Kaibab 12A West Early Rifle in the Kanab Creek Wilderness

[Azooutdoors]

I drew a Early Rifle in the Kaibab 12A West. Does anyone have experience hunting the Kanab Creek wilderness area in the early rifle. This year it's from Oct 25th to November 3rd. I have horses and pack mules and was thinking of getting into the wilderness area to get away from the crowds, ATV's ,UTV's and general road hunters. I haven't drawn a tag in that area since 94 and don't know the area. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[muley224]

Probably some resident deer there. Its pretty low country.  Better up top early.

 

[JakeL]

On the early hunt the deer will be spread out on top, and in the middle transition areas, and starting to enter the low areas many years also.  You'll want to be prepared to hunt where the deer are.  Sometimes on that hunt they'll almost all still be up high, sometimes concentrated in the middle or low.  Some people just get stuck hunting one elevation and the deer aren't there. One important note: just cuz you see sign on top doesn't mean the deer are still there. They might have moved down a few days ago.  The sign needs to be FRESH to be very meaningful on a hunt like this. 

[Delw]

Back in the day I did it every year for archery until they changed to the draw and then a few early rifle tags. usually spent a min of a week in there

one thing is to stay on the top of the canyon don't take the trail in the bottom. you get locked in and loose alot of time getting out.

[CatfishKev]

Pretty tough hunt if your looking for a Coues.  

[wildwoody]

Nice..

[AZbowhntr]

2 hours ago, CatfishKev said:

Pretty tough hunt if your looking for a Coues.  

I thought the same thing when I saw this in the coues deer section.

I killed a buck real close to there some years ago on the early hunt.  It was a strange year because it snowed early and forced everything to start moving prior to the early rifle hunt.  We would go way out west and hunt the cliffs for a couple days hardly seeing any deer.  Then we would take a day and go back further east and get our fill of seeing a couple hundred deer a day before going back out west again.  We saw a few sets of monster tracks but couldn't find the monster that made them.

[roninflag]

not many deer out there then go the week before and scout.