Ep. 64: How to Have Whitetail Success in the West

hunting seasons are just kicking off. Maybe you're gonna be listening to this on your way to a hunt this weekend for opening Day, or maybe you're right now sitting in your tree stand waiting on a white tail buck to step out, jamming on this podcast. Now, when it comes to white tail hunting, there's really just a pile of information out there about food plots, management, stand locations. The list goes on and on, and the reason is because they are the most widely hunted big game animal

in North America. But this week I wanted to break down a tactic a little bit different when it comes to hunting white tails. I want to talk about hunting white tails of the Western Way, often overlooked or really a lot of the abundant public lands and white tail opportunities from Colorado all the way to Washington State and most the states in between. But with the seemingly endless mountains and honestly thousands of places and acres for them

to hide, keen in might seem pretty difficult. So I'm just gonna give you some of my favorite tactics for locating and hunting white tails from the big timber mountains to the open broken country plains. But first, let's go on the last day hunt for a big timber white

tail buck. Now, I definitely get to hunt pretty much all the time, but a lot of that hunting has spent guiding other people are taking other people out, So when it comes to my own personal hunts sometimes it's just a weekend warrior deal where I've got a couple of days to go out and be successful. This just so happens that it was the end of the season. I just finished up my last week of guiding, and I had the end of the weekend to to hunt for myself, So I figured I had already filled my

ELK tag. I wanted to just chase white tail deer. I'd seen some pretty good white tails throughout the season. This particular year is just a couple of years ago, and figured, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna just go all out try to find a good buck for myself. The first day, I went out and saw some smaller deer, some some younger bucks, which I normally would shoot because when it comes down to the tail end, hey, I'm just looking for pretty much any meat, and I normally

end up shooting pretty young white tail bucks. But there are good deer around. I'd seen so many good ones. I thought, Okay, I'm just gonna try to find one of these good ones. I saw a couple of bucks that Saturday, and now it's closing time Sunday, and I'm like, all right, you can do this revery. So I went to one of my favorite spots to hunt. And what I what I decided to do was I was just gonna check certain areas where I had seen deer in the past. There is where I know they like to travel.

I brought my rattling antlers, I had my grunt tube, and it just kind of like doing a method of kind of cruising and hunting. So I would go hike into these spots, watch for a while, still hunt. There was some fresh snow. Unfortunately I really couldn't glass because this particular day, the weather was just what I would just consider like ship weather. It was those big snowflakes combined with fog, combined with some somehow it started to rain at one point and then snow again, so it's

just really bad visibility. Everything was really wet, really wet snow good for tracking, good for finding tracks, but not necessarily good for glassing. So the first part of the morning I actually didn't see anything. The weather was so bad. It's just blizzarding conditions, really heavy wet snow. And then I decided to go to the essentially the last evening, my last and I was gonna go to the spot where I had seen some pretty good bucks in the past.

There's just one particular opening where it was kind of like a meadow and then the hill came down, big timber around it, and there's like this one opening and this one trail that I've seen probably some of the best bucks on this particular trail. Normally I would sit there and set up, but I figured with the last day, I didn't want to just sit there all day and then not see anything and say, man, I should have checked these other spots where I've seen good deer too.

So I'm like, all right for the second half of the day, I'm gonna sit here for the evening. Hopefully a buck will come out, you know. I'll do some rattling, do some calling, and then just plan on sitting. I had some really warm clothes on him, all bundled up for the good sit. Walking slow, trying not to sweat myself into this spot is about a mile and a half walk. So I'm walking in there and I see

a dough. I'm like, oh sweet, okay, and it was like not very good visibility, and it turns out to be a mule deer dough and I'm like, huh, I normally don't see mule deer here. But that's cool, you know. So I'm like, all right. So I'm walking into my spot and this one particular opening, I don't know what it is. It's just like one of the few places you can actually see in the timber. And also there's like a good, a good trail where the deer come

out of this big almost like pondo forest. It's like the forest kind of starts to open up, so it's it's really dark timber all around it, lots of deadfall, a canyon with a creek coming by, and then there's like this one strip that maybe it was logged a real long time ago, thinned out enough where they just happened they maybe didn't want to take the ponderos the trees or something, or some of the bigger trees. There's

