I adapted, found new country, and salvaged the hunt, but I burned valuable time because I assumed my homework was complete.
Today, one of the last things I do before leaving home is check the age of every aerial layer I’m using. Technology is one of the greatest scouting tools we’ve ever had, but it’s still only as good as the information we choose to verify.
The Year I Assumed My Gear Was Ready
The second lesson wasn’t about maps as much as it was about laziness.
That spring, I’d spent several weeks bear hunting. When the season ended, I unpacked the truck, tossed everything into storage, and promised myself I’d go through it all before fall.
Then life happened.
Summer got busy. Work piled up. Family obligations filled the calendar, and before I knew it, mule deer season had arrived.
Like too many hunters, I convinced myself everything would be fine.
It wasn’t.
The first surprise came when I pitched my tent. Somewhere during the summer, mice had decided it made a pretty comfortable home. They’d chewed holes in the floor, damaged part of the rainfly, and left enough evidence behind that I spent the first evening cleaning instead of relaxing.
Then I unrolled my sleeping bag.
Let’s just say it still smelled like turkey season.
I hadn’t washed it or dried it, I just stuffed it into storage and forgot. After a long day climbing ridges, it wasn’t exactly the place you wanted to crawl into for the night.
Embarrassing?
Absolutely.
But it still wasn’t my biggest mistake.
The following morning, I decided to confirm my rifle before heading deeper into the unit. It wasn’t something I always did back then because I assumed once a rifle was sighted in, it stayed sighted in.
That assumption cost me.
My first group landed nearly nine inches off at 100 yards. At first, I thought I had made a bad shot. Then I fired another. Same result.
Somewhere between spring bear season and mule deer season, the rifle had taken a hard enough bump to knock the scope out of alignment. Maybe it happened loading gear. Maybe it happened in storage. I honestly don’t know.
What I do know is I spent the better part of that day checking mounts, confirming everything was tight, and working through enough ammunition to confidently re-zero the rifle.
Was I frustrated about losing hunting time? Of course.
But I was far more thankful I discovered the problem on paper than on a mature buck standing across a canyon.
Now every season begins the same way. Every piece of gear comes out well before opening day. The tent gets inspected. The sleeping bag gets washed. Batteries get replaced. Boots get checked. Most importantly, every rifle I intend to hunt with gets confirmed on the range, no matter how confident I am that it should still be shooting true.
Assumptions have no place in hunting.
I Thought Hunting Meant Walking
The third lesson happened when I was young enough to believe effort and success were the same thing. If I wasn’t walking, I figured I wasn’t hunting.
So I walked. From daylight until dark, I covered as much country as my legs would allow. At the end of each day I was exhausted, proud of how hard I’d hunted, and completely confused about why I wasn’t seeing mature bucks.
It took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize I was the problem.
Every time I charged through a bedding area, I educated deer I never even knew were there. Every noisy step through dry leaves or loose rock encouraged deer to quietly slip over the next ridge long before I arrived.
I wasn’t finding deer because I was constantly giving them reasons to leave.
The mountain never had a chance to settle down.
Everything changed the day an older hunter watched me march off another ridge and smiled before saying, “Your binoculars should cover more ground than your boots.”
At the time, I didn’t fully understand what he meant.
Today, I’d rather spend three hours behind quality glass than three hours blindly walking through country that looked good on a map. I still cover ground, but I do it with purpose. I move carefully, stop often, and let the country tell me what’s happening instead of forcing my own pace onto the landscape.
Mature mule deer survive because they’re master’s at noticing pressure. The less unnecessary pressure I create, the more natural the deer behave.
Ironically, slowing down helped me see far more deer than all those miles I proudly walked as a young hunter.
Every Failure Is Tuition
I still make mistakes. Every hunter does.
But I make fewer of them because I remember these three hunts better than I remember many of the successful ones.
They taught me to verify my information instead of assuming it was current. They taught me that gear deserves just as much preparation as I do. Most importantly, they taught me that patience is often the greatest skill a mule deer hunter can develop.
None of those lessons came with a punched tag.
All of them made me a better hunter.
Looking back, I don’t consider those hunts failures anymore. I consider them tuition. They were simply the price I had to pay to become the hunter I wanted to be.
Learn From the Land. Give Back to It.
Every season teaches us something, whether we fill a tag or not. Those lessons become even more meaningful when they’re paired with a commitment to conserving the habitat and migration corridors that make mule deer hunting possible.
The Mule Deer Foundation’s 2026 campaign, “The Vanishing Icon of the West,” reminds us that healthy mule deer populations don’t happen by accident. They require hunters, volunteers, and conservationists working together to protect the future of this iconic species.
Join the Mule Deer Foundation today and help ensure the next generation has the chance to learn their own lessons in mule deer country.
Visit www.muledeer.org/join and become part of the conservation community protecting the Vanishing Icon of the West.
