Unit 6A (Mormon Lake)

First light on the southern flats

Deer are most active at sunrise and sunset, per the AZGFD guide, and it specifically says to concentrate on large open flats at sunrise. That advice applies most in the southern part of the unit. So get on a hill, mountain or canyon rim before shooting light and let the flats come to you. Pick a vantage point you scouted ahead of time. The guide calls pre-season scouting a must, and it also warns that deer numbers are down statewide, 6A included. Don't expect a deer behind every oak.

Once the sun is up, glass the edges where pine meets pinyon-juniper. Stop at any oak stand with acorns under it. Slow down there.

Plan the pack-out before you shoot

This is the rule that catches people. Motorized retrieval of deer isn't permitted on national forest land in 6A. Only elk can be retrieved that way. So the truck doesn't come to the deer, even on a legal road. The Rattlesnake and Pine Grove Quiet Areas and the Woods Canyon Big Game Winter Habitat Seasonal Closure Area don't allow vehicles for any reason, and wheeled travel is also prohibited in the three wilderness areas.

We like that trade-off. The guide itself calls these great hunting spots, since the animals aren't disturbed. Just carry game bags, a pack frame and a partner if you can. Stay on designated routes on the Motor Vehicle Use Map, which the Forest Service hands out free.

Whitetail or mule deer? Be sure

The general-season deer hunt is open for mule deer only, and 6A has a healthy whitetail population. The guide says whitetails run smaller and grayer, flag a bushy white tail when they bolt, and are most often found in chaparral. Mule deer tails look rope-like with a black tip. If you're hunting chaparral, slow down and make the ID. If you take the wrong species, AZGFD asks you to call and report it rather than get caught later.

Archery reporting

Nonpermit-tag archery hunters have to report a deer online at azgfd.gov/ArcheryDeerReport or by phone at 623-236-7961 within 48 hours. When the unit's archery harvest limit is hit, 6A closes at sundown the following Wednesday. Check before every sit, not just before the trip.

What a realistic day looks like

Rifle success in the packet is 22 percent. That's about one hunter in five, so plan on working for it. A good day starts in the dark, with a climb to a southern viewpoint and a long first-light glass of the flats. Mid-morning, still-hunt through the transition zone toward oaks or a tank, and head back up to glass as evening nears. If you're in the north, trade glassing time for slow walking. Whichever way you go, keep one eye on the hours of daylight left and the miles between you and the truck.

AZGFD frames the whole hunt around the rut. Bucks are active, cover a lot of ground and are easy to see. That makes this a glassing hunt first and a stalking hunt second. Cover the open ground at Apache Maid and Cedar Flat from a high spot before you start walking.

Find the green-up first

The guide's advice is blunt: locate the areas of green-up, and you'll find pronghorn. We'd build the day around that. Drive the roads, stop at high points, and look for the freshest feed before you commit to a stalk. Animals that move across big flats will stay in view, so you can watch a buck for an hour and decide your approach calmly.

Sit on water

The guide says the country is sparsely watered, which makes pronghorn dependent on, and vulnerable at, reliable water sources. If feed doesn't give you animals, a tank or spring will. Glass the water from a distance, then work out which way the animals approach it and where you can get a rest. The packet doesn't give a water-by-water breakdown for the south, so you'll have to find those spots yourself.

Rifle versus bow

The success figures in the packet are 82 percent for rifle and 48 percent for archery. We read that gap as the plain reality of open country. A rifle hunter can take a buck at range. A bow hunter has to close the distance on animals that see for miles, so water and cover matter far more for you. Plan on a blind or a creeping approach along a drainage to the water.

Mud, quiet areas and the pack-out

Read this part twice. On national forest in 6A, only elk can be retrieved with a motor. You can't drive in to get a pronghorn, so plan to drag or carry the animal to the road. Keep your harvest within a reasonable distance of the road, because it's your legs that'll do the work.

• Use the Motor Vehicle Use Map for the Coconino National Forest. Motorized travel is only allowed on designated routes.
• The Pine Grove and Rattlesnake Quiet Areas and the Woods Canyon Big Game Winter Habitat Seasonal Closure Area are closed to vehicles for any reason, including game recovery.
• The Wet Beaver Creek, West Clear Creek and Fossil Springs Wilderness Areas don't allow wheeled travel.
• FR 214 turns to slick mud in wet weather. Stay off it when it's soft.

