# White tail game plan



## kodoz (Nov 4, 2016)

I'm starting at the beginning here, without any knowledge of hunting deer. There's plenty of good info about antelope, so I'm feeling pretty good about that hunt, but I have this antlerless white tail tag in WY too. Almost everything I know about WTD I know from stories from friends hunting on deer leases back in Texas when I was a kid, and that can be summed up as the reason I wasn't ever interested in hunting. And most of the resources for WTD seem better tuned to hunting the forested central and east coast regions. White tail seems to be the red headed step child of the west, and I'd like some feedback on how to approach this hunt. I started with a couple premises: 

Irrigated fields: just looking at the UT and WY doe hunts, many look like theyr're driven by crop damage complaints, and this hunt looks like that's what's going on with this tag. So sticking to public lands adjacent to irrigated fields and waiting for deer to traverse these areas early and late in the day seems like one approach. Here's a GE image showing fields on one side of the road, draws on public land on the other.








Water: most the rest of this unit is remote BLM land that looks more like antelope territory--sage flats. But there are 2 significant drainages that run through the middle of the unit. Maybe they're a water and forage source for deer? Again, GE of the confluence of these 2 drainages.









I'm sure I have questions that I won't have known to ask until I'm sitting somewhere out in the middle of this unit come November, and I have several days to go up there and drive around to see what I can, but what do you think so far? 

Draws above the fields or the drainages out in the middle of nowhere--does one look better than the other? 
With the areas near the fields, being close to civilization is one more unknown for me, but I guess I'd be looking for deer bedding down at the bottom of the draws, and positioning myself morning and evening on the fingers to set up shots across the draw (and setting myself up for some steep hiking in and out should I get a deer down there). 
Access to the drainages I think are promising on the BLM land is my only concern there--aside from the possibility that there won't be deer in those spots. Snow or really wet weather would keep me from venturing off the main BLM roads. 
Picking one spot over the other...I plan on just randomly picking an easy to climb hill and sitting there with the monopod. If I don't see anything one morning, I'll try another area that afternoon. Is there anything I can do to make this less random? 
Roads--I've looked at county assessor maps, and that hasn't been a huge help in figuring out what's a public road and what isn't. Some BLM roads that originate on BLM land look like they have a gate. Other roads originate on BLM land, cross a little bit of private land, then go back onto BLM land. Or there's a little corner of private land that the road crosses before going onto BLM land. Any advice on sorting out what's okay to travel on and what isn't?
Land parcels--looking at that first image (which is from the county site), do they literally mean that the parcels are rectangles? Not that I'm going to try shooting on a corner shown as BLM land if it goes into somebody's field, but am I missing something here that would help make sense of sorting out private and public access? Does private property really stretch across the road up into those unimproved draws?
White tail and mule deer intermingle on this unit. Haven't gotten my tags yet, but it seems like the most reliable way to differentiate species is to look at the white on their faces. I'm also going to have some questions about retaining evidence of species--a quick look online hasn't yielded anything, so I'm hoping the tag will come with some clear cut instructions. 
Evidence of sex--I just skin under the udder back toward the hind quarter and leave that hanging off some unskinned portion of the rear quarter? Is there any trick to keeping that udder from getting detached? I've probably watched every video out there that shows you how to field quarter an animal, and the one that doesn't show how to retain a testicle just points to a bloodied udder before removing the rear quarter, without showing the cuts or end product that would keep the warden happy. 

Yeah, so thanks in advance to anybody willing to throw any advice my way. Good way to pass the time until the seasons open.


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## bfr (Apr 26, 2009)

I'll try to answer some of your questions. First specie ID, both have white throat patches but Whitetails are generally a kind of reddish brown as opposed to Mulies greyish brown but the EARS are way shorter on a Whitetail making their faces look longer. The absolute best way is of course the TAIL, can't mistake those. Now, roads, best to contact BLM for maps, shows BLM boundries plus they will usually have "travel" maps showing what roads are open. You can also get forest service maps showing public blocks and roads. Proof of sex is easy, if you can't get it out whole cutting around one side and leaving the udder attached is usually sufficient but call the F&G office to verify. If it was me I would try to find some landowners names around the area you pick and either call and introduce yourself, see if you can come by to discuss hunting on their property that adjoins a BLM block. Do this now, well before season starts. If these are hay or grain fields even better. Since you are looking for a doe they may be more open to allowing access to a specific field or two. Now, if you get permission and kill one in their field DON'T FIELD DRESS IT THERE unless they have said it is OK! Take it out whole and do it on the public area. Even if you don't get permission from one they may give you a line on where to find them on public land, or maybe another landowner that might give access. You can also call the biologist for the area for his/her input. 
Hope this helps a little and good luck.