like just a few sporadic big trees. One clear opening that's got like not a lot of stuff on the ground or anything like you can actually see pretty good. And then it just gets back to forest. And for some reason, that one particular spot I've caught some big

white tail bucks there in the past. So as I'm moving in to the spot, I'm kind of like looking looking, looking, I look up and now you gotta remember, like the visibility is not super great because it's it's kind of dark out just with all the real thick heavy clouds, low ceiling on the clouds. It's like not even that much higher above where this opening is. And I see two deer standing in the opening, maybe about two hundred yards away. I'm like, that is perfect, Like my rifles

sighted in for two hundred yards. Sweet I dropped down. I'm like I'm kind of caught out in the open because I was gonna go to this little patch where I like to rattle from where I can rattle and kind of get stuff from the creek bottoms to come in. But I can also watch this spot and I'm within range and normally get set up, and then just like moving into the spot and there's two deer standing in there, a buck and a dough and then the dough it walked off out of sight and that buck is just

standing there like staring at me. And I dropped down. I get the rifle on him, and I'm like, oh my gosh, all I see is just like this giant frame and this dark dear like this deer is just like black color. It just came like this thing. It just says. It's just screams timber buck, you know, the kind of Bucky dream about. And I knew. I'm like, that is a giant white tail. I literally just saw a mule dear dope like right in this vicinity. I know I'm looking at a white tail. I can't see

it's rear end. I can't really see. I just I'm looking through my rifle scope at three powers, so it looks even smaller than with the naked eye. And this weird thought creeps in my head. That's way too big to be a white tail. Even though I'm like, that's a white tail. You know, I can tell based on like I've seen so many deer, the outline and the body shape of a white tail. I can tell a yards most of the time with my naked eye, just by the way they walk or whatever a white tail.

But the lighting is weird. This deer is so dark and it's just so like boxy, blocky, big, like that is a giant white tail. But I'm like, you know what, never make a stupid decision. I'm just gonna zoom my scope in. I've got this thing dead to rites in the cross there. I reach up to zoom my scope and as I'm zooming my scope magnification of I'm like, I just I'm just like I just thought to myself, I just want to zoom it in and verify, which I would do a hundred times over again. I zoom

it up. As I'm zooming it up, the buck tucks tail and runs that little movement of me reaching up to give my rifle extra magnification. That buck whips around one eighties and follows that dough through the brush away forever. I'm like, no, no, no, it was clearly I knew it was a white tail, but the size of this deer, like it's body, just the way it was standing. If I didn't just see that meal that, I would have never even second guessed it, because I knew it was

a white tail. But for some reason, I just thought, Okay, I'm just gonna zoom in and just just a double check, because that's that buck is just too big to be a white tail in this area that I'm hunting, and it was a white tail ran into the timber, never to be seen again. I of course followed and tried to follow. It was so thick I followed the tracks and never caught back up to that buck, never saw

that buck again. Unfortunately. I wish I could tell you the story of the big Country, big timber buck that I shot the best deer of my life. But it's fun to sometimes tell those stories of when you do something and it doesn't work out. And now, in hindsight, I would have done the exact same thing again. So there was no doubts in my mind before pulling that trigger. But you know, it's just one of those scenarios. Where I got there, the buck was already there. It wasn't right,

it didn't work out, and that's hunting. And unfortunately it's one of those stories where the big buck got away. And who knows, maybe next year, maybe this year, I'll find that buck again and I can update you with a more successful version of this same type of story. Ye kind of looking back over my hunting career and in the places I've worked as a guide and things that I've hunted, you know, I've actually guided a lot of different states and hunted a lot of Western states

specifically for white tails. Some of my first guiding jobs were actually big country white tail hunts archery season, and then again like later in November when the rut kicked off, big public land pieces. Over the years, you know, we got some pretty good box out of those spots. Now it seems like a lot of that, though, is just kind of overshadowed because self admittedly and talking on behalf of a lot of the other hunters that live in

these areas. Most Western hunters are just crazy about meal there, and rightfully so. But that's not to say that the white tail hunting can't be incredible, and honestly, on some public land to boot. That's the best thing about it. You know, where a lot of people live or hunt, most of the places they're hunting might be small tracks or have to get permission. It's awesome to be able to just go hunt something and not have to ask for permission for it. Now, there are some really good

