Deer activity for opening weekend

[notellumcreek]

With the early snow we have recieved above 5000 ft., I figured I would start a thread to see what the general idea is for the deer behavior in the mountains. Where I have been up hiking at there is a good foot of snow or more on the ground. I know there might be a difference between the 3 species, but have people been seeing the deer getting pushed down yet? Its still early and I know the bigger bucks won't leave until they are pushing snow with their noses; my personal experience this year I have seen them moving down a little with that first heavy snow we had around the 1st of October. Good luck to everyone this weekend!

[Jonathan_S]

I am speaking about whitetail and I am NOT an expert but I believe they won't move down from the 4000 ft mark until browse decreases and the pre-rut kicks off in the first week of November.

They won't come down yet and they hit that big slump in October and move much less.  The colder it is, the better in my opinion.

If you're talking mule deer, I really don't know.  The areas I hunt, the mule deer bucks never seem to come down and if it's blacktail...who cares, they're ghosts anyway 

[jackelope]

Unless there's an unusually large amount of snow up high, the big mule deer bucks won't move down until the rut starts to kick off.
 

[JLS]

A foot of snow is pretty trivial to deer and elk.  When there is 2-3 feet and it's drifting and crusting, then it becomes a motivational factor to leave.