This hunt produces quality mule deer on two Cooperative Wildlife Management Unit ranches in northern Utah. One ranch covers 20,000 acres of mostly high desert cattle range. A 50 to 100-acre alafalfa food plot is going in this year to attract deer and provide them with top-quality nutrition. The other ranch covers about 4,000 acres of mostly dry farm with most of a high desert mountain included. Each is a Cooperative Wildlife Management Unit (CWMU). As a reward for proper management through a limit on the number of bucks taken each year, the outfitter is allowed a longer season that can start in September, when the bucks are easier to hunt and spend more time in the open feeding. The outfitter takes a maximum of two hunters per year on the smaller ranch and five hunters per year on the larger ranch.

We started booking for the outfitter in 1987, and he consistently gets high marks for his hunts. This trip is for the hunter who is looking for a quality experience with a large amount of private land to himself and good numbers of mature bucks. The bigger bucks can be dandies. Two years ago a customer killed a buck scoring 217 B&C points. When Rich LaRocco of Hunts.Net used to lease the smaller ranch in the late '80s, he produced a buck over 200 Pope and Young for a bowhunter from Wisconsin. Though there's a possibility of taking a 190 or bigger buck, you have a much more realistic chance of finding a good, mature buck in the 175 to 185 B&C range.

Last year (2006) the outfitter ate five tags. Two permits were sold on the larger ranch to some semi-guided hunters, and they killed a 190 buck and a large management buck. In 2005 the outfitter took two hunters on the larger ranch, and they killed a 180 typical and chased but did not kill another really nice deer. He also took two hunters on the smaller ranch in 2005, and they killed a 186 and a 217 (see pictures above).

There are two hunts: Sept. 1-5 (booked for '07) and Sept. 10-15. Accommodations are in a small ranch house. Meals are included on the 1x1 fully guided and outfitted hunt. The semi-guided hunt includes a representative of the outfitter to show you around the property as well as ranch house accommodations, but you'll need to prepare your own meals and provide your own pickup.

Guided hunters are picked up at a hotel near the Salt Lake City aiport. You don't have to draw a tag for this hunt.