Colorado 3rd season scouting?

[TexasCub]

Interested in some of your thoughts on this. I drew a 3rd season buck tag for 501,50,and 500, the area is not far from home and I spend a bunch of time through the summer and fall fishing in the area. My question is with 3rd season being around pre rut/rut is scouting going to be very effective for a later season tag like this? Im guessing that bucks will be moving into parts of the area as they are pushed down from weather (hopefully) and as they start searching out does. Any suggestions for when it would be productive to start scouting?

 

[street]

Give up fishing this year. Scout the does. Then hunt the does.

 

[PathFinder]

Scouting is really effective...years in advance during the hunting season. You can get an idea of what country the deer like and what the herd structure is like from summer scouting. If 3rd season is warm and dry like some years, deer might be pretty near summer range during the hunt.

 

[CJF]

I want to preface this that the following is my experience and opinion/interpretation of my experience and it may not be absolute truth.

It seems like MOST does move into their "staging" area between summer and winter range by mid October. They generally will stick around until December barring a major snow event. I'll go out on a limb and say if you can start mid October scouting for does then you'll start seeing bucks show up during third rifle.....UNLESS no cold fronts come to trigger the pre-rut and buck movement.

Scout does, pray for snow.

 

[TexasCub]

I want to preface this that the following is my experience and opinion/interpretation of my experience and it may not be absolute truth.

It seems like MOST does move into their "staging" area between summer and winter range by mid October. They generally will stick around until December barring a major snow event. I'll go out on a limb and say if you can start mid October scouting for does then you'll start seeing bucks show up during third rifle.....UNLESS no cold fronts come to trigger the pre-rut and buck movement.

Scout does, pray for snow.

Thats what I was thinking, mid October. There are resident does that live in the lower areas but I’m sure a bunch start moving into their wintering grounds as the late season approaches. The hard part is scouting before or after 2nd season? There will be a lot of deer hunkered down after the orange army arrives, and don’t want to compete with hunters to scout.

 

[Travis Hobbs]

I think many people, me included to an extent scout “deer” but I think there is way more value in some other information that is so critical to obtain for even a 3rd season tag in Colorado when most of the deer aren’t even there.

I have scouted 3rd season units ahead of time and saved myself days of wondering around.

Things I look for in the summer for a late season hunt- Can I pull a trailer in here if it snows, campgrounds, road conditions, possible access points, vegetation, shed antlers, and the most valuable info in my opinion, Glassing Points! I want areas I can cover a ton of country from with my optics. I really like to have 25+ great glassing spots in my pocket, ready to roll for opening day. Places I can be, 45 minutes before sunrise and KNOW I can see some prime migration/winter range and cover big numbers of deer. (Sometimes it’s a bust)

When I arrive 3-4 days before the hunt starts, I only want to concentrate on one thing finding deer.

Maybe you know the unit inside and out already where you live close... but man if not and I was in your shoes I’d be tearing that winter range country and established migration routes apart learning every detail I could.
I know I’m going to be driving from Idaho to Colorado to scout and spend a few days for my 3rd season hunt here in a few weeks. It’s priceless to me.

 

[Poser]

Curious what the highest altitude you guys have seen deer sign at in November. I’ve seen some at 10-11k while hunting elk 3rd rifle at that altitude. I assume they move down before elk, but a few stubbornly linger depending on snow?

 

[sndmn11]

The biologist and law enforcement guys for CPW in those units are extremely kind and helpful. Give them a call and you will end up with 40+ years of experience working in those units that might solve your problem.

 

[Nickofthewoods]

Curious what the highest altitude you guys have seen deer sign at in November. I’ve seen some at 10-11k while hunting elk 3rd rifle at that altitude. I assume they move down before elk, but a few stubbornly linger depending on snow?

Mentioned this about Elk in another thread I think, but at one of the Colorado Ski Areas I used to work at I would see a lot of tracks from migrating animals early in the ski season. Mostly Elk in Nov/Dec but I do remember some big blocky Mule Deer tracks coming down from 11k around Thanksgiving-ish. What I was most confused about with the Deer tracks was whether these big boys missed the rut by staying up high that late, or if they were coming down right in time for peak rut those years and they somehow knew the perfect timing. Wish I knew.