South AZ Desert Muley Rut?

I've bowhunted the desert of AZ for over 20 years now. "Generally", I've found the prime rut about the first two weeks of January......Now having said that, on some "freak" years, I've seen it a bit earlier (end of December) and later (3rd week of January). But generally it's the first two weeks of January.

If you kept seeing the small bucks with does in that particular area for basically the whole month of January, then I would guess the mature bucks of that area are few and far between......you'll need to check areas within 5 miles and locate additional does and see if you can locate mature deer.

In talking with folks this year, it was tough in the desert, as the amount of monsoon moisture has the deer spread out fairly well.....there's water everywhere. That will decrease your chances of seeing mature deer as well since they are not congregated. Keep after it......I know of a guy who arrowed a MONSTER non-typical not too long ago.....the buck was still with does. Another buddy arrowed a big buck the first few days of January in the same elevated and vegetation type. Go figure?

It was a strange year. I have been chasing these desert bucks most of my life, and I did see a few nice bucks with does, but I saw mine the last week of December, but I was hunting a different area north of Roosevelt Lake in unit 23. As BOHUNTR stated, keep after it, we have some giant mule deer bucks here. Glad to hear your back among the bowhunting guys.

The area I hunted this year normally has a lot of smaller bucks, which works fine for me, but this year I only saw a few bucks, but every one was a big mature deer? I had a hard time locating the coues bucks this year as well? But with deer & elk in the freezer and elk season only 7 months away, I guess I will survive. :)

I completely agree with BOHNTR, our resident mule deer bowhunting expert! Many reports here in AZ did indicate that the rut was just a little later than normal, however. I also agree that the area you were hunting likely did not hold many mature bucks. You will see even fewer in the future, however, because the G&F Commission this year decided that the buck to doe ratio could be pushed even lower than it ever has in the past to give more "opportunity" to hunters. I don't recall ever hearing the mature bucks will push out the fawns, however, Roy are you familiar with that?

Marvin

Thanks for all the replies!
This has really been bugging me…I truly did think that if we hunted them during the rut, that when we saw some does, there would be a buck around. Having hunted muleys all my life in Nevada, I’ve never been able to hunt them in the rut… So I was very excited to have this chance. I was bummed the second trip down when we spotted our third and fourth set of deer and no bucks with them.
I was pleasantly surprised that I did get a call back this week from the game manager for that area for the game & fish dept. What he told me is right in line with what you guys have said. It sounds like we were there during the rut. He said the buck to doe ratio is very low. And the Game & Fish dept. went against his recommendation for tags during the rifle hunt and gave out a lot more tags than he recommended. He also sounded concerned that the success rate may have been high, as this area many times has one of the higher success rates in the state for rifle hunters. In the 2 different weeks that we hunted we spotted probably close to one hundred groups of deer. With the exception of an occasional lone doe & one lone small buck, most of the groups had between 4 & 8 deer. One group had 13. And only 5 or 6 of the groups had a little buck. We also hunted different areas. Probably about 50 sq. miles (each day we would go to a different area), Just about every canyon, draw, wash eventually we spotted some deer. How can all these deer “make any babies” if there are no bucks to breed?
It really would be a shame if this area got over hunted and the deer population goes way down because there aren’t enough bucks. I guess it will give me something to do this spring and summer…Scouting some new areas.
Thanks again!
Bighorn

Where were u seeing all these deer at because i hunted 36a for mule deer this year and we saw about 30 deer and only two were bucks. If this is one of your honey holes i understand if you dont to tell me. I am 14 and i am still trying to get my first deer

Glad to hear you're hunting again. I'm new to Arizona too. Just got here last february. We hunted december. We found a spot that was little hunted because you had to walk and couldn't drive in and road hunt and found lots of bucks. Immature ones except for one. Not a hunter anywhere. In a few years it should hold some good ones when they grow up. We had some close calls but got no deer. Lots of fun though and we love to camp. We'll be at it next year again after bowseason in Utah and Colorado are over. God bless.
Mark