Mule deer bucks can be some of the hardest animals to locate and harvest during the hunting season. But, armed with a little bit of knowledge and a lot of hard work, you can start to more easily locate mule deer bucks during the fall season and increase your odds of success.

Mule deer bucks will be on the sides of steeps ridges, in thick brush, or in the shade. When they are moving around during the early morning or evening time, you can likely find them near some green vegetation.

Early, Late, and Mid-season Hunts

Early Fall

Mule deer bucks can be much easier to find during early and late-season hunts when compared to mid-season hunts in the fall. During the early hunts in the month of August, bucks are generally still in their summer patterns. In many areas, this means high country areas where they are very visible.

In other regions, these bucks still remain in open areas to avoid damaging their velvet and where food is easier to find. If you can not find them in lower elevations, then try moving higher up the mountain as the bucks will be trying to cool down by going to higher elevations.

Early fall is a great time to start scouting for the October hunts.

Mid-Fall

Once the fall comes around, however, everything starts to change. The weather starts to cool, velvet gets rubbed off, and bucks will start to change their location and habits.

Instead of inhabiting more open areas, they will begin to hunker down in sanctuary locations where they feel safer and more isolated before the rut begins. These staging areas can be extremely hard to find as a hunter, and your success during the fall season could depend on your ability to locate mule deer bucks in their pre-rut hideouts.

Late Fall

During the rut, mule deer bucks come out of hiding and head out searching for does to breed with. This makes them extremely vulnerable and much easier to find, as they are constantly on the move and usually grouped up with numerous does.

For this reason, hunts during the rut are extremely coveted and can be hard to draw.

But the fall hunts, which fall right between the early and late season hunts, mean you will be hunting mule deer at a time of year where the bucks are often solitary and on high alert. They will be living in some of the hardest country to hunt, meaning you have to have the right tactics and look in the right areas.

Locating Bucks During the Mid-Fall Hunts

So, where do you begin to look on mid-fall hunts for mature mule deer bucks? Unlike the early or late seasons, these deer are not out in the open country where they are easy to spot.

Instead, you will need to focus your efforts elsewhere in order to find these solitary bucks as they are hiding. No matter what type of terrain or elevation you are hunting, begin your search with steep faces, canyons, and other hard-to-access locations.

Steep Terrain

Big, mature mule deer bucks feel much safer when they position themselves on the sides of steep ridges or in deep canyons. They will often place themselves with cliffs or rock outcroppings at their back to keep predators from sneaking up behind them.

These types of hiding spots provide them a great place to keep a wary eye on their surroundings below them and not have to worry about anything above. The rising thermals also bring the scent uphill to them, making them almost impossible to sneak up to.

Always look for thick cover

From late afternoon to early morning, these bucks will be up and feeding in nearby areas. Come sunrise and into the morning, they will make their way back to their bedding areas back on the sides of ridges and cliffs.

But, no matter what elevation or terrain you might be hunting, there is one thing that these bucks crave this time of year: thick cover. From open sage hills to the towering alpine mountains, mule deer bucks will seek out the thickest cover and the most inaccessible areas that they can find during the fall.

Fall Tactics

In order to find bucks in these tough areas, you will need to ensure that your hunting tactics and equipment are on point. These big bucks will not be on their feet for very long after first light or before last light, and thick cover can make them tough to spot when they are.

To make the most of this limited amount of time, the best tactic is to use a high-quality pair of binoculars from the best possible vantage point in the area.

Using tools such as Google Earth and pre-hunt scouting, determine the best vantage point in the area that will allow you to glass the thick hillsides or canyons that the deer will be hiding in. Get to this location well before sunrise, and by using your optics on a stable tripod, carefully comb through the surrounding ridges and canyons to find the bucks while they are on their feet and moving.

As the day progresses, the deer will start to bed down, and you will need to slow down your glassing.

Once the mule deer begin to bed down as the day goes on, you will need to slow down and carefully start picking apart every single shadow, tree, bush, and shadow.

This can be extremely frustrating and boring, as bucks can be almost impossible to see if you go too fast. But if you are lucky, you will see the flick of an ear or the tips of antlers through a bush to locate your target.

I prefer to really slow down in shady areas, as I have found deer love to stay in the shade during a warm day and will even move beds if they need to in order to stay cool.

As the day comes to an end, mule deer bucks will get up and start feeding and traveling to their main feeding and watering areas. This is another opportunity to more easily locate them, although getting close enough to harvest one during this limited amount of time can be tough.

Still, if you can find them either during the morning, evening or during the middle part of the day, you can return the next day. Mature mule deer bucks are very habitual creatures, so there is a very high chance that the deer will be in the same spot as the day before.

Final Thoughts

Hunting mule deer bucks during the mid-fall season can be a lot of fun but extremely challenging. Unlike the early or late seasons, bucks are solitary and extremely cautious, preferring to live in some of the most difficult terrains that they can find.

But with a little bit of preparation and some hard work, you can begin to focus your efforts on the types of areas that hold big bucks!

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