A realistic day: be on a high spot before first light, glass the green flats until you've picked a buck, then spend the middle of the day working the water. Be ready to walk out loaded.

Finding the ram is the hard part

AZGFD says bighorns are usually highly visible and less elusive than other big game. The hard parts are locating rams and then dealing with the rugged ground they live on. That fits what we'd expect in canyon country. Put your time behind a spotting scope and binoculars before you put it into your boots. Find the ram first, then work out the route.

The agency's gear list is short and sensible: good hiking boots, optics, a flat-shooting rifle with a scope, and plenty of help. Rifle is the only success rate in the packet, at 75 percent. That's a good number, but it comes with no sample size, so treat it as encouraging, not a promise.

Packing a ram out of West Clear Creek or Fossil Springs

This is the part that decides the hunt. Pack-out weights for rams, boned meat plus head and cape, commonly exceed 200 pounds according to AZGFD. Motorized retrieval is allowed for elk only in 6A. For sheep, and every other big game species, it isn't permitted on national forest land. Three wilderness areas, Wet Beaver Creek, West Clear Creek and Fossil Springs, prohibit wheeled travel outright.

• Bring enough people to carry the load in a single trip or two.
• Before you pull the trigger, think through the route out, not only the shot.
• Figure out where you'd leave the vehicle and how far you'd carry from there.

Roads and the Motor Vehicle Use Map

Motorized use is limited to designated routes on the Motor Vehicle Use Map, which is free from Forest Service offices. The named roads in our data include graded gravel on CR 3 and Mormon Lake Road, paved AZ 89A and AZ 87, and high-clearance FR 132 and FR 9D. The agency doesn't say which of these reach the sheep canyons, so check the MVUM against your scouting plan before you drive anywhere.

The Pine Grove and Rattlesnake Quiet Areas and the Woods Canyon Big Game Winter Habitat Seasonal Closure are no-vehicle areas, even for recovering game. AZGFD points out that animals like places where they aren't disturbed. The guide doesn't tie sheep to those closures, though.

Check out, even if you didn't fill

This one's easy to forget. A successful hunter must personally bring the intact horns and skull to an AZGFD office within three days of the season closing. An unsuccessful hunter still has to check out at a Department office within the same three days. Put it on your calendar before you leave.

Closed roads at first light

AZGFD's advice for spring is simple: park at closed roads and walk them at first light. We agree. Birds are usually off the roost by sunrise, so you want to be listening before then. Hope for a calm morning, because wind kills your ability to hear a gobble. On the FR 229 and FR 230 country, a closed spur lets you cover ground quietly and leave the truck crowd behind.

Setting up and calling

Males like to strut in small openings but generally prefer heavy cover. Set up where an opening meets thick timber, not out in the middle of it. The guide says imitating a hen draws the toms, since they're looking for females in spring. A box call with a plunger is the guide's suggestion if you're new to calling, and it recommends a calling tape to learn the sounds.

Then sit still. Turkeys have excellent vision. Wear full camouflage and never wear black, red or blue.

The guide is just as direct about this one: don't stalk a noise you think is a turkey. You'll rarely get close enough for a shot, and it could be another hunter.

Weapons

The guide lists limited-weapon shotgun, shooting shot only, plus over-the-counter archery-only seasons. In spring, shotguns shooting shot are the only legal weapon. Check the current regulations for exact season structure before you go.

Fall: tanks, oaks and the evening return

Fall is a scouting game. Check tanks for tracks and droppings, then find the densest oak stands. Birds typically return to roost an hour or so before dark, so an evening watch on a pine-filled canyon edge can tell you where they'll be at dawn. Hunt the roost area the next morning. Don't walk into it in the dark.

Getting a bird out

Start below Stoneman Lake Road

This one's simple. AZGFD's own unit guide says whitetails in 6A are restricted to the lower half of the unit. It tells hunters to work the lower-elevation canyons that generally fall below Stoneman Lake Road. The same guide calls the population stable, with many above-average bucks taken every year. We'd take that at face value and spend nearly all our time south of that road.

