Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Columbian blacktail question

I've been dreaming of a hunt on the left coast for several years now. It may work out this fall and I'm trying to narrow down where to hunt. This will be DIY and yes I know how slim my chances of success will be on this animal. My question is that since I love the look of a blacktail buck with a black patch on top of his head and good white on his face ( as opposed to some of the more muted colors I often see in pics) is this the way they look later in the season, or does it depend more on the region you hunt them in?

The only white I've ever seen on the Blacktails occur on old bucks. It's not a "good" or sharp white, but more like some white hairs mixed with the usual colors of the face.
Black skull caps are common with all blacktail and mule deer. The only exception I know of are the Burro Deer of the Ironwood Deserts. Their skull caps are brown, not black. E

I just see some blacktails guys get and the colors in the face are really muted more like a whitetail, while others have a lot of black/white contrast in the face more like a mule deer.

Really haven't seen anything like that... down in SW Oregon, there are thicker than other parts of the state, and you can get some that are offspring of Mule Deer Crosses...which get bigger...

I've got a head of one I took in 99, that has white on his muzzle and neck...could post a picture...

Hunting black tails is not like hunting white tails...they are patient animals.. and if danger is present, they will stand as still as a statutue for a long time...a call helps bring them out at times...

our season is 6 weeks which helps...

but if you are looking for a real trophy, understand that by east coast standards we have some serious terrain to deal with out this way....

only Coues Deer are tougher to hunt....

my post here is speaking of S.W. Oregon.. up and down the coast, things can be different...Good populations of them in Coos, Curry, Josephine and Jackson Counties... Douglas is not bad, but Douglas has a rare version of a Whitetail that way, that is illegal to take...

here's one from 2008... big by Blacktail Standards...210 lbs on the hoof...F&W told me it was a muledeer/Blacktail cross..

Thanks for the info Seafire. And that one in your pic is about exactly what I'm looking for.

Is this what your looking for?? This was taken last day of the season last year - wish it was me but this guy saw it just before I did!! Anyway, this is about an hour from my house - all public and could be done DIY. They are really tough critters to hunt though - the big bucks pretty much are vampires that only come out at night except maybe if you get lucky towards the end of season.

Here's an old blacktail I killed one dawn. Damned near killed me and my friend getting his parts out.

Not much for antlers, but he was ancient and HUGE bodied for a pure blacktail.




My best blacktail to date. And considering that I'm pretty busted up and old, prolly the finest I'll ever kill in my lifetime.





My best blacktail (above) came out of this hell-hole. Shot him from the rock outcropping in the lower-right of the photo and he was clear down in the bottom.

Sometimes, I ain't very smart.

Have a Blessed Easter,

Steve

Now THAT is what we all want in a blacktail.

Fantastic buck, my friend.

Steve

Thanks guys. Those bucks are exactly what I'm talking about!

Here's another one from that same general area as the other buck I posted. This is one I got a few years ago, also pretty black patch on top of his head and a really nice cape IMHO. The area I hunt has pretty low deer numbers but holds some great bucks - if you decide to venture out here I'd be happy to help out. But I must admit hunting blacktails can make you crazy - they are just tough critters to find especially the bigger bucks:)

During the last part of the early season, especially along the coastal areas (Santa Cruz to Half Moon Bay) What we call Pacific Bucks come out of the far back country for the rut. These Bucks are mostly big forked horns and very dark. They also have some good size to them.

After moving from the Willamette Valley in Oregon when I was young to mule deer country in Sisters, Oregon in 1979, I never thought I'd care to hunt blacktails again. Seeing my first 36" mule deer in the summer of 1979 gave me a bad case of the shaky knees! After two or three years of chasing the big deer with a rifle I discovered they were less wary during archery season, so I tried that instead. Years of that produced some dandy mule deer, but the areas mule deer population collapsed in the 80's, but not before producing one book buck for me. I call him Walter, the big sunavabitch buck. (like On Golden Pond, remember? ) For those that track such things, he nets 173 1/8 after 10 points of deductions.



One fall, after bowhunting unsuccessfully all season for big muleys, I went without filling my tag. In Oregon, we had an opportunity to hunt westside (blacktail) late if unsuccessful in the general season, so I headed over the Cascades to "hunt the rain". I grew up hunting blacktails with dad and grandpa, but hadn't been back in years.

