Owyhee Desert Mule Deer – Controlled Archery

Evening spotting for muley bucks on the Owyhee Desert. Hard to focus on the deer with these kinds of sunsets!

Owyhee Desert Mule Deer Setup

In my home state of Nevada, mule deer numbers have been decreasing each year for a long time, maybe 40 years or so. Hunters seem to point fingers at the Department of Wildlife or cattle ranchers, but I don’t see data that supports either of those ideas. I’m not writing this to argue the situation (it’s the habitat, stupid). I’ve begrudgingly come to learn to accept what is happening, which is different than giving up. While we work to solve the riddles that confront mule deer in Nevada and elsewhere, I’ve decided to continue to pursue hunting by adding multiple states to my menu.

My daughter Amanda lives in Idaho. Since 2016, we’ve been learning to hunt both elk and deer in Idaho. This year, my wife and I decided to throw our own hat in the ring, and enter the Idaho controlled and over-the-counter (OTC) hunts as well. We were going for round two with Owyhee Desert mule deer! Thanks to our dear daughter for opening our eyes to additional possibilities. Thank you also to the folks at GoHunt for helping us to evaluate the options for all western states. Finally, the great state of Idaho sports one of the better hunt planning tools, so check it out!

Archery Reborn

In the 1990s both my wife and I took up bows to hunt deer and antelope. Not long after, with family and work constraints, we neither one felt that archery season fit into our plans. A few years back, at a mule deer dinner in Winnemucca, I “won” a new bow which put me back into the archery business. Unfortunately, I just had shoulder surgery, so I’ve been a bit slow taking up the bow again. I could see that in Idaho, the OTC success rates for elk were comparable for bow or rifle. In Idaho you can put in for a controlled hunt and if you don’t draw this, you are able to hunt OTC.

Things really changed in 2018 when Tammy agreed she wanted to take up the bow again as well. I’d been formulating my Idaho plans for a couple of years. Our daughter’s hunt on the Owyhee Desert in 2017 solidified my desire to hunt there again. The Owyhee is a wide-open space that has always called to me, at least since I was around 11 or so. It is so remote and wild. Last year, we took on a controlled hunt and Amanda came away with a mature four-point buck. Now I wanted mine!

Just to set the stage, we hunted in areas bounded by the Bruneau River on the east, Juniper Mountain on the west, and the Nevada border to the south. True, not all of that is precisely “Owyhee Desert”, but it is one large contiguous block of geography to me. My original plan was to hunt in some small areas near the Nevada border that should eliminate most Idaho hunters.

Our Plan

A nomad’s setup! Target, food, gear, beer, water, toilet paper, and deodorant. We were ready for it all.

Without getting into too much detail, Tammy and I hatched a plan for controlled hunt applications. She drew the Owyhee Desert mule deer archery tag and I drew a tag in another part of the state. We came up zeros on the pronghorn tags. I turned my controlled deer tag back in to focus on Tammy’s better tag and picked up an OTC deer tag so I could be a bit in the game. I could only take a 2-point buck with the OTC tag in her area, but it had utility in Idaho once her season ended as well.

We immediately turned up the archery practice at the range, and Tammy became proficient out to about 50 yards. As the summer progressed, we kept cranking up her limb bolts bit by bit. By the time season started, she was pulling 42 pounds at 29 inches. This would be plenty for her to take her deer out to 40 yards, and her ultralight Bowtech Carbon Icon was producing tight groups.

Scouting

We knew where we wanted to hunt, but we figured we’d better get in a scouting trip. We saw plenty of sage grouse and pronghorn, but no deer. On one occasion, I was searching for some antelope that had crested a ridge and disappeared. With rimrocks dropping forty feet or more, I was puzzling over where the hell they went, when I saw something that truly surprised me. About 180 yards away, a single mountain lion was ambling through calf-high cheat grass. He seemed completely unaware of us and I managed to alert Tammy before he faded into the sagebrush nearer to us. It was a little chilling, but we moved toward him attempting to get him (or her) to show again. No luck, and I could tell my wife wasn’t too disappointed not to see that cat again at close range.

We chalked up our lack of deer sightings on that trip to plain old bad luck. We made our plans to come back out to where we saw that lion and make camp there high on the rim above one of the many spectacular gorges that cut through the lava flows of southern Idaho.

Tammy’s Bowtech Carbon Icon, ready to roll, propped against an Owyhee basalt rock!

