2025 Mule Deer Muzzleloader Hunt

This year, I was muzzleloader hunting once again in the same location up Farmington Canyon. What made this hunt special was that I was driving up Farmington Canyon for the first time by myself. I planned to drive up on a Friday morning and hunt through Sunday night.

I got up and left the house at five in the morning. I was able to get to my hunting spot before first light. It was really windy when I arrived, and I threw on an extra jacket and gloves because it drizzled for a bit. After I got my pack on and my muzzleloader loaded, I noticed a few deer crossing a ridge, but couldn't make out if they were bucks. I started making my way over, and I saw a deer traveling down and to the left of me. A little while later, I got jump scared by five does that were bedded down in front of me. They scattered, and three split off to the left and two to the right. I sat down and noticed the does bump even more does. Around this time, I had my breakfast and decided I wanted to check the other side, where I first saw deer crossing.

I glanced over and saw a few does but no bucks. Around this time, it was getting close to noon, so I decided to head back to my jeep. I proceeded to eat lunch and sleep for a couple of hours. After I woke up, I decided to try another spot that would be good for glassing. I spotted two bucks sparring about five hundred yards away. But they were both small bucks that were in an inconvenient spot if I wanted to go after them. I stayed at this spot for an hour or two before deciding to try the place I went to in the morning. I got there around four o'clock and didn't see any other deer for the rest of the night.

When I went to sleep that night, I wasn't sure exactly what my plan would be for the morning. The next morning, I woke up and decided to try the spot where I saw the small bucks sparring. There was a close ridge where deer could cross over early in the morning, where they would be around three hundred yards away. I got to the spot and glassed around a bit before the sun rose. About fifteen minutes later, sure enough, I saw some deer crossing over the ridge and feeding towards me. There were two small bucks that I realized were the ones I saw sparring from the previous day. With my spotting scope, I could determine that one was a small three-point, but clearly bigger than the other. I decided he was just big enough, so I wanted to try and get him.

I ranged him at three hundred yards before I took my first shot. I barely missed, but I couldn't tell where I hit. After the shot, the buck was completely unbothered and just slowly made his way further down away from me. It was a steep slope that the buck was traveling down. I reloaded and shot at him over and over again. I kept missing and couldn't make out where I was hitting. Where before I knew it, he had passed four hundred yards, and I finally gave up on him. After I counted my total shots, I was pretty shocked that the total was seven. That is the most amount of shots I have ever taken at a deer before.

Around this time, I went back to the jeep and took another nap. After my nap, I went down below to the spot where I bumped the five does, but this time I made my way down earlier and quietly. Around four o'clock, I saw two small two-point bucks coming out from the pines to feed. However, there was no other deer as it reached dark. My brother Dallen came by that night, and we discussed what to do on Sunday. On Sunday, we checked more in-depth around the area where I saw the small bucks sparring. We unfortunately didn't see any deer over there. When we checked where I saw a bunch of does the first morning of my hunt, and saw just some does again, we decided to try a new spot. A couple of hours before dark,  we arrived at the new spot where we saw lots more deer than I had the rest of the hunt. We spotted mostly does, but right before dark, we spotted a small four-point buck and a small two-point. The four-point buck did a U-turn when it saw us and went into the trees, and we waited for it to come out. However, it never came out. 

I decided, since I have till Thursday of next week, that I would take a day break and then hunt with my dad after work for a couple of days. The first night I came down with my dad, and Dallen came a little while later, it had rained a lot in the morning, which we believe made an impact on the little to no deer movement. We did see the small four-point bedded down, so we snuck around and sat and waited, but we never saw the buck again. We believe he never got up. We saw a little buck and doe move on the hill to the right of us. The following days, I hunted with just my dad, and we saw lots more movement and lots of does. Unfortunately, right before dark, we did see a nice buck along with the small four-point I saw initially with Dallen, almost four hundred yards away from us. The last day, we planned to try to get closer to the spot where we saw those bucks. Last night we saw a couple of small two-point bucks, but not the other bigger bucks.

I didn't get a buck this year, but I still had a good time, and it is always nice to explore and try new areas to hunt as well. I learned a valuable lesson when shooting at the small three-point. That lesson being that you really need to factor in the steep angle when shooting. I will take this lesson with me on my future hunts.