I parked the truck on a side road closure in a downpour, and as I was standing outside the truck putting my raingear on, I began to question my sanity. It was pouring buckets! But I was determined to hunt, so I finished getting dressed. A flash of movement caught my attention and I looked left as two bucks shot across the main gravel road. Holy Cow! I just saw two bucks and I haven't left the truck yet!

Rather than give chase to two small bucks on the road, I headed up the road closure to look for a place to hunt. Randomly picking a spot to head offroad a little later, I immediately started spotting deer. Melting snow and rain was falling out of the trees making a pretty good racket that covered my approach on a small buck. (Note that the elevation was right at the snowline, where the concentration of deer hung out). 45 minutes after leaving my truck I was standing over my first blacktail kill in a long time. I was back home and dry, deer hanging by 9 am.

I was in love with blacktail hunting all over again. I largely abandoned mule deer hunting and hunted that area for years and drug some dandy bucks out of the rainforest. I learned that the big ones are a different animal than the forked horns you're likely to see walking around in broad daylight. The biggest bucks are nocturnal, even in remote areas. The best odds of getting a really big buck are identifying where he beds and trying to get him right at the first and last minutes of light, or flushing and shooting him during the daytime. The exception to this is the last day or two of season. All heck breaks loose when they start walking looking for hot does. My largest came really late in season by rattling him in. I would guess that the majority of my blacktail tags have been filled on the very last day of season.

Now I've moved back to southern Oregon, westside, blacktail country, and I don't even apply for mule deer tags. BTDT. I love hunting big blacktails. All the same rules apply as when I was young, and Seafire hit a home run with one thing he mentioned. The big ones learn early that if they stand still, most threats walk right on by. So, keep your fricken eyes up, ESPECIALLY when you're bombing along without a thought in the world that a deer could be around with all this noise. That is actually a hunting strategy for killing big blacktails! Sneaking along is almost a guarantee that you will never walk up on a good buck. They are too smart and have too good of hearing to be caught like that.

Another thing that works is flushing them with noise, like a predator call, or a slingshot, or better yet an old fashioned sling. The sling is quiet and you can chuck rocks into cover undetected. A big buck will try to sneak out, head low and moving slow. Walking a ridgeline and chucking rocks on the leeward side out of the wind has produced bucks for me.

MOVE SLOW, they have nerves of steel, and will wait you out by letting you walk by. If you move slow, stand around alot, open a candy bar, scratch your nuts, check your safety, scratch your nuts again, they may bust from cover, but be ready, they could be right under your feet. They rely on shock and awe in these circumstances to get away without you firing a shot. It's very much a cat and mouse game with the big ones. Enjoy it, that's what you came for!

I could go on and on. I love the game. Here's a couple photos of some my buddies and I have taken. Some deer were taken before the age of digital, so no photos of my biggest.

A small one for buddy John last year. He came over a rise and the buck was bedded in the middle of a bunch of does, his harem.



Year before last, I took John into a honey hole and he tagged this one on the lest day after a long stalk, his best in 35 years of hunting them.



Another friend, Jim, put in for muzzleloader and drew for my area, so we got him this one in 45 minutes of what we thought was a scouting trip! Lesson, always be ready with blacktails!




Sometimes the little ones don't have good color like you want, but the sport is just the same



But sometimes they do. A last day buck came to rattling after randomly finding his trees scraped and bedding spot in a new area.

After hunting an area for three years, I had an epiphany one Sunday morning about where this buck was laying up. I went in that afternoon and flushed him from about 20 feet. Even at that close range he made it 60 yards before my first shot. He was the smallest of three bucks I'd seen together. Imagine the other two!!

Sweet Roy! very very nice....

As I've told the boys I've taken out just to put it into perspective for them...by the time they get out to where they will be sitting for the morning, I can guarantee that a dozen or more deer have seen them, when they probably won't see a thing...

I've watched at times when a blacktail buck will stand and watch me for 15 minutes or more and not move a twitch... thinking I have not seen them.. its impressive on how much they can be in control of their environment...and amazingly patient...

