whats bigger?

whats bigger? a white tail deer from Upper Michigan? or a mule deer from Utah?

Utah?

It depends on how far you have to DRAG IT!

good hunting....

Do you mean average animal size, or maximum size possible.

My guess is that the Utah mule deer would be bigger on both counts. That is not to say that there is not alot of overlap when looking at individual animals.

Utah?

If you are talking head gear then the Mule Deer. If you are talking body weight then I am not sure. I think on average the mule deer is a little bigger but I bet not by much. I think there is some individual examples of big boddied deer in both areas. I have never been to Uppper Michigan but I have seen photos of some big boddied White tails that looked like a dead steer laying there. I also have seen some huge boddied Mule deer here in Utah that look as big as a spike elk. I have a book somewhere on Mule Deer hunting in Utah that has some photos of some big deer taken in the past and how heavy they where. I will try to find it tonight and post some weights of Utah mule deer.

yes, body wt

thanks, that would help. its not real important. just a discussion i had with a friend when i was in Utah. (I'm from Upper Michigan). we were in Zion and a few deer crossed the road and i said 'wow. look at those cute little deer!' . my buddy said they were mule deer and i remarked how much bigger white tail were and he disagreed so.....thats where we stand. lol- but it appears im on the losing end so far. i just cant believe it though. the deer i see up here sure look bigger than those mule deer i saw in Zion.

Utah?

Where I hunt in northeastern Minnesota, a whitetail buck with a fairly unimpressive 8 point rack was taken that field dressed at just over 400 pounds was taken in the 80's. It's thought that this deer might be one of the largest whitetails ever taken...but since we record the size of the antlers and seldom the actual weight of the animal, this would have to be a guess.

Regardless, it was a damn big deer in anyones book.

From: Mark Memmott

yes, body wt

thanks, that would help. its not real important. just a discussion i had with a friend when i was in Utah. (I'm from Upper Michigan). we were in Zion and a few deer crossed the road and i said 'wow. look at those cute little deer!' . my buddy said they were mule deer and i remarked how much bigger white tail were and he disagreed so.....thats where we stand. lol- but it appears im on the losing end so far. i just cant believe it though. the deer i see up here sure look bigger than those mule deer i saw in Zion.

With that, I had an immediate recall of time I headed a team surveying a ranch s/w of Austin, Tx. While driving down one of the ranch roads, one of the crew yelled, 'Hay, look at the baby deer'. On looking, I saw one of the largest jackrabbits of my experience. Bill Van Houten (USA Ret)

Thermopylae had it's messenger of defeat, COME AND GET THEM ! The Alamo had none.

yikes. now thats big. my cousin says an average white tail up here would be about 140-170 lbs dressed. maybe like 180-200 lbs walking around for a 1 1/2 yr old. so.....back to Utah. any hunters out there with a wt estimate for the average mule deer from their hunting experience?

When I was in England I was chasing pheasant through waist- to shoulder-high bracken when the stalks started waving and shaking as something started forcing its way through them. I lined up to dump a pheasant when it broke cover and flushed, but what came out was four-footed and about the size of a healthy housecat. 'Well', I said to myself, 'Rabbit is almost as good as pheasant any day', and I was all lined up on it and ready to pop it with an ounce and a quarter of British No. 5 shot when I realized it had horns.

It was a muntjac deer.

In general mule deer are about 15 - 20% larger than whitetail of similar age.

-jc-