Out here in the West, things are different. Real different. While many Eastern hunters think elk when they think Western hunting, truth is, mule deer are what fill freezers here year in and year out. If you’ve just hunted back East, you’re in for a radical new world when you come West. Many counties in Montana and Wyoming are almost as big as some New England states, for instance.
The terrain in most Western states is either rolling hills cut with gullies or mountains–small mountains, big mountains, and gigantic mountains. You must be in shape to get your deer here. No food plots (illegal in many western states to feed or lure game). Wide open spaces with little cover. Weather which will indeed kill you in a heart beat if you’re not prepared.
This land means rifles with long reach (400 yard shots are quite common). So, leave the .30-30, leave your tree stand, and learn to judge wind. Oh, don’t mind the occasional grizzly, this is their house, ya know.
Here at LocaCarnivore, we’ve grown to like the videos produced by “Deer and Deer Hunting TV.” They’re slick and informative. Today, we have an entire episode dedicated to mule deer hunting in the wide open West. With a few exceptions, they’re spot on in this production.
The open sage country they show is common in Colorado, Wyoming, eastern Montana, Utah, Nevada, California, southern Idaho, eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, and Arizona. However, western Montana, northern Idaho, and western sections in Oregon and Washington have mountains covered in thick timber (woods, for our Eastern readers). In the thicker stuff, you might have a 30 yard shot, or you might have to fling bullets 600 yards from one ridge to the next, so bring a versatile rifle and good optics. There’s a good reason the long-range hunting cult is centered in the West.
If you want a challenge, go West, young man, as Horace Greeley once advised, and hunt some mulies. No matter how your luck pans out, you’ll ever forget the time you spend there. Now, let’s watch this great video.
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