Kansas Mule Deer Opportunity
Mule Deer
I have been blessed with the opportunity to have free range of thousands of acres of private ground about 20 miles south of the Oakley/Monument area to chase mulies.
I'm an eastern KS guy that grew up chasing Whitetails so I know I'm in for a whole new experience. My questions are, how do you hunt such OPEN country, and what time of the season is the best/most productive/most exciting?
Thanks in advance for any information!!!
Spot and stalk! And, the rut... of course! Good luck. I hunted spot n stalk mulies in western KS last year for the first time and had a blast!
I would think using an A R 15 while suspended in the doorway of a chopper would be kinda exciting...Mike
Do they rut the same time as the KS whitetails?
Hawkdriver: Do you need a new friend? :)
While Hunting the Rut is fun, there are a lot more eyes looking at you success rate is below 5%. Most of the locals and the guys in the know will have been out from Muzzle loader season on and most of the really good bucks are knocked down early rather than later. Locate water and hunt there, if you can get out and do some August scouting they do not change their pattern much till the rut. However on our place during the rut it is hit or miss as Pheasant hunters tend to push them around quite a bit.
I will agree and disagree with Matte. While less eyes are good, hunting early can be tough because the deer don't like leaving the corn. If there is a lot of milo where you can see them it can be excellent however.
In my experience the deer really stick to the crop fields early rather than the large, cut up pastures that you will find in that part of the state. Once crops start coming off they will move into the broken rangeland more, but like Matte said, the good bucks could have a pile of does.
There is a period in there where the bucks are really cruising and decoying can be crazy good. I would say the first week or two of November would be my choice. If you can make two trips, one early and one during the rut, I would go for that just to decide for yourself which time you prefer.
Have fun and Good luck!! Matt
You're right on the crops Matt. I often take that for granted as all we have where I hunt is sage brush and sandhills for miles on end. However with that being said in my area 16 or 17 of the known giants were taken by mid October. Always eats at me that I am gone most of that time chasing elk and mountain deer. It will be fun no matter when you go.
Thanks to you all for your priceless information!!!
Here is a picture of some of the bluffs on this property. There are stock tanks for water along the bottom and then CRP and milo fields up on the back side.
I've been told they feed then come to water and bed up in the bluffs most of the day so that should be some fun stalking!!
Send your friend a camera to place near the stock tank. You will get a ton of pictures of all animals in the area. Water has never failed me in areas like that. If you can figure out the route it will be an easy ambush in the heat of September.
Looking at mullet country that looks like that just puts a huge smile on my face!!!! That is what I picture to a tee when I picture plains muleys!! You're going to have a blast!!!
They can be tough to get close to during the rut. I'll take early or late for the big boys over the rut with a bow. Now if you're talking rifle that's a different story...
Listen to Mr.Palmquist.
He's been living with, and hunting those kinds of pastures, very successfully, year after year for decades.
I like the first week of November or the second, depending on the harvest up on the flat grounds.
Most of the gagger bow-kills I've written about are November kills, including a buddy's who was #4 in the world when he shot it right after Thanksgiving.
If the drought holds ...and I literally pray it does not...the crop "harvest" will be early and the bucks could be pushed to canyons earlier.
I should add that I don't "pick" my week, it's largely when my friend gets done with harvest and has some time to lead my blind-azz all over the country. :-)
As well as some good hunting, early November often gets some good photography, too.
Palmquist - I knew you seemed like you were old as hell when we were packing out your elk!
Lol....ya, decades might be a stretch Michael:)
Nope...Stacy and Dean say they learned everything from you, Matt!
And technically, if you shoot a nice buck in 2009 or earlier...it's been decades.
Don't be trying to edjucumate me on verbage, there Matt...I can twist things around soooooo much better than most folks. :-)
Really wish I was not so addicted to Mule Deer Hunting. All my out of state hunting buddies are like "YOU LIVE IN KANSAS" why are you not chasing Whitetails.
I've had several out-of-state friends refer to them as the "carp of deer hunting"...until they've slithered up on one of the ol' boys.
I just love the country, and the chance to take the hunt to the deer.
You're blessed with such diversity, Matte...but you already know that.
Your right on that Writer. I have a special place where in one day I can see Mule Deer, Whitetail, Antelope, Turkey, Prairie Chicken, Pheasant, Quail, Geese, Ducks, and while they are not there all the time the Occasional Elk. Maybe someday the Elk will be there more often as we now have three different herds of Antelope. However me and the local Warden are very worried about the Mule deer population as it has declined in the last few years. I so wish Kansas would get rid of scoped Muzzle Loaders, have a separate three day Rifle season on Mule deer (apart from Whitetail) and draw for Archery. I only drew Wyoming this year so I guess it will give me plenty of time to work on a good non typical Mule deer if I can find one.
