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It takes a few years to figure out where and what terrain types bucks tend to prefer during a specific time of theyear across the West. But you can cut your learning curve down.
Layer stacking to showcase where I could concentrate my scouting/hunting efforts for a late-season mule deer hunt.
When it comes to planning out a hunt, there are certain things I’ve been doing for a lot of years in my digitalscouting efforts that as of recently, I’m excited to finally talk about. The reason I’ve been holding back was waitingfor the release of GOHUNT’s 3D web mapping application. And if you haven’ttried out GOHUNT Maps yet, it’s worth a look as you will be blown away at the level of detail and different tools andlayers that are fully catered for all hunters.
With that said, the following article is going to showcase some of the ways you can use elevation bands to aidin your mule deer scouting, research, and hunt planning.
One of the main aspects of my digital scouting, especially for mule deer hunting, is utilizing elevation bandsto quickly narrow down an area to hunt based on the time of year I have a tag. And I’m happy to say that GOHUNT hasincorporated this feature into our mapping platform!
GOHUNT’s elevation bands are layers separated into 1,500 ft sections. You can use these in a plethora of ways byturning on one layer at a time or turning them all on to get a big-picture view of an entire state.
As you can see in the screenshot above, if you turn on all of the elevation layers for a state at the same time, itis basically a heat map of all the different 1,500 ft bands of elevation. Warm colors are the lowest elevations, andcooler colors showcase all the higher elevations.
Below is a summary of the elevation band breakdown on GOHUNT Maps:
First off, I should define an elevation band in my terms. Since I’m a mule deer hunter, my definition for anelevation band is “usable habitat during a certain core time period of a mule deer’s seasonal needs to survive.” Thisdefinition can obviously be expanded to other species as well.
For example, if you're looking for a high country hunt, you can simply select the higher elevation bands andinstantly see where in the unit or state, those elevation bands can be found.
If you caught the two-part series (Part 1 andPart 2) I did a few years ago on summer scoutingfor late fall mule deer hunting success, I broke down elevation bands. Below is an excerpt from that article:
Various types of mule deer zones:
The above zones are just a basic summary and a rough generalization. Keep in mind that where you are in the West,these elevation zones could vary.
Mule deer are amazing animals. During the course of the year, you can find them in a plethora of different habitats. When it comes to mountain mule deer, it’ssafe to say they live a pretty good life. From the high alpine slopes in the summer to the most picturesque colorchanges of early fall, snow-capped mountains during the late fall, and finally migrating across the landscape tosagebrush filled winter ranges.
Throughout a calendar year, mule deer can be found occupying a certain elevation band based on a multitude offactors. The summer months are spent gorging themselves on high alpine groceries, late September and first few weeksof October you might find them in the timber slightly below summer elevations, etc., etc.
During the fall (for the most part) bucks and does occupy a particular elevation band. What they are looking for isfeed, security away from hunter pressure, and access off the mountain if a giant snowstorm arises and they need tomigrate. Using elevation bands can also help you to find a little piece of the mountain that has all the needs of abig mature mule deer and also has the security of being remote and away from places most hunters would consider.
Remember, I define an elevation band as “usable habitat during certain core time periods of a mule deer’s seasonalneeds to survive.” Basically, that band is a snapshot in time that occupies a mule deer essential needs.
If you're planning a 2021 high country archery mule deer hunt in August or early September, you can select the 10,000to 11,500 ft and the 11,500+ ft elevation bands to visually see where that high country exists and what the terrainlooks like in those areas. And then to narrow things down further, it might be a great idea to just look at the areasthat are at 11,500+ ft. This gives you a huge leg up in trying to figure out where to concentrate your efforts in yourresearch.
Again, if you're in the research phase or maybe you're hunting a general tag that encompasses a bunch of units, youcan use elevation bands to quickly see what unit might either have the most high country (better chance for plan A,plan B, plan C spots) or to quickly find out what units might have the perfect amount of groceries to keep those deerin the high country during your respected archery or early season muzzleloader hunt.
What this does is make your scouting efforts a lot faster because from there, you can then start to pick apart theterrain for possible areas bucks will feed, where they might bed, locate glassing spots, etc. This is also a fantasticway to also see what units you might want to apply for if you're looking at an early archery deer tag next year. Youcan cover an entire state with the higher elevation bands, and then zoom in on the maps and carefully analyze all ofthe high country terrain in an easy-to-look-at format, and you're able to do this for all of the units that you have achance to draw. So as you can see, GOHUNT Maps and ourDraw Odds and Filtering 2.0 tools greatly complement each other.
You can also utilize elevation bands to quickly narrow down potential late-season hunting areas for mule deer. Let'ssay you have an early November tag, and you've done your research or have some really good intel that leads to anunderstanding that in your particular hunting unit, bucks should start to stage around that 7,000 to 9,000 fttransitional zone. So to visually see where you might want to concentrate your hunting efforts, you can jump over toGOHUNT Maps, select the state and click on theelevation layer. Then turn on the 7,000 to 8,500 ft elevation band and boom! You can now see all the potential areasthat deer could be at during a time of year. From there, you can dive in deeper and hone in your hunting strategy.
Layer stacking to showcase where I could concentrate my scouting/hunting efforts for a late-season mule deer hunt.
Another compelling feature that I love to go a step further on is stacking other layers on top of elevation bands.This has so many benefits for not only mule deer, but other species too. Overlaying the public/private land layer andeven the species distribution layer will further allow you to fine-tune your hunting, scouting, and research effortsto hone in on big buck country. All of these tools together are key to how I hunt and locate mule deer.
Elevation bands were a feature that back in the day I created for myself... and while it worked for my needs, I'mexcited to see it out there for more people to use in a super simple format. This was hands down my number one featurerequest when we built GOHUNT Maps. Elevation bands areway more than just lines on a map. When you take a deep dive into mule deer biology, you will see that while mule deercan be very, very unpredictable, but you can slowly add a few pieces to the puzzle and tip the scales in yourdirection.
If you’re an INSIDER, GOHUNT Maps is included in yourmembership at no additional cost. If you aren’t a member, you can learn more here. If you have any questions, feel free tocomment below, and I'll be happy to explain in further detail.
11,500+ ft
10,000 to 11,500 ft
8,500 to 10,000 ft
7,000 to 8,500 ft
5,500 to 7,000 ft
4,000 to 5,500 ft
<4,000 ft
Summer alpine zone - 10,000 to 13,000 feet
Subalpine zone - 9,000 to 11,000 feet
Dark timber, pine and aspen - 7,000 - 11,500 feet
Transitional zone - 6,000 to 9,000 feet
Sagebrush winter range zone 4,000 to 7,000 feet