S.E. Mule deer
 

Looking for some info on mule deer in the south east corner of the province. This would be an archery hunt in September. I have always been interested in the prairie units. Im new to archery hunting but really looking to go all in.

Looking at the zones east of Lethbridge and south of the trans Canada. So roughly zones 102-106 and 112-118?

How are the deer populations down that way? Would it be worth it to have a WT tag in your pocket as well?

How is access? Are there places that are public a guy could get in on to supplement private access?

Where would some good places to stay be. Either out of a tent or a trailer? Preferably some where that is close to a butcher in case the weather is hot. Maybe some camp grounds I could convince the wife to stay at this summer for scouting purposes.

I know it’s early to be thinking about stuff like this. I just wanna get a jump start on the logistics and hopefully be able to firm some stuff up. Any insight of the area or tips would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

sounds to me like you are just fishing for free information. You may want to narrow down your search area to not 25% of the province. lol. Deer are everywhere, you just need to find them. Look at some satellite maps, go for a drive and see what you can find.

Very little in the way of public land. Grazing leases and deeded makes up 95% + of the land. There are whitetails in areas as well. Campgrounds in the Cypress Hills are good, fairly busy in summer. Deer are going to where you find them, like usual.

40 Mile Park or Writing on the Stone for camping

Thanks for the heads up. I’ll make sure to renew the i hunter app. Would the camp grounds still be seeing a lot of activity after labour day? I’m really hoping to head down to cypress hills once or even twice this summer with my wife for “hiking” and “bonding”. I’m thinking about focusing around the cypress hills area in 118 119. Thanks for the info. I really appreciate it.

Your absolutely right i am looking for info. I don’t frequent that part of the province and was hoping to fine some direction. Just like I would be willing to help a guy out In the foothills and mountains. I’m planning on heading down that way this summer for some camping and scouting. Just hoping to get s jump start on the guys that ask where the deer are in zone XYZ. Im not afraid of wearing out some boots or gettin out.

I wouldn’t waste my time down in that part of the province. I would be more apt to go around the Jenner area

sounds like a good plan for the summer. Makes it a lot easier to give advice when you don't cast such a large net;) Lots of grazing leases in that area and there are deer in most areas. If that is the area you want to hunt, I have no doubt you will find some permission. Permission is the same across the province really. some guys say no, most say yes. The exception is during very dry falls. 2 years ago it was a bitch to get permission, especially after that fatal fire east of suffield. Guys were pretty jumpy. Its big big big country down there. have some good boots and a game cart for retrieval. We know a lot of the landowners personally so sometimes retrieval with a quad is possible, a game cart is great to have. Tons of campgrounds there, I like fire rock but others are good too. It is usually fairly busy on labour day weekend but it gets a hell of a lot quieter after that.

Here’s what I’d do.. take 2;weeks for your hunt. The first week with a bow in your hand then if you haven’t connected switch to rifle. It’s a great way to pre-scout. Except for antelope I haven’t hunted the rifle seasons in that part of the province. I hear it’s pretty damned busy.

You’re assuming he has priority for a rifle tag. Lots of those zones are over the counter for antlered mule deer during the archery season.

I guess I am assuming that...you need mule deer priority to hunt that rifle season. I’ve got inns of priority, I’m just always busy hunting other critters that time of year.

Writing on stone is a nice place to visit and scout from. I strongly recommend not using it as your hunting base camp though. Made the mistake of doing that once and the conservation officers weren’t to happy about having dead deer in the back of the truck in a provincial park. Ended up finding a small mobile butcher somewhere that charged $10/day to hang the deer in his cooler.

That makes absolutely zero sense. There is no such law that says you cant have a dead deer in a pickup in a provincial park. Guys do it all the time in the cypress hills.

I hunted 102 in 2018. One rancher said he had found dead deer in deep snow the previous winter.

In comparison to previous years, deer were hard to locate, even after a blizzard and fresh snow. So you don't find deer, but there should have been fresh tracks. Even in known honey holes, there were no tracks.

Deer might be hard to locate for the next year or two.

Whitetails seemed to have done a little better than the mule deer.

I’m just telling you they weren’t happy about it. I never said they told me it was illegal, but they strongly suggested we move along or put the deer somewhere else. The cooler at the butchers was sort of unrelated and was more due to the outside temperatures.

who gives a crap if they weren't happy about it. they aren't the happy police. they cant bully you into doing things they like.

Agreed, there’s no law against having a deer in your truck...

Down in that area, bow season is Sept 1st to Oct 31st, then rifle is Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat of November.

Thanks for all the helpful replies. This is going to be my first year bow hunting so I’m not overly concerned about the overall success i just want to try the new challenge. There’s some hepful info here and I’m looking forward to finding a campground and gettin down south to do some scouting and hopefully make some land owner connections.

Hanging and Storage of Big Game
Unless authorized by a Conservation Officer it is unlawful to dress, hang, or store big game in a Provincial Park or Provincial Recreation Area. Where these activities are permitted, please follow safe storage practices in order to prevent human-wildlife conflicts.
http://www.albertaregulations.ca/hun...s/genregs.html

Well there you have it. I guess gutted and in the box of the truck or on the quad trailer can probably be considered stored and is why we were told not to come back and base our hunt camp out of writing on stone.

Well that section is one I have never really given much thought into. Good catch on your part. I would still argue with them is having in the back of the truck is not storage but transporting. Definetly not a cut a dry thing.

In the Cypress Hills Provincial Park they require you to cover any animals in your truck bed with a tarp.

Wmu118 has a good mule deer population. But it also has a high presence of cwd especially in mature mule deer bucks. If you hunt for the meat and don’t want to eat contaminated meat you should take the high cwd positive level zones into account before commiting to a certain wmu. I harvested 2 mule deer does in wmu 118 in 2017 and one of them tested positive for cwd. Just a little food for thought.

Sometimes you need to pick your battles and in this case its easier to paddle with the river than against it.