hunting places out west on private lands. A lot of the guiding that I did for White Tales was and some private type pieces, and there's some incredible hunts around that agg and some other stuff. But what I want to do this week is just kind of touch a little bit on kind of finding places to hunt in those more public land type spots or places to look. And this doesn't necessarily just apply to the West, but some of this could probably be used other places as well,

maybe somewhere closer to where you live the Midwest. I mean, I actually worked in South Dakota guiding White Tales as well, and a lot of this these tactics kind of come from that, but also you know, from Wyoming or even maybe some of that Kansas there and just whatever like these these tactics hopefully can be used other places. But I'm just gonna kind of talk about my experiences and the ways that if I'm just going cold turkey into a new place that I haven't on a white tails.

Some of the tactics here, honestly, you know, for me when I think about it, or a lot of guys that hunt out west, the mule of your tags, a lot of them. You know, you can get some general tags, but a lot of the places we hunt or draw tags and then the white tails kind of like the red headed step child. Unfortunately, sorry if you're redheaded, I

guess that's not PC. But um, it's like the deer that gets ignored out here because everybody is so merely focused, merely centric, but everybody ends up hunting white tails because that's the tag that your general tag you can use, or it's an easier tag to get, or there's more availability on season dates and other things like that. Let's just break it down. So you're we're gonna just kind of make a big blanket. We're gonna throw a big

blanket on and kind of like the Western. When I talk West, I kind of think of like Colorado West, but you know that could include like Texas for some people in Oklahoma and whatever. Just I'm kind of focusing on these areas that have white tails and also large tracts of public land. And when you break that down in the most part places that I've been hunting like this,

there's two habitat category types. So there's the big timber, which would be like your mountain hunts, your more alpine areas, your big forested areas, probably steeper mountains, that mountain country. And then there's that broken country. So that broken country would be more like your coolies, your breaks, your stuff that's like rolling hills, um river bottom type stuff, more stuff that's like around agg and other things. So that's

two different types. You've got kind of like open country white tails, which is really fun and awesome place to hunt, and you've got like your big mountain timber white tails, which can also hold some really good bucks that get some age class on them. There's a lot more opportunity around public land and can be a great hunt as well. So we're gonna break down the hunts and what to focus on in those two subsets, those subcategories. So let's start with the big timber. Now, these would be what

I like to call mountain bucks. You might hear me talk about like the last couple of years, I've taken my dear at nearly the top of the mountain beginning of October. My wife actually shot her first white tail. Was it even like ninety feet at the end of November, which is just like I wouldn't think a white tail would live up here then. Yet constantly we're kind of

finding deer in these random places. But you have to understand that these white tails live in large forested areas and are different than the white tails that you might be used to that you might have grown up hunting other places, because these are mountain deer that aren't necessarily I wouldn't particularly put them in that category of patternable

because a lot of these deer actually migrate. So in those big forested areas, you're probably gonna have larger mountains, and the deer do like a lot of the other animals in the area. They go up in the summer and down in the winter. They might move a long distance, traveling from a summer range to a winter range, and you're kind of trying to catch them in this hunting

season in between. So when you're thinking about those type of white tails, you've got to be thinking of, Hey, these might not be deer that hold the very small area small home range. These are range e deer that hold a very broad area. Now, they can be fairly difficult to pinpoint a specific deer or you would think, oh, they don't really have a pattern. Yet year after year I found like some of the similar bucks, same bucks moving in kind of like the same area through the

same time. Or you might get into it an area that's like there's no deer here early in the season, and then later in the season it's just full of white tails, so you might run into that more migratory pattern type deer. Now when we're talking about that Broken Country, the deer in that Broken Country are more in that river bottom. They don't have that big mountain, that big difference.