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

kodoz said:


> Evidence of sex--I just skin under the udder back toward the hind quarter and leave that hanging off some unskinned portion of the rear quarter?.





Just bring out the head. No antlers = doe.

-DallanC


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## caddis8 (Sep 10, 2007)

whitetail and muleys do intermingle a lot. Whitetail generally like to stick to bottoms and cover a bit more than muleys. 

As far as identification. Living where whitetails and muleys coexist, muleys stick to the flats a bit more than whitetails do and away from a lot of water. up on the flats here away from the riverbottoms is where we see more muleys. 

So stick to the drainages if you're looking for whitetails. Luckily you've got some agriculture to bring them in. The borders of drainages and fields will be a good spot. 

One other thing. If you've hunted only muleys, get ready. Whitetail are more skittish than muleys and if you spook one out. They don't come back. Muleys will run and stop. Whitetails won't.


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## Springville Shooter (Oct 15, 2010)

I've hunted whitetail deer in Muley country for half my life. You will have no problem telling the difference. Different shape, different color. Also, hunting white tail in the west is nothing like Texas. Be prepared to spot, stalk, and hike or drive a bunch. 

As for the proof of sex, leave the head attached if you can. If you are packing out, leave a portion of the scrotum or utter attached to a quarter by a thin strand of skin. 

As for where to look. In my experience, look for brushy draws that lead down into agricultural fields. Use your glass to find draws with visible trails and you have your whitetail in the bag.

Here's a picture of a whitetail buck i was watching. He came 1/2 mile down a trail out of a brushy draw on public land and I took his picture just before he jumped the fence onto a hay field.------SS


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## Critter (Mar 20, 2010)

It is strange that in Idaho you hunt whitetails in the bottom country where as in Arizona you go uphill to hunt them with the mule deer being down in the flats.


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## kodoz (Nov 4, 2016)

Springville Shooter said:


> Be prepared to spot, stalk, and hike or drive a bunch.


Nice! Sitting in a blind waiting for the feeder to go off at 10am just wasn't what I wanted to do, and really got nothing more from it than knowing I could put a bullet where I needed to. I think I'm going to try the remote drainages first just for the experience--find and watch those game trails, pack out the deer if I get one. If I haven't had any luck in a few days, I'll head over to the draws, looking down into the brush leading out from the fields. Seems to me that's...I wouldn't say a sure thing, but at least putting me in a spot where I should see deer, and I can focus on figuring out species, stalking, and setting up for a decent shot.

I'll be figuring that out how to keep the udder attached on the fly, since I've only ever skinned and gutted before. The tail proves species and doesn't sound like it has to be attached, but planning on calling their hotline just to clarify that.

Thanks!


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## kodoz (Nov 4, 2016)

Springville Shooter said:


> Look for brushy draws that lead down into agricultural fields.


I did this hunt second to last week in November. As I was driving in, I could see herds of mule and whitetail deer grazing the ag fields in herds from a few to 20+. I set up camp near the desert draw that I wanted to hunt, and found some deer sign in the area. But it was really antelope country--dry sagebrush, and for every sign of deer there was 100x that for antelope. I decided to go with the gimme hunt in an alfalfa HMA...my biggest concern being that it was the end of season, and I thought maybe all the deer had been pushed off to adjacent, closed private fields (which seemed to be the case--there were no large herds in the HMA fields until well after dark). MY alternative plan--to hunt the draws on the BLM leading to the fields--maybe, might have produced a deer, but from what I was seeing the deer stayed in or right next to the fields they were grazing. I hiked along the back of a field and spotted some mule deer. In the process of getting close enough to ID them, they spotted me and took off...but there was one deer a bit further out that was still grazing the field.

Take-away lesson number one: glass matters. Over a while I used the terrain to get within 180 yards of it. It was bedded down in the field and I felt like I had a good shot, but something about it's ears didn't look right. Through my rifle scope I eventually made out that it was a young buck. I sneaked back out to a draw that I thought would be an in-road for deer coming into the field later in the afternoon, and positioned myself so I could see the valley floor and the field, hoping others would join that lone buck. I didn't see deer in that valley until late at night, but as the afternoon went on, deer started popping out of the unirrigated sage flats next to the field.

