Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game California hunters

Check in on what you are hunting this year and what with.

Also if you have some California game pictures post them, I like seeing what this state can produce.

I have my D3-D5 tag and heading out the next two weekends to try and arrow a forked horn or better.

Here is the distribution of deer through out California

Hows a burro deer differ from a mule deer?

First of all, they aren't found in the New York-Providence Mtn area where the map has them. They live where the Desert Ironwood grows, which is much further down the Colorado River and in a much warmer climate.
They run the same size as the Rocky Mtn. Mule Deer, but are colored or marked alot differently. They are a sort of yellowish brown in their winter coats. Their skull caps are brown not black. Their rump patches are alot smaller and no where near a distinct. Their summer coats, however are repoorted to be very similar to that of other deer. Can't verify this myself as I've never seen one in summer coat. E

I'm in the Southern Mule Deer area, down SW - D16.

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Eric

I've got family in Santa Maria and when I go visit I always see deer. Now I've been told by both sides that they don't have mule deer or blacktails around there and vice versa.

I don't know who to believe.

I see deer along 166 between Maricopa an Santa Maria and I see lots of deer along 101 between Santa Maria and Buelton.

So for you locals,..what species of deer are they most likely..?

I'm in A Zone North.
Columbian Blacktails.
I often hunt B zone as well, but not this year.

Passed up a dozen bucks so far looking for two humdingers that we located during archery season.
Like a needle in a haystack.

My avatar shows a 25" wide blacktail my son took a couple years back.


If you are looking for horn porn here are three of the best Mule Deer to ever come from California.

Dang!

Big ole guys. Wonder if they were X zone bucks.

My Aunt's FIL owns some land in North A. If my Aunt's husband was not a butthole I would have access to some good blacktails.

Just love all the ignorant fools who think there's no hunting heritage in California. Awesome bucks!

I no longer live there, but grew up hunting small game, upland birds and waterfowl there. Used to BBQ fresh killed pheasant for Thanksgiving. Flew in the morning, dinner in the evening. Still good hunting for large game too. Despite the very left wing politics.

Regards, Guy

The ones I've seen there are Columbian Blacktails. The tops of their tails are all black. Which is the easiest way to tell. Further south, you are suppose to get California Mule Deer. They have a black strip and a black tip on top of their tails. They often run a bit larger than the true blacktails.
The deer that show up in my yard are marked like Blacktails but are not recognized by Boone & Crocket as such because they easily interbreed with the local California Mule Deer that summer in the mountains.
I've seen deer as high as 8000 ft. marked like blacktails as well as California Muleys. Then there are the Rocky Mtn. Mule Deer that show up where the zones tend to mix. Heck, I had a biologist point out a Ca. Muley wintering with a heard of Rocky Mtn. Muleys in Mono county one time.
It other words, this deer sub species bussiness can get kind of confusing. E

Grew up in PA hunting whitetails and it took me a while to get use to hunting out here.

Hunted X12 last year for the very first time (took 4 years of points) hunted hard and shot a nice 3x4 on the next to last day, saw a huge 4x4 immediately after I pulled the trigger but was still happy with my first x zone buck!

This year I am hunting D9 in the Piute mountains south of Lake Isabella. Last time up there I saw 5 bucks by 9am first morning. Only problem they were all forkies.

I used to hunt the Paiutes when I lived in Los Angeles, years ago. Killed a couple of nice four point bucks there, up in the Clear Creek canyon that runs from Miracle Hot Springs up to Havilah.

Also used my 1946 CJ2A Willys to get around. That bugger would go anywhere!

Good luck.

L.W.

Mix of breeds. Vandenberg airforce base had a lot of mule deer brought in during the 70's and you clearly see it in some of the genetics, much larger ears and bigger bucks. I believe scientific basis all of the deer on the central coast are mule deer but can also tell you than anything more than a forked horn is rare regardless of what they eat or how long they live. I hunted the Drum Canyon area of Los Alamos for a long time and never put a tag on a buck that looked anything like what most of us consider a mature mule deer. I think the biggest I ever tagged was well under 150lb live weight and horn wise about a 20" forked horn with eyeguards that was at least 5-7 years old. Every year some good bucks, mature 4x4 over 25", come off the base. The deer you see off of Hwy 166 between Santa Maria and Bakersfield are even smaller, not a log of food base out there for them.

Also over the years I got tired of dogging rattlesnakes and poison oak so I head for B5 in the Wilderness.

I hunt southern A-zone. These were from near Hwy 166 between Santa Maria and Bakersfield. I figure they are California mule deer. My wife with her best buck.


A couple of mine.



Here's the average little forkie from last year in Ventura County.


The first two above are about as big as they get in body size. They usually yield about 80 pounds of boned meat. The average fork horn yields around 55 pounds. Fork horns are common. There are a fair number of 3X3s around. One from two years ago-still in velvet.


4X4s are rare but do exist. I have killed two that I remember in 30 years. One from 1983.

Nice group of bucks there Marc. I know some buddies that laughed at the thought of bragging about a 3 pointer until they hunted out here.

Living on the ranch for the first 20 years of my life I always collected sheds and I have one matching set of horns from a 4x4 that would probably be a 22-24" spread at most. Those horns dwarf every other buck I have ever seen in that area. We averaged 8-10 bucks a year and most were 3-4 years old and produced. Marcs numbers for meat yield are right on the money.

Thanks, we do have to be satisfied with a little less than the boys back east.

The best buck I have seen on the hoof here was in June on a scouting trip. He was a 4X4 that would have gone well over 25". He was hanging out with another 4X4 that was only a little smaller. Nowhere to be found when season opened. They were adjacent to private land where no hunting was allowed so they probably stayed there during season.

A few years ago another hunter found a head with the dried out hide attached. It was a 4X4 that measured 23-1/2". Probably a lion kill. It was a beautiful buck.

There used to be a bunch of beautiful bucks hanging in the Buckhorn Saloon in New Cuyama on Hwy 166. The Buckhorn is closed now. The deer were killed in the mountains around there by Lamar Johnston, a local rancher, years ago. Lamar passed away some time ago and I suppose his son has the heads now.

X9a this year so its a mix of Inyo and rockey mtn. muledeer. For those in D11 this year this buck was taken almost in sight of downtown L.A..


Richard

That's a dandy! I killed the 4 pt. pictured above on the south side of Mt. Waterman in the evening. I spent the night with him there and all the lights of LA and the San Gabriel valley were spread out below.

I used to hunt around Mt. Pacifico and above Mill Creek Station also but haven't been out there in many years.

We've sure hunted some of the same ground. On the weekends my pa used to drive me over to pacifico and round mtn.from wrightwood to hunt on the weekends. This was back in the late 80s.

Richard

Went out today. Had a 2x2 come about 30 yards but he was covered by some bushes. Only saw his head.

Then I watched a few 2x2's and a 3x2 eat at about 350 yards away.

I can not wait till rifle season.

Sorry for no pictures. I left the camera in my backpack which was in the truck.

Some one I know just shot his deer.



Nice 8 pt for Cali.