Hunting Tucannon

[buckhorn77]

Anyone have experience deer hunting the Tucannon area??  I've been through it and see that fires have burned over some of it.  How is the deer herd there?  I taking my son hunting mule deer for the fisrt time and would like to try it there.

[wreckerman5357]

The fires killed all the deer, there are none left. Just kidding. I have been hunting there all my life, and the hunting is still good. There is a good mix of muleys and whitetails, so don't tie yourself down to one species. Be prepared for battle hunting because a lot of people hunt there. You have two basic options, find a place that's a lot of work to hunt, or get private land other people can't hunt. I hunt my families ground for the most part, where only my hunting party is allowed.

 Make sure you get windmill permits. They open up a lot of land to hunt on.

[Armadillo]

jackalope harvested the last of em

[buckhorn77]

Thanks for the information.  I was already planning on getting a wind farm permit.  Actual saw quite a few mule deer while driving through the wind farms when I was last out there in May.  I've never gotten a mule deer before and hope to have a chance at one.  Whitetails are all we have in Minnesota and i've been hunting them for 40 years.  Actually just got home from an evening of bow hunting and was entertained by some turkeys and a couple of small deer.  The season is still young. Thanks again.

[Whitetailatheart]

Hey Buckhorn, where in MN are you?  I grew up near Rochester and also have been hunting there for 35 years.  Live in Washington last 17 years and finally got a muley a few years ago, definitely different than whitetail hunting!!

[400out]

Just prepare yourself for lots of people! Try to find possible escape routes and get in early! let everyone push for you! you will see deer! Good luck to you and your boy!

[buckhorn77]

I live in Carlton, just south of Duluth.  I deer hunt mostly north of the St Louis River with my son and cousins.  We do quiet well.  I really want to get a muley though.  I missed a nice 4x4 muley a few years ago with my bow in Montana hunting the breaks.  My son doesn't bow hunt, so we're going rifle hunting in WA instead.  We plan to get ourselves off the beaten path hopefully away from most other hunters.  My son moved to the Tri-cities last year and it has been tough hunting here without him.

[wreckerman5357]

I hope your hunt goes well and you get that Muley you are looking for. I will be up off Patit hunting some ground my uncle farms. Another word of advice, watch what other hunters are doing. The deer down in the Tucannon will have a lot of pressure on them and a guy hunting public land down there can be succesful by keeping an eye on what the other specks of Orange and letting them run the deer to you.

[jackelope]

I love the Tucannon. I think if you want mule deer you should expect to see very few deer and stay high. I'm sure that if you stick to the old rule and get a mile or 2 from the roads you'll see a lot more deer and a lot less hunters but the simple fact is that there are not a lot of deer there.  Big muley  bucks are even harder to come by. Definitely the whitetails are a lot easier to find than the muleys. It's cool that they made the new special late permits good for a whitetail now too. I could have killed a couple really nice whiteys last year.  When I was doing my research last year for my late hunt and the biologist told me to expect to see 20 deer a day on a good day, my heart sank a little, I'm not going to lie. We got beat up a little by mother nature but I got really lucky and killed this buck on the 3rd day of my hunt. It was the 1st muley buck that we saw that was not a tiny buck and about the 30th or so mule deer we saw total.  We saw lots of whitetails down by the river where we camped and even saw some up in the higher elevations with the snow flying. Those deer down there, both species, definitely seem to be a little tougher when the snow flies than deer in other parts of the state. My buck was around 5500' and it was almost december when I killed him.

[Alaska316]

Love that area. It can throw all kinds of weather at you. Be prepared for anything. Lots go quality animals come out of that area. Lace your boots up.

[buckhorn77]

Thanks Guys,

I appreciate the advise, this will be a new experience for me.  I have bow hunted in the Missouri River breaks in MT and have stalked both mule deer and elk there.  But where I usually hunt for deer is in the forests of NE Minnesota, I'd think I'd died and gone to heaven if I saw 10 deer in a day.  The weather can be very harsh also.  I hope I'm  up for the challenges of hunting in your neck of the woods.  Good luck to all of you this year too.

[Co]