Do mule deer generally come to water in the morning or in the evening? My time to hunt is very limited this year, due to family obligations. I can sneak out for an hour or so a couple of times, so I plan to stake out a watering hole. Is it generally best to set up in the evening or in the morning? TIA, Dutch.

I know of one guy who camped near a watering hole for the night. He said there were so many deer coming into that watering hole all night, he couldn't sleep.
I personally have never seen a monster deer come into water. I believe the reason is because the big boys come in during the night.

I agree with Old Fart completly, Muleys are VERY active at night. But within the context of the question evening gets my vote.

I have seen many at night in west Texas,and very few during legal shooting hours......

I would say it is best to wait by a watering hole in the late afternoon and evening. Deer are feeding at night. They are up and about and can get water anytime. Later in the fall and depending on what part of the country there is usually dew or frost on everything. Deer get a certain amount of moister from this as well. After the sun rises and starts to heat up the land, deer go and bed down for the day. It is usually after this that they need water and head for water before they start thier evening or nightly routine. A good watering hole to sit on does not have to be big. depending on how dry the country is, it could be a small puddle. As long as it is water.

I'd say it depends on how far they have to travel to get to the water source. Other than the rare mid-day sip, they will be usually be there when it's dark.

Mike

Water in streams is best used for finding popular crossings, not watering places! Muledeer are not usually on water such as a stock tank before dark in the evening! The big boys seldom water at cattle watering places before it is well night, if at all!

For Muledeer watering places that attract the old mulley bucks, you would be best served by finding seeps in canyon walls, and rock outcroppings well away from the beaten paths. In the mountains, and foot hills of the west, one may spot these seeps by getting high, and glassing for extra green bushes in the ends of draws, and along cap rock, before hunting season. Once you find these seeps, log them down on your topo map and set up to watch them while everone else is watching the stock tanks! Mule deer, of any age at all,are not the dumb-bells the gun ragg writers want you to think. If you are hunting Muleys in an area where they are pushed a little hard, the bucks that gain any age, become as cagey as any whitetail that ever lived! They will ALWAYS bed on the shady slopes, away from the does, and younger bucks, even when it is below zero, never in the sun, and simply seldom do what younger deer do!

I have hunted a few areas here in BC where I found significant activity around a mountain stream or spring. In hopes of ambushing a buck there I laid in wait both evening and morning. Unfortunately, the bucks only ever came in after it was past legal hunting hours, and were long gone before first light.

In the mountains it is easier to catch them in their bedding areas and plan a stalk.

Cheers,
Canuck

Thanks for all the thoughts. The spot I have in mind is a very small little stream, but it is right below three aspen groves on the side of a hill (about 700 feet) covered with bitterbrush, sage and berry bushes. I was hunting the ridge for sharptail, when I realized the aspen groves were the perfect hiding places for mulies. A cursory inspection proved me correct: there's deer in there.

Since the full moon is out past morning light, I suspect they will come to water under the light of the moon. I think I'll see if I can catch one going to bed at first light, at least then I'll have a better idea of what animals are there. Thanks again, Dutch.

A lot of nice bucks used to water at a tank near our ranchhouse...Our ranch "The Rosillas" was located in the desert SW near the entrance of the Big Bend National Park, South of Marathon, Texas..

These bucks watered every third day or so and I have been told that Mule Deer get enough water off the morning feed to sustain themselves almost indefinatly..I have also been told that they take in moisture through the dew claws, thus the name perhaps....These deer watered every evening until the first shot of the season, then the either didn't water or they watered in the early hours of the morning before daylight...

For what its worth.

Having observed them all my life - there is only one hard and fast rule concerning mulies and water. They come to water when they want to. Ray is right about them getting water from their feed and getting by all right. Watched one old bruiser up in the Guadalupes that would water about once a week in the summer and as soon as it started cooling off in the fall - he'd just stop drinking. Ray - I think you're dead wrong about them taking water thru their dew claws except when they're doing the shottish on a prickly pear.

I'd agree with most of the posters for the big bucks...most of the time.

I just got home form a mule deer hunt in a very dry area, and it was clear thatt he deer had gone down to the creek before first light, then made their way back up the steep stuff in the morning.

I spotted them halfway up the hill, in a deep, dry draw.

A bunch of does and a couple of bucks.

Big bucks don't just show up at the watering hole in daylight like the neighborhood drunk

Pancho,
Like I said "reportedly" they do, I do not know that for a fact, just passing it on for what its worth...but nature put the dew claw there for some purpose so who knows.

Ray,

Dewclaws are nothing more than evolutionary, non-functional "toes." At one time is history, deer actually had five toes. One disappeared completely and two others wound up as the dewclaws. -TONY