Hunting in Nevada: 5 Animals to Hunt in the Fall

For hunters across the United States, late summer to early winter is hunting season. Few states offer a greater variety of animals to hunt as Nevada. Thanks largely to its mountainous terrain, hunting in Nevada provides a diverse selection of targets to pursue, from big game like mountain lions, elk, mountain goats and mule deer to game birds like pheasants, quail, ducks and geese, according to the Hunting Trips R Us website.

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Here are four of the most popular animals to hunt in the Sagebrush State in the fall.

1. Mule Deer
Nevada has one of the highest populations of mule deer herds in the country, according to Nevada High Desert Outfitters. Mule deer hunts are prevalent across the state. These large-eared, black-tailed North American deer are an exciting challenge for hunters to pursue because of their superior vision. Mule deer have eyes in the side of their head, enabling them to see 310 degrees around them, according to the Mule Deer Foundation. They can detect the slightest movement from predators as far as 2,000 feet away.

2. Black Bears
These native North American mammals are growing increasingly populous in Nevada, particularly in the Sierra Mountains and Lake Tahoe region on the western side of the state, according to Science Daily. Black bears' growing presence in Nevada persuaded the Nevada Department of Wildlife to open hunting of black bears in 2011 while capping kills at 20 per season, according to Live Science, which reports that 400 to 700 black bears currently live in the state.

3. Mountain Lions
Mountain lions are Nevada's largest predator, according to the Nevada Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Science. Approximately 3,000 cougars live almost exclusively on the western, mountainous side of the state in the Sierra Mountain range, though some are migrating to eastern California, where mountain lion hunting is outlawed and California's mountains feature a lusher habitat and greater selection of prey for the lions, according to a report from Fox News.

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4. Elk
Since the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) reintroduced elk into the state's ecosystem in 1989, the elk population has exploded, increasing from 7,400 to 17,500 between 2004 and 2014, according to the Nevada Media Alliance. The decision was made in order to improve tourism and strengthen the hunting industry, and it has paid off. Hunters in Nevada have reaped the benefits. In 2014 alone, the NDOW issued a record-high number of elk tags to hunters in an attempt to help control the expanding elk habitat in the state and even extended hunting privileges to antlerless elk in central and northeastern Nevada, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal.

This article is for information only. Please check current regulations before hunting.

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