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Author Topic: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?  (Read 1990 times)

Offline NE Hunter026

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Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« on: September 27, 2024, 02:15:40 PM »
Trying to decide where to go for modern deer 2024 season. Any advice ?

Offline Sakko300wsm

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Re: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« Reply #1 on: September 27, 2024, 03:43:35 PM »
Nice first post , but 101 is a no go for high number MD
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Offline addicted1

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Re: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2024, 06:04:13 PM »
You might as well get a magic ball and ask it.

Offline huntnnw

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Re: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« Reply #3 on: September 27, 2024, 06:32:25 PM »
Boots on the ground and go learn it. What we all have done .

Offline emac

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Re: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« Reply #4 on: September 27, 2024, 07:40:20 PM »
Go take a dive into 169

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Re: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2024, 08:57:07 PM »
Go take a dive into 169

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Offline Rutnbuxnbulls

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Re: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2024, 06:11:53 AM »
Deer in every part of this state.  They are where you find them. If you can get out there and get in some good country and find some good deer to hunt, let us know how it went. Tell us a story. Over time you will garner your own knowledge.

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Re: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« Reply #7 on: September 28, 2024, 06:39:06 AM »
Follow Karl's lead

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Re: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« Reply #8 on: September 28, 2024, 09:08:08 AM »
Find an old logging road in any portion of North Central Washington on a mountain of 5500+ feet of elevation. Find a road that dead ends in an area that has several square miles with no other roads entering it. Put your backpack on and hike. Hike a couple miles into the area, far enough that you won't hear or encounter the average hunter that slams the door when they leave their vehicle in the morning. Find a canyon with water holes on steep slopes that are covered in thick brush or timber thickets that seem impenetrable. Find rock ledges and outcroppings above the water holes that have scattered timber pockets and you will have found Mule deer country. Be able to stay in for 4days/3nights or so. Go in the day before the season and find a place away and above the water and bedding areas to camp. Find the corridors that deer are using and then sit on them all day long. With no new moon occurring this year during the modern firearm season, plan on having to push the animals out of their bedding areas to see them during daylight hours. Let other hunters move animals to you. Check the quality of the food on the upper slopes. If it crumbles in your hands and is void of moisture, hunt lower. If it's in good shape, look for deer coming and going early and late.
 Good luck, the search is the point of it all! 

Offline NE Hunter026

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Re: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« Reply #9 on: September 30, 2024, 04:46:34 PM »
Thank you gentlemen for the repsones.  Chukardogs, appreciate the detail. My plan is to get in as far away from roads as possibly. The units I mentioned fit my needs as far as being close enough to home were I can scout often, relatively steep and glassable, and public land with roadless areas. I know boots on the ground is paramount, my deer hunting (5 years now) has exclusively been in NE WA and I wanted to get a feel if trying SE units like 169 and 172 was a good idea or not.

Offline bachto

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Re: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« Reply #10 on: October 01, 2024, 08:31:13 AM »
If you did a little more research you would know the entire 172 unit burned up this year.. not saying you cant find deer.

169 is going to make you work super hard for a deer., physically and mentally.  It's steep, like really steep. low deer densities as well.

Offline Cspahman99

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Re: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« Reply #11 on: October 02, 2024, 01:35:40 PM »
Find an old logging road in any portion of North Central Washington on a mountain of 5500+ feet of elevation. Find a road that dead ends in an area that has several square miles with no other roads entering it. Put your backpack on and hike. Hike a couple miles into the area, far enough that you won't hear or encounter the average hunter that slams the door when they leave their vehicle in the morning. Find a canyon with water holes on steep slopes that are covered in thick brush or timber thickets that seem impenetrable. Find rock ledges and outcroppings above the water holes that have scattered timber pockets and you will have found Mule deer country. Be able to stay in for 4days/3nights or so. Go in the day before the season and find a place away and above the water and bedding areas to camp. Find the corridors that deer are using and then sit on them all day long. With no new moon occurring this year during the modern firearm season, plan on having to push the animals out of their bedding areas to see them during daylight hours. Let other hunters move animals to you. Check the quality of the food on the upper slopes. If it crumbles in your hands and is void of moisture, hunt lower. If it's in good shape, look for deer coming and going early and late.
 Good luck, the search is the point of it all!

When you mention checking the quality of the food, what exactly is the food that they are munching on at that elevation? Is there a specific food source you look for in those dense timber patches or around the water you mentioned?

Offline finnman

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Re: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« Reply #12 on: October 02, 2024, 06:27:31 PM »
Find an old logging road in any portion of North Central Washington on a mountain of 5500+ feet of elevation. Find a road that dead ends in an area that has several square miles with no other roads entering it. Put your backpack on and hike. Hike a couple miles into the area, far enough that you won't hear or encounter the average hunter that slams the door when they leave their vehicle in the morning. Find a canyon with water holes on steep slopes that are covered in thick brush or timber thickets that seem impenetrable. Find rock ledges and outcroppings above the water holes that have scattered timber pockets and you will have found Mule deer country. Be able to stay in for 4days/3nights or so. Go in the day before the season and find a place away and above the water and bedding areas to camp. Find the corridors that deer are using and then sit on them all day long. With no new moon occurring this year during the modern firearm season, plan on having to push the animals out of their bedding areas to see them during daylight hours. Let other hunters move animals to you. Check the quality of the food on the upper slopes. If it crumbles in your hands and is void of moisture, hunt lower. If it's in good shape, look for deer coming and going early and late.
 Good luck, the search is the point of it all! 

My wife and I have done exactly this above, inside 101 in years past. We have never killed the big one, but we have spotted and stalked and jumped up some of the biggest muley's we have ever laid eyes on in this state. I really enjoy it and we have found that the rougher and steeper the ground the more likely you are to have no company once you get 1/4 mile off the road. Cool thing is those big whitetails bucks will be right there at 5,500' elevation too! we enjoy it so much we bought 21 acres adjacent to some remote public land over in 204....learning new ground now....have fun figuring it all out!

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Re: Mule deer hunting GMUs 204/101 or SW WA 169/172?
« Reply #13 on: October 02, 2024, 08:51:39 PM »
I'm no Mule deer biologist. I don't know what all the different shrubs and browse are. I've learned by what I've seen over 32 years hunting the same mountain. When I find the browse above our camp at 5300 feet, dry and crumbly, we see no deer sign at all except maybe lone large buck tracks coming and going into the highest rocky canyons before and after dark. On the years where all the feed was dry up high, we found the majority of the deer sign down at around 4500 or lower. The deer were hanging in thick stuff around water holes or on the shady North face in the birch thickets at the same elevation.
 My own stubbornness for hunting up high for the bigger mule deer bucks probably cost me over the years. If my goal was to take a deer every year, I would have been better off, checking the feed up high early and then hunting or moving down accordingly but I usually just figured that the buck I was looking for had to be hangin up high and wouldn't be down low with the does and smaller bucks. Because of this, I've gone many years where the only deer I saw were on the trip in and the trip out.
 I took in gear last week and all the feed up high seems to be in great shape, soft and moist and  there's no tracks at all down low. Should be a good season. Good luck out there.

 


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