The biggest ones I've taken have always been at the rut beginning.. I don't know why Oregon doesn't let the season coincide with the rut...my two biggest were chasing does.. and the one I posted a pic of, he was heading to where he was bedding... and he'd been in a fight that morning.. his antlers were covered in dried blood...but he had no injuries himself...

Oregonmuley,
Thanks for the offer. I'll look you up if I can work it out for this season.


Fireball,
That sounds like my kind of hunting! I have a video called 'Hunting the Elusive Blacktail' and everytime I watch it I think "That's for me"

GREAT posts Fireball!

I can't really speak to killing big blacktails with any authority. I've killed a bunch of blacktail bucks (and several that were clearly blacktail/whitetail hybrids, and one "benchleg" or "bentleg" which is our colloquial term for the mule deer/blacktail hybrids you see up at the crest of the Cascades). Mostly, as I was learning to hunt them (I didn't start deer hunting until ~ 1999, in my mid-30's) I tormented the fork horn population. Then I figured out how to more reliably kill 3x3's or small 4x4's and had a good run with those. I've only killed one big blacktail. He was with a hot doe at the onset of the rut. She busted me, he was focused on gettin' some tail and didn't see me until it was too late.



Seafire mentioned that there's a population of whitetails near Roseburg; if you are after a "prototype" blacktail you'll want to avoid the area east and north of Roseburg up to about Sutherlin as there's a lot of hybrids. My honey hole was about 10 miles north of Sutherlin and I was clearly in a fringe whitetail area with those genetics present.

I hear rumors of deer killed all the way up by me, in the Eugene area, with whitetail genes. Have not seen that.

My advice would be to come at the end of the season, very late October into early November. October itself is often hot and dry, terrible conditions for killing a blacktail. MUCH better after the rains come in and the rut starts! On that note, hunting in the rain is my favorite. Not a downpour, just our classic drizzle.... it energizes the deer, the dripping from the trees really helps cover your sounds, and everything on the ground gets much quieter to walk on.

One thing that might be an unpleasant surprise to a Southerner is how low the deer densities are. Be prepared for that. I don't know why that's the case, but as a rule, it is. There are exceptions. I will be very happy to give you my best spots if you do come out. Still, just be ready to NOT see deer. You can hunt hard, do everything right, and get back to the truck in the dark having not seen so much as a doe. That's routine... It can be hard to keep your morale up.

For a rifle any deer cartridge will work. Hard to argue against a 7-08 or .308... but I would advise putting some care into the optic, in terms of low-light performance. Our low light, in western Oregon, has to be experienced to be really understood.... with dense clouds at low levels, huge trees, fog, and steep terrain it can be DARK while still legal to shoot. My best low light scope is a 3-10x42 Swaro AV. My next best are my Conquests. Obviously YMMV here but a 40 or 42mm objective and etched reticle are your friend. Be sure to outfit the scope with Butler Creek or other flip-ups and practice using them.

I also think a good pair of high quality monoculars (that's for Skane! grin) is crucial equipment. I use Swaro 8x30 SLC's and they are perfect for still-hunting. I use them constantly.

Then, there's a whole other type of blacktail hunting... that's to get out into the big clearcuts in the coast range (that's where the logging is, not on NF land anymore) and see who you can catch in the open. This is usually going to be a longer-range affair. Guys make whole careers out of hunting them that way. It often amounts to road hunting. Still, you can locate and "snipe" treelines or feeding areas that would be hard to hunt any other way.

Killing a big boy would be awesome but to me, any public land buck is a worthy kill... However I can certainly see that a guy flying from afar away might want to hold out for a big one.

There's several books out... Boyd Iverson's "Blacktail Trophy Tactics" is probably "the" one to buy if you just buy one.

Thanks Jeff. I'm going to have to get that book. And FWIW this "southerner" is from PA and last fall I spent three weeks hunting NC gamelands without ever glimpsing a deer. So I think I'm ready.

Blacktail pictures?? I gotta get in on this..











A better looking deer doesn't walk the woods..These are Cascade foothills bucks..Double throat patches are where its at.

I agree, they are the best looking deer.

Moosemike - if Santiam posts up anything you would be smart to listen!! He knows his stuff when it comes to finding good blacktail bucks. He's also got the spring bear thing dialed in.