So these deer more apt to kind of follow, I would say, patterns that are very similar to dear other places, maybe your hardwood forests of the Midwest or eastern United States, even like you know where most the country hunts their white tailed deer. These more broken country bucks kind of follow those same type of patterns, same type of things. But we're gonna be talking about that broken Country and that Timbered Country in combination because there's gonna be one

key factor that we're pulling out of here. So the broken country deer, you know, you've got your river bottoms, you've got a lot open surrounded by maybe some like draws that are thicker that will provide the cover and other things. It might also be an area where there's a little bit more agriculture, grasslands, prairie type stuff. So why we're talking about these two seemingly opposite ends of the spectrum is one because that's the two types of

white tail habitat that we're gonna be focusing on. But what we're gonna be trying to do is identifying adequate features that the deer like and use that is not readily available everywhere. So let me break that down. This is all going to start making sense here in a second. So you've got the timber country that holds white tails and you've got more open country and are generally in two completely different regions. So you might be like in one area of a state and then four hours away

is this other type of country or whatever. It's it's two completely different subsets of terrain, but we're looking for the same type of thing in both, but different things. So in that more open country. You've got a lot of open expanses, You've got a lot of things. Now, what we're going to focus on when we're looking for white tails is the thing that's more rare but they need, and that would be that cover. So in the big open, more breaks type country, what the white tails really like

is that thicker cover. When you think about breaking down a white tails habits and habitat, they're more of a forest dwelling animal. Their home ranges are often smaller. A lot of places they live and they use security undercover. They like to be near that cover. Now, when you're talking about open country, there isn't a lot of cover available.

So in those few areas where it provides the adequate cover that they like, thickets, creek bottoms, river bottoms that have a combination of a lot of trees on the edge of feed, stuff like that is where we're gonna be focusing in on. Now, the same kind of thing is true for the big mountain white tails, but in the opposite fashion, covers everywhere. So what's the most rare thing that these dear need. Well, they're gonna need that feed, and that feed might be a lot less available in

some of that stuff that's really covered. So in that particular scenario where everything's covered, I look for the areas that are more open. It also is because of my hunting style and tactic and being able to kind of pinpoint deer in this such a big area into one narrow spot. Where am I going to find the deer? So I'm looking for something that they like that's more

rare and then pinpointing those areas. If I'm just let's say, e scouting on my onyx maps or whatever, and I'm looking for places where I might potentially find white tails, I'm gonna pick an area first where Okay, I know there's a population of white tails. We have done some research, there's white tail tags in the air area, they've got deer, and then I'm going to narrow it down to okay, I'm gonna do an overview look and say, okay, what kind of country is Is this a really open country?

If it's real open, where are those creek bottoms, where are those areas that they can hide, Where are those areas that are a little bit brushier, places that might be close to agriculture, on the edge of agg where they might be going in and out of those agricultural areas, and then where are they going to bed from there? They like that safety and security to bed, So I'm just gonna pull out my map and focus on that.

When I get in the area, I'm also going to kind of look around and try to key in on places that I think there's a higher likelihood of holding deer. The same goes for the timbered areas the mountain bucks. I'm gonna be doing that same thing, but I'm gonna be looking for clear cuts, open timber pockets that will provide maybe different food sources. Another thing that I look for in those big mountain white tails is what I

call tree changes. So it's like maybe there's a pine forest and you've got this creek running down the bottom, and you notice, hey, there's different kinds of trees in there. There's more maybe some hardwoods. Maybe there's some oak trees in there. Maybe there's some aspen trees in there. Maybe there's another kind of tree other than the pine that might provide not only a food source, but maybe like a different type of cover change. Where there's some thickets

and some rose hips in there. That's like, hey, around that water source, everything's open. Everything is timbered, it's all bear grass and really bad forage. And then you've got this one wet spot that's got other grasses that might have who knows, like some different types of trees, and then like rose hips and other things that these deer can browse on, and so I look for those types

of changes. Now, once I find those kind of things, my hunting tactic is a lot different than most white tail I would say, like where you sit and wait tactic, you're ambush tactic. I use a combination of a few things. The first thing would be a combination in open country major glassing. And that's what's so fun about it is you can glass cover a lot of country with your eyes either way. Though, what I'm doing is I'm moving a lot and trying to cover a lot of country

because it's such a big area. I'm trying to narrow down where are the deer at. So I first go, okay, what kind of habitat in this particular environment are they probably most likely going to be around, depending on whether it's the open country or the mountain country, And then I'm kind of do this what I call like cruising for white tails, it's essentially a lot of moving until

