Make Your Plans to Chase the Mule Deer Rut

When it comes to the word “rut,” we bowhunters often think about Midwestern whitetails posturing and snort-wheezing or giant bull elk bugling in the crisp, mountain air. But in my opinion, the mule deer rut may be the greatest rut a bowhunter can chase!

Although I am Ohio born and raised, and someone who cut his bowhunting teeth on whitetails, over the past decade I have become completely captivated by rutting muleys and find myself leaving home each November to pursue the gray ghosts of the Mountain West. The intricacies of finding deer, identifying a shooter buck, putting together a plan of attack and executing that plan certainly make for a difficult challenge, but it is one I look forward to each fall.

A Strategic Approach

Unlike hunting rutting whitetails, the mule deer rut offers a different spin on “chasing” the rut! What I mean is that I will cover a lot of country and be on the lookout for rutting mule deer bucks, and when I find them, the chase begins! To better understand this approach to hunting the mule deer rut, let’s dive into the intricacies of the mule deer breeding cycle.

Like whitetails, mule deer only breed in the fall/winter. The most intense rutting action will occur in November throughout most of the mule deer range, though in southwestern states such as Arizona and New Mexico it will occur later. During the rut, bucks travel long distances in search of estrous does. Due to the vastness of the western landscape, it is not unusual for a muley buck to travel 15 miles or more in a single day as he searches for a mate. Based on my experiences, some mule deer bucks seem to have core areas, branching out to breed but returning often, while others seem to move constantly from area to area, without any easily discernible pattern. Considering that the main rut lasts around 30 days, this means a particular mule deer buck could be just about anywhere!

With that said, food is the focus for mule deer does at all times, and the “feed line” on the mountain will determine where the does are. The feed line refers to the elevation where deer are feeding. For example, early in the season, deer can typically be found at high elevations, where there is still plenty of green feed and temperatures are cooler. But as fall progresses, food availability at higher elevations diminishes, forcing deer lower in search of food. And by late fall, as cold temperatures settle in and snow begins to cover higher elevations, deer will typically be found even lower in wintering grounds that offer sufficient food and cover throughout the harsh winter months. Regardless, you can rest assured that during your hunt, you’ll find the biggest concentration of does around the best food sources, and if you’re hunting the rut, you can also be sure that where the does are, the bucks will be too!

Anticipating the feed line offers you a good starting point for your pre-hunting scouting. One thing I’ve found useful is to reach out to the local DNR office or game warden about a week prior to my hunt — along with any other local contacts I have — to get a general idea of where the feed line is. From there, I use onX Hunt and start scouring the corresponding elevation lines for places I believe will hold deer. Then, I want to identify high vantage points above those areas that will allow me to use my optics to cover as much country as possible with my eyes and not my legs. This saves valuable time during the hunt, not to mention energy better spent making stalks!

In addition to using digital mapping tools to make educated guesses about where deer are likely to be hanging out when you arrive, you can also remotely monitor the weather forecast and snow cover conditions as your hunt approaches and adjust accordingly. Once you arrive in your hunting area, your boots-on-the-ground scouting efforts should be much easier having done this homework ahead of time. Rather than trying to scout the entire mountain, you can focus on a particular range of elevation and cover ground until you start seeing good concentrations of mule deer.

Adapt On The Fly

Of course, no matter how good your pre-hunt preparation is, you must stay flexible and adapt quickly to the conditions you encounter in the field. Come prepared with multiple game plans until you figure out your best strategy for a particular hunt.

Personally, I like to stay as mobile as possible during my hunts by using a vehicle as much as I can. Unlike my early-season bowhunts for velvet muleys, where I traditionally pack into a specific area for days on end, rut hunts require more mobility to be successful. So, I’ll go to an area, park my truck, hike in for the day and base my next move on what I’m seeing, or not seeing. With the aid of a good, four-wheel-drive vehicle and some pre-scouted glassing points, you can cover a lot of ground in a day. And if you don’t find what you’re looking for, you can cover a lot more ground in a completely new area the next day.

Since you never know exactly what conditions will be until you are on the ground, I like to use onX to make plans for scouting multiple areas throughout my hunt. That way, I know I have five to 10 hunt plans ready to go before I ever arrive. In a perfect world, I’ll never need more than one, but knowing the best parking areas, trailheads, campsites and glassing points throughout my hunting unit will help maximize my efficiency with the limited time I have to hunt.

Rut Crazy

The chaos and craziness that comes with the mule deer rut is what drives me to come back every year! I absolutely love that I can play the glassing game and mix in spot-and-stalk hunting. With bucks frantically chasing does, this is a super fun time to be afield. My focus is to find a buck that is either alone, out looking for an estrous doe, or one that is locked down with a doe. Both these scenarios give a bowhunter the opportunity to make a play on the buck.

When I find a buck alone, he is typically not going to stay in one place very long! Usually, he is looking for does or scent checking doe bedding areas to smell whether any local does are in estrus. However, a lone buck is a very killable buck, with only one set of ears and eyes and one nose to beat! The biggest challenge is predicting where he will go. I typically try to quickly figure out his line of travel and then cut him off. My hope is that I can get in front of him and let him make the final mistake by simply walking into shooting range. Obviously, the wind must be in your favor to pull this off, and by using terrain to your advantage, you can try to slip into the area he’s heading before he gets there. I’ve had a lot of success doing this over the years, but beware — things can happen fast, and more times than not, the buck will beat you to the spot!

Now, if I find a buck with a doe, or a group of does, this presents a very different scenario. I now have a ton of ears, eyes and noses to beat! My plan must now be much more precise, but I typically have more time to map out a plan. Usually, a buck will stick with a doe or doe group all day if one is in estrus. He will feed and bed with the doe as she goes about her day. If she is in heat and ready to breed, he may court her off on her own and head to thick security cover. Both these scenarios provide a much greater challenge for a bowhunter.

In a scenario with multiple deer involved, patience kills the buck! I’m waiting on this buck to move into a position that is in my favor before I try to slip into bow range and get an arrow into him. Maybe that’s when he moves his doe to a more secluded spot, or that could be during the evening when the whole group gets up to feed. Either way, I’m looking for an opportunity to get the wind in my favor and slowly slip into a position that gives me the upper hand.

This is what makes hunting the rut so fun — it’s unpredictable and total chaos! You truly never know what will happen, and that’s the beauty of the beast. If you’ve not tried chasing rutting mule deer, you are missing out! Give it a try and I bet that just like me, you’ll come back looking for more!

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