I don’t know who started the myth that mule deer are dumb animals. More than likely it was some gun hunting writers from the 1950’s and ‘60’s, back in the heyday of mule deer hunting, when deer numbers were sky high, hunter numbers relatively low, and a halfway serious hunter could tag a fine mulie buck nearly every season. Under those circumstances in the wide-open spaces where most muleys were found, smacking one with a .30-06 was a pretty sure bet.
On the other hand, bowhunting mule deer has never been easy, at least for for me, and I’ve been at it since the early 1970’s. Way back then deer numbers were pretty high across the board, and locating bucks to stalk was more a matter of putting in some time and working at it than it was being Daniel Boone, or Fred Bear. I vividly remember one trip two of my college buddies and I made to the Ruby Mountains of Nevada back in the late ‘70’s. One sunny morning we glassed up 88 different mule deer bucks, most of them in the same large grassy bowl. Of course the combination of too many eyes, ears and noses, the archaic gear we had that limited my shooting to 30 yards max, and the lack of sophisticated spot & stalk skills we possessed did us in.
Since then mule deer have taken a beating. Habitat loss fueled by an exploding human population, mismanagement in some of the world’s great mule deer locales, and heavy predation by mountain lions, coyotes, and now wolves, have all reduced muley numbers well below those enjoyed by sportsmen when my dad’s generation was hunting them.
Those deer that have survived and thrived over the decades have evolved into a stealthy critter indeed. Mulie Bucks that live to be more than four years old are one smart critter, very nocturnal in nature and, like their whitetail cousins, most vulnerable during the rut or when they are still in velvet, during some of the early high alpine archery seasons that open in August. Then, though, they have the rugged high country wilderness as their ally, a place where most bowhunters just don’t have either the physical capabilities or the mental toughness needed to give them a run for their money.
Archers who call modern muleys dumb are generally those with little or no experience bowhunting them. Usually these are eastern or Midwestern whitetail hunters who would swear on a stack of bibles that their local bucks are so much craftier than the wisest muley that comparing the two is like a mental gymnastics meet between Bill Gates and Billy Carter. Not to dis a whitetail – a creature that has my utmost respect – but I have seen muleys do some amazing things.