Elevation backs it up. The unit runs from about 3,093 feet at its low end to 7,378 feet at its high end, with a mean around 5,556. Whitetails are in the bottom of that range, in chaparral. They aren't in the ponderosa up top.

Every major drainage holds deer

The guide doesn't name individual canyons. It says all the major drainages in the lower half contain whitetail. That's both good and bad. You've got lots of options, but nobody's handing you a honey hole. The animals sit in dense chaparral and the guide admits they can be very difficult to locate.

The guide does name three wilderness areas in the unit: Wet Beaver Creek, West Clear Creek and Fossil Springs. Wheeled travel is prohibited in all three. They're canyon country, and we'd put them near the top of an onX or MVUM session. The packet doesn't say how much of each sits below Stoneman Lake Road, so check that on your map before you plan around them.

Glassing points and water

The terrain data lists a long string of summits as glassing options. Most are up in the pine country, which is where you won't find whitetails. Apache Maid Mountain (7,297 feet) is the one listed on the Yavapai County side of the line. Others include Mount Nestor (7,703), Bill Back Butte (7,732) and Buck Butte (7,090). We can't tell you which overlook the lower canyons. Lay them over the Stoneman Lake Road line and pick the ones that look down into chaparral drainages.

Water is plentiful on paper: 101 springs and 980 tanks across the unit. Named springs include Lockwood, Wallace, Thomas, Railroad, Mayflower, Spring Beach and Smith. The packet doesn't tie any of them to whitetail use, so treat them as places to scout, not as promises.

Access and what to skip

About 60 percent of 6A is national forest, 8 percent is state trust and 32 percent is private or other. That's a lot of private ground, so confirm your boundaries before you drop into a canyon. Graded gravel CR 3 and Mormon Lake Road take 2WD rigs. FR 132 and FR 9D are high-clearance. AZ 89A and AZ 87 are paved. Which of these reach the lower canyons isn't spelled out, so check the Coconino National Forest MVUM.

Skip the high ponderosa. It's fine elk country. It isn't whitetail country.

Sit on a glassing point for hours

AZGFD's guide is blunt: plan on spending many hours glassing, and quality optics are a must. A good spotting scope and binoculars can save you many miles of walking. If you climb to a high point, stay there several hours and watch for movement. A quick look and a move won't work. Coues deer in chaparral disappear until they step into a gap.

We'd pick a point that overlooks one of the lower drainages below Stoneman Lake Road. Glass edges, openings and shaded pockets. Then commit.

Scout before the season

The guide says this hunt takes a lot of pre-season scouting, and we agree. The overall rifle success figure for the unit is 18 percent. That's low enough that walking in cold isn't a plan. Use scouting trips to find which drainages hold deer, which glassing points give you a real view and how long the pack-out is.

Identify your deer

Both whitetails and mule deer live in 6A. AZGFD specifically warns hunters to identify the species before shooting. Take the extra minute and look at the antlers, tail and body. Don't shoot until you're sure.

Plan on packing it out

This matters in 6A. Motorized retrieval is allowed only for elk on national forest land in the unit. You can't drive off the road to recover a deer. Several areas ban vehicles for any reason, including game recovery: the Pine Grove and Rattlesnake Quiet Areas and the Woods Canyon Big Game Winter Habitat Seasonal Closure Area. The three wilderness areas also prohibit wheeled travel.

The guide notes that animals like places where they aren't disturbed, so these are great spots. Just be ready to carry an animal out. Bring a pack frame, game bags and a partner if you can.

Archery reporting and closures

• Nonpermit-tag archery deer hunters must report a harvest within 48 hours, online at azgfd.gov/ArcheryDeerReport or by phone at 623-236-7961.
• Once reported harvest hits the unit's archery limit, the unit closes at sundown the following Wednesday.
• Check online or by phone before you hunt to confirm 6A is still open.

A realistic day

Get to your glassing spot before light. Sit. Glass the canyon walls and brush edges for hours, then move only if you've seen nothing at all. If you spot a buck, plan the stalk through chaparral and the pack-out before you leave your seat. Expect plenty of days without a shot. The upside is the guide's note about above-average bucks.