In my opinion, nothing is more deadly than a secluded water when it hasn't rained for 3+ weeks and with bucks coming in during the daylight multiple times a week. That scenerio is pretty impossible to beat for lethality, but it usually requires alot of scouting, cameras, and prior knowledge of an area to really get your odds high. Without those, your odds are horrible picking a random water and setting up a blind. Even in deer country, sometimes I only get daylight visiting bucks on a consistent basis on 1 in 20 waters, for instance. Many times they will act like one water is the best thing on earth one year, the next year nothing will touch it and they are watering miles away, same month of the year. FYI, blinds really cook during the middle of the day, lots of frozen drinks help. If it rains, cancel any water plans, no matter how excited you were about them, until its been dry for a couple weeks.
That being said, spot and stalk is more fun and can be very deadly if you glass them early and watch them bed down. You just have to be physically acclimated to do a suffer fest heat stalk in the middle of the day, and be able to get the meat taken care of asap. Are you the kind of person that will exercise in 95+ degree heat? Thats kind of what it takes to do desert August hunts, and be good at them, and not die, in my opinion:)
Thanks for the lengthy information filled reply. Thats the issue, I am going to a place I have never been before but there *is* water (according the a map of springs). I'll probably glass, cover miles truck/atv and check out as many springs as possible without killing myself. I am also not sure of what elevation band the bucks will be in. Do they move up in the heat? I'll be on the mountain south of where it says you live.
Those who hunt the August OTC deer season (or just know how they behave) do you sit water or just spot and stalk early morning/late evening? With temps around 100* I am trying to learn how to best hunt em.
Tactics in brutal heat: August OTC season.
in Mule Deer Hunting
Posted · Report reply
Thanks for the lengthy information filled reply. Thats the issue, I am going to a place I have never been before but there *is* water (according the a map of springs). I'll probably glass, cover miles truck/atv and check out as many springs as possible without killing myself. I am also not sure of what elevation band the bucks will be in. Do they move up in the heat? I'll be on the mountain south of where it says you live.