Scouting lowland mule deer...

[Boot]

Hi Gang. I went out scouting some old hunting ground in eastern wa yesterday. CRM, sage brush, wheat field type terrain. Turned up about 15 deer with a couple (hopefully soon to be) nice bucks. All of the deer where pretty much spotted before 9:00 am except for one buck that I caught standing up to re-positioning in his bedding area around 10:30. After that it was pretty much dead the rest of the day. 85 degrees so Im not surprised.

Here are a couple observations/ questions I took away from yesterday. Typically I start scouting closer to season and have had a lot of luck finding bucks bedding towards the top of the hills under rock structures or cliff edges that overlook the CRM/ grass areas. Yesterday though, every deer I found looked to be bedding right in the bottom in the tall grass. In my experience it seems that deer like to bed in areas with a good vantage point and escape route except these deer seemed to not really car about that. Bedding right in the middle of tall grass on relatively flat ground.

For those of you that hunt and scout the lowlands, where to you typically pick up deer this time of year? And do you find it worth the effort to stick it out all day scouting when its this hot out? Or pack it up after about 10:30 when it starts to get really warm out? I will post up some pics from the days adventure when I get back to my computer.

[MtnMuley]

Cooler bedded in the greener bottoms this time of year. If I'm scouting, it's the first and last 2 hours of daylight.

[erronulvin]

I generally archery hunt the open country every year and noticed mulies bedding at the bases of bunch grass on ridges and also noticed over the years I have seen them paw out old coyote den holes in the bottom of small crp canyons where farmers cant plow, when its hot most of those pawed out beds are shaded and way cooler (I've layed in a few because it was so hot out during September). Those are most of the areas I look for during late July through august also close to water if its near by.

[OutHouse]

I think some mule bucks do hang out lower probably due to the heat. I have found them in brushy cover near creek bottoms during the summer where it is generally cooler. However, I don't tend find them in thick hard-branched cover. I think that may be because they don't like bumping their soft antlers on hard branches but not positive.

[Boot]

That's what I noticed on the last buck I saw moving beds. He was kicking out dirt like a dog digging a hole.