Opening Morning

We got to camp the evening before opening day. During fair weather, we’ve learned to use the back of our truck as our sleeping place. In northern Nevada and southern Idaho we are blessed with dry days and rarely need the shelter of a tent. This keeps our camps light and mobile while allowing us to hike out early in the predawn. Best of all, if things go south for us in a particular area, we just follow our nose to the next camp. We always have multiple areas and contingencies for this.

Opening morning came and with it came smoke…a lot of smoke. There was so much smoke where we were that we lost the sun completely on multiple occasions that morning. We could find no deer. We saw quite a few different bunches of elk along with some sage chickens and pronghorn, but no deer. Little did we know, the South Sugarloaf Fire had started the afternoon that we arrived at camp. This fire would go on to burn nearly 250,000 acres of the land in Nevada most precious to us and our family. If anyone wants to know what is happening to mule deer in northern Nevada, it comes down to fire and cheat grass. The fuel loads have risen to epic proportions due in part to the curtailment of grazing and now we are paying a heavy price.

What Now?

Tammy and I poked around the Idaho/Nevada border for the remainder of that day, but to no avail. Rarely have I had a day afield with less success. We were convinced we no longer wanted to hunt this part of southern Idaho, so we hit the nearest road and moved our camp 40 or 50 miles. On our evening trip into the other area, we were heartened to immediately find several groups of deer from the truck. Tammy’s Owyhee Desert mule deer hunt was back on track!

We woke before dawn and rolled out of bed on day two. One of the beautiful things about the Owyhee in August is privacy. We were the only folks out in this part of the desert and we could spot 360-degrees from a small rise just a couple-hundred yards from our beds. It didn’t take long to realize we were in much better shape as we found over a dozen bucks that morning. We couldn’t set up a legitimate stalk that weekend, but we knew we’d found our spot for the remainder of the season.

August

We hunted two more weekends in August, with no other company or hunters. Tammy had some frustrating stalks and missed encounters with some nice bucks. Finally, on the last weekend of August we found a mature four-point bedded in a place that held promise. Tammy put a stalk on this buck for about six hours, patiently bedding and rebedding him. She finally had him dead to rights at 19 yards but it took a while for him to give her a chance to draw.

He stepped behind a bush and I watched Tammy come to full draw through my spotting scope. She held full draw while he ate, and ate, and ate. She held full draw for over 40 seconds if it was five. I waited for her to let her draw down and spook the buck, but instead she let her arrow fly. I watched that buck take off through the scope. No blood. No arrow. And certainly no limp. Just a mule deer buck running, trotting, and bouncing along like he had no idea what was going on. Tammy found her arrow and the buck’s track…no blood anywhere to be found. Somehow, she had made a clean miss at 25 yards. Maybe it was the long hold, but she surely had a case of adrenaline. It is one of the most exciting things holding your bow back on a buck that close. Adrenaline makes you focus, but it takes its toll within a few seconds, as Tammy could tell you!

September

The trashed-up roads were horrific when we came back the next week. The unlimited archery antelope season had started and now we were seeing people. In fact, we were seeing too many people. Our Owyhee Desert mule deer hunt seemed to be one of sharing…with pronghorn hunters! The only saving grace in the matter for us was these hunters seemed entirely focused on ground blinds at water holes. As it turns out, the hunters in this second archery season didn’t seem to significantly hurt our hunt.

My job in the evenings was to locate deer for tomorrow’s morning hunt. 360-degree views were an amazing use of my Swarovski scope.

By the time September and Tammy’s hunt were drawing to an end, we had one more little surprise. In the part of the desert we were hunting, rifle antelope season had started. Roads that had seen almost no traffic suddenly presented deep powdery dust, and UTV/ATV encounters were frequent. This did seem to impact the hunting significantly, so we changed our plans to find a more remote place. We found remote, but we couldn’t locate any deer nor much deer sign. The extra pressure kicked our butts, and Tammy’s season came to an end with one final unsuccessful stalk. It was an exciting stalk and she nearly got it done on a big boy, but she left him for next year!

Seasons

I know full well which other seasons will be open and interfere with my hunts when I apply for tags. In fact, it is a large part of my strategy when applying. While Tammy hunted her deer, the antelope hunting traffic steadily increased. What we learned about this hunt was to hit it hard for the first four weeks and don’t count on the second half of the season.

This hunt held adventure for me every single day. Tammy went from initial frustration to excitement and engagement. She had an opportunity to put a stalk on a legitimate Pope and Young four point, and some other nice mature bucks. This year was a learning experience. Next year we will be back and squared away from day one. Look out ye Owyhee monster bucks, we’ll be back!!