I find the pockets that hold the deer. I've hunted a lot of places where it's really low density for white tails, and so I've developed this tactic for that. But it also works really well on that more big broken country that you can't really see everything in glass everything. I do a lot of walking and I do a lot of spotting as well, in a combination of still hunting and walking. So I'll be walking in areas that look really good where they've got that something different than

the deer. Like I go really slow, I start to glass, I start to really pick it apart. I look in a lot of areas, and then if I don't see anything that I'm looking for, I move now. Sometimes I will bump year you think, oh man, you messed up your opportunity or whatever. That's not always the case, because I know this sounds like a very aggressive tactic. I'm not just trying to like run through their blowing deer out. But if I do kick a deer up, then I

analyze that spot. Okay, what was it doing? Was a betting here? Now I know, Okay, well this is an area that's holding white tails. If I if I jump a dope. Okay, this is an area that's holding deer, especially if I'm hunting during the rut or something, when I can expect now is time where I start to slow down. So you've got to realize, like you've got all this land, You've got all these places to check.

It's like the density of white tailed deer might not be what you're used to if you come from somewhere like Wisconsin or Minnesota or Texas or Iowa. We like there's just hundreds of white tails per square mile whatever, at least what it appears on TV, and some places that I've checked out, there's just like a lot more deer density than you go out west and you go, yeah, there's gonna be five white tails in five square miles,

good luck, go find them. So you have to kind of covered country and understand, hey, this is where the deer at. Once I have found that, and that's just like a combination of scouting maybe with your on X or your maps, finding those those preferred habitat types for a type of country hunting, and then honestly just doing that cruising. Once I find the spots that they're going to prefer, that's when I switch my tactics over to more of a sit and wait tactic, but just on

a different scale. Now I have done it where I've I've gone in there, set up a blind or maybe like a tree stand in some places where I know, like I know their patterns, I know their trails and other things. But at that point, like what I'm doing

now is sitting and waiting, so I'll get in. I might still hunt those areas really well, like really slow still hunting, glass ng looking, especially if it's like maybe a potential betting area, and then glassing maybe more feeding areas mornings and evenings, and just identifying here's where the deer are, here's maybe where they're feeding, here's maybe where they're betting, and then I just my tactics to that. So normally what I'm doing is, once I've found the deer,

now I s down. I focus in on that smaller area because it's like, Okay, this is preferred habitat, there's deer here. Take it slow and kind of switch over to that still hunting or sitting tactic if I don't get too impatient. Many times me personally, I get some my impatients. So what I do is I go to like, let's just pick one. Let's say we're hunting mountain bucks. Checked all the clear cuts. I found a clear cut

where they're signed. I've seen deer. Cool. This is gonna be my clear cut that I'm probably gonna hunt most of the days for the rest of the trip or whatever, because I don't know exactly what's going to be there. So what I would do is in the morning, I would be glassing the edges of the open for deer to come out into that open. They do like some of the smaller shrubs, their browsers. They like that that stuff that grows in the open if everything else is timbered.

Some mornings, I'm gonna be glassing that first thing sun comes up. I'll be glassing until midmorning. Then what I'm probably gonna do is me, I'm going to start moving now, and I'm gonna start looking like hunting or still hunting through areas where I think they'll bed. So some of the thicker stuff gonna just kind of like work my way through their stop look, stop, look real slow glassing.

Then I'm gonna in the evening go back to an area that I would think would be a feeding area glass and hunt that try to spot something move in spot and stock style. The same goes for the open territory. I'll do that same thing, but within the open stuff, I tend to glass a little bit more, find those

good vantages. Middle of the day, I'm often you know, moving slow through areas where I think the deer might be moving, constantly glass and constantly looking, and then set up, you know, trying to ambush or intercept when they're either going out to feed or maybe you know, getting on hunting those fringes or those edges around agriculture or other

habitat where they might be prone to use. I also combined, when we're just kind of touching on tactics, I do a lot of calling in the thicker stuff, a lot of rattling, a lot of grunt tube, all that stuff. Like I'll set up in an area where I know there's good trails and other things where I've seen sign of deer, and I'll use those calling and and other tactics as well. Your standard white tailed tactics that work