I was able to get up next to the irrigation pivot and use that for cover, but any deer in range turned out to be spike (?) bucks on inspection. And I scared a few off trying to get that close. I decided to work my way into the sage to stalk a group of 4 in the field, hoping to get them if they started to work back to the sage. That wasn't fruitful, but I did manage to put myself on the line between the field and where they were coming from. This was unintentional but super cool.

As it was starting to get late and darker, I had a deer come moving with a purpose right at me. Again, my low power spotting scope that was okay for antelope failed me, and through the rifle I could see button antlers on it. The wind was with me, and when he finally got my scent, he was so close that I could hear him inhale, exhale, and snort before he ran off.

I had maybe 30 minutes until legal shooting hours ended, and it was already pretty dark from the cloud cover. The deer in the field were just over 200 yards out, and I was going to make a move on them when another deer came from the sage, again moving straight toward me. I watched as it moved closer and closer, still having doubts that I could reliably differentiate a young buck from a doe. At this point I was pretty sure it was a doe, but wanted to keep watching as long as possible. She was close, and could see me, but hadn't figured out what I was. So she kept moving toward the field while watching me, and still not in my scent. I was near enough to certain that I decided to take a shot before she walked into my scent. I took a slight quartering shot on her. By the time I looked up, all I could see were the white rears of some nearby deer running off. I didn't see where (or if?) she had fallen, even though I heard her grunt when I fired, and I was so close that I didn't think it was possible to flub the shot.

Teaching point #2: something isn't right with my rifle or my scope, and I'm going to be spending some time at the range figuring it out, or finding a gunsmith to walk me through it. I had it nicely sighted in when I left, but it was off again by the time I got up to WY. And not by a little either. Earlier that day I spent another box of ammo getting confident that it was shooting true.

Anyway, now it was dark. I flagged where I shot from, then started grid searching the sage up to a fallow field that I knew she wasn't in. After stopping to put on my headlamp, I found her after maybe 15 minutes. No blood, and the wounds weren't super obvious, so I decided to gut her quickly right there in case she had been quartering more than I thought and the bullet had stopped in her abdomen. It didn't: the shot went in right where I aimed, and exited through her shoulder blade.

Teaching point #3: Dragging a deer didn't work for me. I had a mile hike out, mostly through a plowed field. Since I had decided on taking only a minimal backpack that I couldn't use to pack her out, and it was late, I figured dragging her to the truck would be the easiest option. I trussed up her legs and tied her head up to them...and struggled to get her even a few hundred yards. Long story short, I field dressed her there, and made 3 trips back to the truck to get my big pack and all the meat out, then dragged the carcass out of the field. I finished around 11, and had coyotes calling all around, could see the eyes of deer everywhere, and walked right through a pack of raccoons feeding in the field. That was just weird.

She was a big, fat doe, and looked really healthy. The fat on her ribs and abdomen was thicker than the meat. So I was pretty confident that chronic wasting disease wasn't going to be a problem. Still, took her into Cody the next day to get the sampling done, then broke camp and headed home. Heart, tenderloins, and backstrap were all in the freezer a few days later. I carefully aged the hindquarters over the next 10 days, and already started planning out osso bucco and fajitas. But when the CWD testing came back, it was positive. If it was just me, I probably wouldn't care--that meat looks too good, I worked for it, and (since I'm a nerd) I've read the studies that are out there on the risk of transmission. But I can't take the risk with the family...and the dog. I'm really disappointed that an otherwise really, really good hunt ends with the meat going to waste. Fingers crossed for next year that I can get a doe tag here, and at least a couple antelope tags for WY...


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## Springville Shooter (Oct 15, 2010)

Sounds like a heck of an adventure. Too bad about the CWD but better safe than sorry.——-SS


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## Jeffy JR (Dec 13, 2021)

kodoz said:


> I'm starting at the beginning here, without any knowledge of hunting deer. There's plenty of good info about antelope, so I'm feeling pretty good about that hunt, but I have this antlerless white tail tag in WY too. Almost everything I know about WTD I know from stories from friends hunting on deer leases back in Texas when I was a kid, and that can be summed up as the reason I wasn't ever interested in hunting. And most of the resources for WTD seem better tuned to hunting the forested central and east coast regions. White tail seems to be the red headed step child of the west, and I'd like some feedback on how to approach this hunt. I started with a couple premises:
> 
> Irrigated fields: just looking at the UT and WY doe hunts, many look like theyr're driven by crop damage complaints, and this hunt looks like that's what's going on with this tag. So sticking to public lands adjacent to irrigated fields and waiting for deer to traverse these areas early and late in the day seems like one approach. Here's a GE image showing fields on one side of the road, draws on public land on the other.
> 
> ...


pp


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