Average migration distance?

[muleracks]

It has always been my impression that the individual mule deer go to the same spot to spend the summer and winter; same small drainage or meadow.  Not sure if the PUD and WDFW studies in Chelan County confirms that impression.

Be interesting to know what the deer do when they arrive at the big winter range burns in the Swakane GMU 250 and the massive Okanogan County burn.  You would think that they would keep seeking out green spots in the burn or go on to areas that did not burn. 

[jasnt]

Lotta whitetails in NE WA migrate..Almost all the mt deer will move somewhere...and then there is the clayton/deer park herd that is farm country that migrate like stated above one of the few if only herds of whitetails that migrate outta farm country in the state. I lived in this area and it didnt matter if it snowed or not by Nov 30th every years the deer just started disapperaing and by early Dec then were gone.

yup still like that. If winter is mild tho there back by late January. I live on one of the routes and some years we find tons of sheds others not a one.

[no.cen.wa]

Mule deer can flat out cover some ground when pushed. On occassion it has been documented that if pushed by severe weather they have been known to move 50 miles in a 24 hour period.Even during a normal migration year,during an "average"winter, some will migrate that far at there own pace.Some will migrate 5 or 10 miles,some 40 or 50,some will even travel farther to the winter range depending on what mother nature throws at em in regards to weather.Without alot of "details" a pardner of ours shot a big buck some years ago that had a collar and transmitter around its neck,he was a "big boy" of a buck! He followed the instructions on the collar and called it in. He was told by the bio the story of this buck,they had collared him 7 years earlier and the batteries had went dead the last 2 years of his life and they didnt know if he was alive or dead. The years the transmitter was working he was spending his summers in British Columbia and wintering in the Methow. Where we shot him was about 60 miles from his summer range in B.C. The 3 or 4 years they tracked  him, his winters were spent in a 3 to 5 mile radious area in the Methow.

bigmacc is right,
 I talked to a gamey 20-25 years ago in the Methow that said they callored and tracked muleys up to 60 miles north of the Canadian border. He said when they would start moving down they may not stop at all!  When the season was long, "till the first part of November", we would always check the hooves, looking for bleeding, many were really beat up. It's still something we like to check.

[300rum]

I asked an Idaho GW where the Frank Church deer migrated and he said that they pretty much don't, holing up on a south slope, etc.  Pretty amazing for how brutal that country is/can be. 

[zwickeyman]

Muleracks,

I agree. I've seen the same big bucks winter in the same canyon every year.