A couple big boys made it thru
Mule Deer
Got sent a pic of these bucks after the last rifle season ended last week . Public land here in Colorado - 0-1 Pref Point unit
Its bucks like these that will make you change your plans for next year...
That's the cool thing about deer and deer units. They're mature at 4-5 years old so they can just pop up and mediocre units can suddenly be good units (and visa versa unfortunately). But 350 inch elk don't grow overnight, which is so amazing that some even make it that long.
Those are awesome deer. Monsters! My goodness that's awesome. God Bless
You sure those aren't WY bucks? :)
Very nice, wide perky racks!
Very nice, wide perky racks!
There are some big private ranches all around that area where bucks and bulls are rarely, if ever hunted. Occasionally they wander onto the blocks of public land, but almost never during open seasons. Its like they know.
I had the privilege of hunting for five days on the public land behind one of the ranches for muleys, with the stipulation that we couldn't hunt elk if we accessed through their property. (Otherwise it is checkerboard landlocked). Saw some GIANT bulls, and I passed up some gagger bucks while holding out for one like these.
Got my best muley in CO. Very solid genetics. Love the two bucks. Think Jaq is right - bucks like these get very focused attention if they linger on public land. Cnelk - was that your first sighting?
Got my best muley in CO. Very solid genetics. Love the two bucks. Think Jaq is right - bucks like these get very focused attention if they linger on public land. Cnelk - was that your first sighting?
Dandy bucks right there
Good luck, Robb
It definitely made me google CO deer liscense prices. My son and I will be there in 2018 for elk and I may now have to grab a deer tag as well.
Very nice bucks.
There aint no 'grabbing a deer tag' here in Colorado.
Better have a PP or 2 in your pocket as all deer is thru drawing
Awesome bucks. Seems for the NR bow hunter wanting to try CO, its pointless to accumulate more than one or two points! That was my plan until getting distracted by elk...now I'm "stuck" with 7 or 8!
Yes, cnelk, I realize that and will be grabbing the pp this year and hope for the best with one point.
Lots of good deer areas can be drawn with zero or one point. The problem is that many of the best elk areas aren't good deer areas.
In my old elk area it was rare to see a buck during season. This year in my new unit I hunted for 30 days over an area spanning 600 square miles, moving camp 7 times from 7K to 11K in elevation, and saw exactly four bucks, three of them forkies. Rarely got any on my cams all summer. BTW, this was the same draw unit where cnelk's bucks were photographed.
So while a combo hunt sounds appealing, be sure to do your homework first. If I was hunting deer I'd have focused on totally different habitat.
Jaquomo explained it well. I bowhunted both deer and elk in CO this year in the same unit. The good deer areas and good elk areas were so far apart that I might have just as well hunted two different units.
Front range bucks with all that private land, and open space, pretty common sight. If you take a look at many of the records entries, bucks from Jefferson, Boulder, Larimer etc, many of them are yard bucks that either got shot in the yard, or wandered onto an area where hunting is allowed.
Being that both of these bucks are high caliber, I'd bet the farm they're pretty much un-touchable private land front range bucks regardless if they're in a OTC or low point unit.
If you talk to Limmer, that's what made one of the front range elk units so good. It rivaled the NW units for years. If anything, there is a lesson here if one looks at it.
It truly is good to see nice bucks... again... on the Front Range and other parts of N. Colorado, especially after the CWD slaughter that took place several years ago.
It sure took awhile, but this is evidence that the deer are back
I took this buck 17 years ago, not very far from where the above bucks were hanging out
The area can and will produce big deer
Those are probably $10K bucks. If you were an outfitter and promised a high probability of getting on one of those, there are a lot of folks that would pony up that kind of dough. What do you think, being way past the ears pushing 200? Cnelk what did yours score?
Neither has deep forks and they always look wider from behind so I'd guess the one on the right to be upper 170s and the one on the right to be somewhere around 170 gross. But lots of guys would pay $10K to kill one of those bucks.
This is what an over 200" net muley looks like, but I killed him a ways east of there. By the scale of outfitter costs and "trophy fees" these days, mine would be around a $15K+ deer (I killed him DIY, grossed 218, net 210 6/8).
Those deer would "sell" for around $10K to the right guy in the area where they are photographed. Kind of sad when the inches of antler are calculated by the dollar-per-inch.
Hey cnelk. What's that shiny thing laying on your buck? Just kidding. Great buck! I love whities but those mules can change a guys mind... my lord!
I'm sure a big mulely is on the bucket list of many hunters including me. Cnelk and Lou, you are both blessed. Congratulations on both of those bucks.
In the area I hunt( somewhat close to where these two were spotted) I have notice a big increase in the deer and the quality of the bucks in the area. This year I hunted 4 days and seen 18 different bucks, all from the same glassing rock. If you are patient and don't shoot the first forky that shows up there are some good deer to be had.
This guy probably hid like this for the whole season, he made it...
I watched a pretty great 5X5 breed a doe today while home for lunch. The rut is about 2 weeks late over here in NW Colorado. Wish we had this snow a month prior to now-
MM, I was on the plains from the 10th - 25th, watching bucks and does every day. Seems like the rut isn't "late", but more protracted and drawn out than usual. I blame the Super Moon for part of that. Never really had any flurry with a bunch of does coming into heat at once between the 17th - 24th like in a normal year. The first buck I saw mounting a doe was on the 14th. They were still going strong when I left on the 25th, so not surprising that some late does are still coming into heat.
Jaq I can see your buck has much deeper forks and more mass throughout, so that's where the top two lose the inches, but they do seem to have great spread. I'll take your word on rear vs front view, but they go well past the ears. What did yours go widthwise?
Believe it or not, mine has a 31" outside spread. (I should have sat way back behind him for the photo, LOL). But for scoring purposes his inside spread of the mains is only 23, and he has relatively short main beams so his spread credit was only 21 5/8.
Brad's bucks have longer main beams and inside spread but way shorter time length all around. Surprising how many of those really wide bucks don't score as well as narrower ones with real deep forks.
I have never officially scored my buck above, all I did was measure his width = 28"
wow. those are dandies for sure.
Those big boys, just knowing a chance they may be there...... bet they save the lives of a good many smaller ones.... =D
Nice bucks! Here is another one that made it through the gun seasons in a 0 to1 point unit. I haven't seen him in a little over a week though...I'm hoping to find his sheds in a couple months
guys you need to check out Utah,Az and the other western states they also have great deer.
some incredible bucks guys!!!
Mark
"guys you need to check out Utah,Az and the other western states they also have great deer."
Huh?
thanks for sharing.. great pics... you forgot the gps coordinates.. lol
GPS coordinates don't help much, except maybe in some of the plains areas. Even on the plains, those big mule deer travel many miles during the rut and will be almost impossible to find outside of the rut. Many of our mountain bucks migrate from many miles away to where they are hanging out in the winter. Where they hang out for the winter and drop their sheds may be 50 miles from where you will find them in August/September.
