First year hunting mountain country

[JonNc]

I’ve hunted hills my whole life, but hunting mountains is a completely different way of hunting. I just wanted to share some observations that I noticed during my first year. I’m sure there are much better mountain hunters that can chime in, these are just my observations.

We had buck sightings both down low and up high. The biggest buck that I know of in the area was shot near the bottom of the mountain during a snowstorm (maybe coming to food source). The buck I shot was also crossing from a higher ridge down to me, crossing and going to the next ridge over.

Speaking of above, there are many “benches” that are low compared to the ridge above, but high compared to the rest of the ridge..so low is relative.

They seem to move a lot when it snows and right after. Twice when it snowed I had multiple shooters on camera in daylight the day it snowed and the day following. My hunting buddies also had very mature buck sightings following snow.

I set up based off wind, but not always leeward side. The deer do not seem to travel in the mountains based off of leeward side as much as they do in normal hills.

They are hard to pattern compared to other terrains. They almost seem to roam more within a given area. I’ve heard many times that in the mountains sitting the same spot that you have faith in multiple days in a row is a good way to get one because they only use that trail every few days at least during the rut. My observations/cameras seem to coincide with that.

Also, they can grow old! I had probably 4x as many mature deer on camera than I have in other places. This could just be due to pressure on easier to hunt spots.

These are just a few things I noticed. Hope it helps someone, and I’d love to hear more from the more experienced mountain hunters!