I've hunted the Yakima G.M.U.'s my whole life...Pre-season scouting is necessary to find the general areas the deer are inhabiting, yet once the first shots begin to ring out on opening morning, it all goes out the window! With the amount of hunting pressure those deer receive, they are pretty much impossible to pattern. Once this happens, all the mature bucks usually go totally nocturnal and hole up in the nasty *censored*! At that point, it's basically a crap shoot.
You're best bet...As someone previously mentioned, get out and hike! There's no substitute for being out in the woods.
As everyone else has said...Rimrock has deer but they are few and far between.
I'd be up scouting right now! There's lots of places for the critters to hide up in Rimrock!
Good luck!
Good advice. I have found the same thing with the mule deer down here. I got some advice from an old mule deer hunter a few years back that has seemed to work for me the past couple of years.
He said that as soon as the shooting starts the mule deer bucks WILL change their patterns and habits, but when the first shots go off on opening morning they will run along a set "escape route" to their nearest hiding place. What he suggested was to try to pinpoint that escape route by intentionally spooking the deer a few weeks before the season starts. Then come back on opening morning and sit along that escape route. It took me a couple of years to figure out how to make this work, but it does. I killed 2 of my last 4 bucks this way and my son killed his first last fall doing the same thing. In fact the deer I shot in 07 and my son's deer in 08 died about 200 yards from each other in the same draw.
Like I said though, this technique involves finding the deer you want to shoot WELL BEFORE the season starts.
Also good advice! The more tricks you can add to the bag, the better!
