By personal experience, I used BLM maps for my 2007 DIY mulie/antelope hunt in Wyoming. Knowing that we would be showing up well after the opening 10 days of the season had passed, the largest most accessible public land areas were sure to be hunted out. They sure were, we talked to numerous hunters who couldn’t find so much as a slickhead on many of the public land parcels, some of which were 20-30 square miles in size.

We didn’t have that problem though. I hesitate to share this tip because it worked so good for us, but you guys are my friends so…listen up. The smallest public land tracts produced the most deer sightings and buck sightings of anywhere we hunted. I’m not talking about 10 square mile tracts either. I’m talking 1 single unit - a square mile. 640 acres. Peanuts for Western hunting. The key was reading topo maps though. One particular honeyhole stood out to me. It was only half a section, meaning it was just 320 acres…but a ridge ran directly along the road parallel and screened the backside of the public tract from road hunters.

We parked the truck and made the STEEP 25 minute hike up the mountainous ridge and peeked over the edge. 3 pronghorn bucks within 500 yards and 4 mulie bucks were scaling the opposite ridge about 800 yards away, oh wait…there’s 6 does just 200 yards away. We dropped back off the ridge, scooted around and put the spotting scope on the bucks. Two yearlings, a 3×3, and a 4×3 about 19″ wide or so. He got the free pass, but only because it was our first day of hunting, but it shows how valuable such a small tract can be if the terrain is just right. Use the lay of the land to get away from the vast majority of other hunters in the West who will NOT leave their 4WD unless an animal is spotted out the window.

Trust me, this works. Spend the hours pouring over your topography maps months in advance and it can pay huge dividends when the game is on the line. Hope you enjoyed this mini-series on topographical maps… There is much more information you can glean from them, but I’ll stop here for now. Til tomorrow…