West Desert West deer advice.

Side bar to my post in the mental health thread.

I have a West Desert West unit deer tag and was planning on hunting with my cousin who died over the weekend.

He lived in Ibapah, knows the area and has private land contacts so he was planning my hunt.

So, now I am two weeks before tge hunt and no real clue of where to hunt.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. May be hunting by myself, so back country really not an option.

No help here. My knowledge of the west desert ends at the beginning. I know the Cedar mountain range from I80 to Dugway. Not sure what your hunt boundaries are, but the deer are few and far between on the Cedars.

My good spot was turned into a CWMU with a shady land swap deal.

I am sorry to hear about your situation. I will ask around and see if I can find any info for you.

I forgot about hunting with my grandpa when I was young. The deep creek mountains are decent and we have seen good deer coming out of the hills into Callao. In our experience don't bother with notch peak.

If my daughter didn't have a deer tag I would come hunt with you.

still lots of water in the deep creeks, we were up there a couple weeks ago.

mesha said:

I forgot about hunting with my grandpa when I was young. The deep creek mountains are decent and we have seen good deer coming out of the hills into Callao. In our experience don't bother with notch peak.

If my daughter didn't have a deer tag I would come hunt with you.

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Thanks, appreciate it.

Conger range out by skunk springs always had deer and wild horses, haven't been out that way in a while though.

shortstraw8 said:

Conger range out by skunk springs always had deer and wild horses, haven't been out that way in a while though.

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How are the roads out that way?
If I can get myself motivated to go (little hard under the circumstances), will just have my stock F250

Houndoc said:

How are the roads out that way?
If I can get myself motivated to go (little hard under the circumstances), will just have my stock F250

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We used to run around in stock chev/gmc 1500s 4x4 and 2x4, there are good roads to get you back in most of the draws. Most of that out there is still used primarily by sheep herders, always good to check ahead on the washes for how soft they are but used to get tucked up nicely out of the wind with the programs ~14' camp trailer for the supply driver without issues. Definitely steep terrain but easy to navigate if you take it slow.

Take good paper maps though, gps was always weird out there but have not been out with something like onx. I hit swasey/sinbad canyon a year ago and need to show that area to my kids, nothing better that getting ~8k' above and seeing as far as the eye can.

Well, I ended up getting out for one day of the hunt (last Friday) with another cousin. I figured we would be doing well if we even found a deer, and we didn't reach that level of success. But considering all the factors in this hunt, it really did feel good jus to get out.

We spent most our time in a small range (Round Top and Davis Mountain) that sits between Dugway and Simpson Springs. Few deer signs but very little.

Ended up seeing around 100 Mustangs, similar number of pronghorn, a coyote and various birds. The chukar made a good photo op at least.