I'm jealous!!!
Is it as rigorous a hunt as Elk is? Or is more like how we hunt deer here in IN? Kind of a sit in a good spot and wait?
Sounds pretty dang awesome. So your tag is good for mulie or white tail? How much was it?
It will not be as rigorous as an elk hunt as the terrain is not as rough, but it will be nothing like we hunt deer here sitting and waiting.
Basic day will be
Wake up in time to hike 3-4 miles before the sun comes up.
Find the highest spot in that area, and walk to it.
Glass until you find animal you can make a play on (wind/terrain, etc)
GO GET IT, PACK IT OUT.
This will not be the type hunt where we kill 200 inch mulies. It will be where we kill the mulie equivalent of a 6 point basket rack. Most of the area we are looking at will have more, and better whitetail than mulies, but to be honest, I can kill whitetail here, so if its not a whitetail north of 160, Im not wasting my tag on it. I want a mulie, I don't thing the others are as picky.
Ive read that a lot of Nebraska was flooded enough to make it un accessible during bow, and early rifle season. If we can find those area's that is probably where we will start.
You're welcome! I wish I had more specific or recent info to share, though I doubt things have changed a whole lot. The area where the three states meet is basically the Oglala National Grasslands and yes it is a big area. I've hunted pronghorn in parts of it twice including the pretty far into the NW corner. The road coverage is decent enough to let you get to some good jumping off points but be aware that some roads shown on the map are more accurately described as drive able trails and some of the dead end into private ranch roads with little warning. Unfortunately, though I saw a fair number of mule deer while hunting out there, I was focused on antelope and not really looking for trees or riparian cover.
Here's an example of the quality of mule deer you might be able to find in the area. I took this photo on my first trip to hunt pronghorn and this one on a bit of private land surrounded by the Oglala NG. Certainly not giants but two pretty good bucks.
Really don't have any advice to offer, just posting to say let us know how it goes. I took my son to WY for our first antelope hunt, successful btw, he got his buck on day 3. I really enjoyed walking and working a little for it, rather than just sitting still in a tree all day. Interested to see what other options there are for out west hunting without running into the high pressure, high cost of some of the big time hunts. Would love to do elk, but those are either 10 years of accumulating points, or OTC tags in Colorado that sounds like they have hunters on top of each other.
Agree with the ATV option. We did cover some single tracks in WY, thankfully it was dry all week, so no issues. I have a truck, but it is only 2wd, so I was paranoid about getting stuck.
You might look into Wyoming or Montana for elk both have some decent options that shouldn't require 10 years to draw or the use of an outfitter.
Texas has some good public land options for whitetail, mule deer, hogs and exotics that you can draw permits for if any of those are of interest. Some are harder to draw than others but I've been drawn for 8 hunts in 15 years including a few hunts where the odds of being drawn ranged from one in several hundred to one in a couple thousand. Of course, that was with several applications per year and the mule deer hunts are among the harder ones to draw.
If you are interested in hunting bear at all, tags are easy to draw in several western states and with some research you can find areas that work well for spot and stalk style hunting.