everywhere also work out west too. So if you're a guy that's really good at that, honestly bring your tactics with you because there's a lot of people out here that live out west that don't hunt that way, and it can be very very effective at some of the like targeting specific deer if you can find them, but it does take a little bit to go from this broad hey where the deer at to pinpointing those those

specific spots that they like. One thing you will find is once you find that spot where those deer are, like, you get these like micro pockets of white tailed deer. It's like, hey, all the white tails like this area. You'll continually find white tails there. I know personally a lot of the places that I've hunted and guided and

hunted different places that west. There might be just an example, one place in Wyoming whereas like, all right, you look around and there's mule deer here, and this mule deer country, muleer country, and in this one pocket there's white tails. And you can go back to that pocket year after year and there's always white tails in there, and everywhere else around there's not very many white tails and there's some good bucks. You know, it's just because that's the

one pocket. Once I've kind of use that and understood, then I can start focusing in and hunting white tails however, you enjoy hunting them. A lot of times I would get into that particular spot. I mean I've set up tree stand many places waited, Like if I'm bow hunting, I've definitely you know, set up a tree stand, try to catch them moving from feed to betting area, what

have you. But then you can kind of focus in your tactics, narrowing it from big to small, just by trying to identify what is something that they need that they don't have a lot of in this particular area. I've actually got, you know, quite a bit of white

tail hunting coming up in in my future. It looks like because most of the meal of your seasons for me or my meal, your tags are closed, are over, and I don't know, I just it's there's just something really fun about chasing, especially that those open country white tails. You can get some really good bucks and it's just like this really fun spot and stock game because they're

so on edge. But like when you can see them especially oh it's like in the rut when they're running around and then they go bed out in the tall grass, You're like, okay, cool, time to crawl in. That can be really exciting. Can also be frustrating because it's kind of like it reminds me of spot and stock animal hunting, where they just get up and run away for no reason, chasing dose or whatever, and there's seven miles and two counties away by the time you get to them. But man,

it can be a really exciting, exciting hunt. You know. I'm kind of hoping maybe if I still have my dear tag around Thanksgiving, maybe my wife and myself will head out and just go on a full scale white tail mission. I haven't decided though, whether they're gonna go open country. You're big timber mountain bucks. There's just something cool about like getting a big mountain buck I like to call them. It's not like hunting white tails other places.

When you hunt in the mountains, those deer just act so much different than the deer everywhere else in the US, and there's just something fun about that. I kind of I kind of think of them like, I don't know, I didn't mention it. It's more similar to like hunting coos deer, but just more cover. So it can be very very exciting. On a On a side note, though, I checked my email and I drew a public Land Texas white tail tag. So I am pretty stoked about that.

I'm gonna doing that in January, a muzzleoader hunt, and uh, for me, that's going to be the opposite of what I'm talking about. It's gonna be go in you know, pick your stand location. I've got some ideas of how I'm going to hunt it. Um really looking forward to

doing that. Where that's most people like listen to this podcast because they either you know, like the Western hunting tactics are thinking about you know, coming out this way and doing that more spot and stock style hunt, and then here I am like all fired up to do the opposite style where I'm going to test my patients because I am a wander and I know that in

those in certain scenarios, these tactics aren't for everywhere. If you've got a small area to hunt, you're gonna really make some people mad if you're just sending their cruising around all day. So that won't be me. Don't worry if if you also have the tag with me, but I'm I'm really looking forward to that, so that'll be

kind of cool. I hope that this kind of like kind of shifts your mindset to if you're if you're big into white tail hunting or maybe where your white tail hunt, You're like, you know, it's just another thing to think about. And there's actually a lot more opportunity in most states to hunt white tails, and I think people just don't even think about it. There's some incredible hunting that I think it's overlooked. I'm probably gonna piss a lot of people off because I'm exposing like the

probably the last best kept secret. I'm not giving away any states or any specific spots. I'll let everybody else figure that out on their own, because I'll say one thing and then I just don't want to make too many ripples in the pond and mess something up for myself. But there are some really good white tail hunting and it's just it's definitely a really fun opportunity. So until next week, catch you later.