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Marc

How wide was your wife's 4x4, 22 to 24"? Looks mule from the picture.

I always thought from Dublin/ P-town west were all 100 pound blacktails except above Marin county.

Allen

Allen not sure where your from but these are the herd of bucks that hang out at the chabot range and a whopper blacktail, about as thick as I have seen for body size from the San Ramon foothills.

What is that hanging off his chest? Was this buck drinking out of the nuclear cooling pond?

Here is another local buck. DP I have no idea, I posted this picture a while back and someone identified it as a relatively common cyst of some sort.

BTW If I'm not mistaken wild pigs can be shot in CA year round without limit

You are correct. 20 dollars a tag and there is no limit for how many you take.

I remember when wild pigs were considered a non game animal, no tags and no limit. Then someone at F&G decided they wanted some $$ for managing these destructive pests and fees/tags were implemented along with big game rules.

MtnHtr

Hemiallen, missed your question. My wife's buck was only 19-1/2". I take a good pic, huh? My 3X2 was 20-1/2" but it looks smaller. The width of the ears on these deer is about 19".

We spotted a buck last week across the same canyon the wife's came from. The inside spread was even with the ends of his ears so he was a 22" to 23" buck. Trouble was, he was 430 yards away in poor light and facing away. I would have taken a poke if he had turned broadside but he didn't. He just went straight away up over the top of the ridge. I missed a good buck the day before at 376 yards at first light. He was broadside but I could hardly see him through the scope. I could see him fine with the binoculars. It turned out the fast focus on the scope was about a half a turn off. I am going to tape that thing so it can't move.

D-13 opens Saturday so I will be at it again. I was looking for a good buck in A zone. I will probably kill the first legal buck I see in D-13.

Here is a blacktail my Aunt's friend shot yesterday.

22 1/2 inch spread.

Those are nice bucks you guys are killing!

Very nice work guys, I really dont think Cali deer hunting gets as much respect as it should for the difficulty involved. It can be damn tough to punch your tag on public land. I ate my tag soup this year and passed on a couple tiny forked horns but never saw anything worth trying for.

Weather has been tough up in the B zones, at the beginning of the week it was 88deg at the peak and at the end of the week it was 28deg with a couple snow flurries.

Just curious, can the burro deer get to B&C proportions? I've never seen one make book.

Hoping to get lucky with the weather this week and see if I can't notch my tag in the Sierras off HWY88. Hopefully, the snow has pushed some of those high bucks down to lower elevations.

I went up 88 two weeks ago. Saw nothing and heard no shots all day.

I am going up HWY 4 next Monday, I also hope the snow pushed down some of the bucks.

Blacktail season is four weeks old here in the part of the B-zones I hunt. All the bucks we saw the week before have hidden too well for my tastes.

We have seen some bruisers way past our rifles capabilities, and we use Weatherby Magnums. But, the weather has been making the ground quieter, and we found a path into the area where we spotted the big ones. My friend Brian got his daughter onto a very nice 3X3 on opening morning about a mile down slope of where we have been concentrating. But those bucks might never show up again, you just can't pattern Blacktails.

My backpacking trip into the Marble mountains was a big zero too. However the country is spectacular, and there was lots of bear.

I have put in an awful lot of effort, but that is Blacktail hunting in a nutshell here on the north coast.

We have just under two weeks left, and despite some disappointment in our being skunked so far, we believe it will work out.

B-zone is always too short when the grape harvest is still going.
Hope I can get up there sometime next week.

Hi California hunters,

I have a couple questions:
What type of deer are around Yosemite National Park?
Do any Rocky Mountain Mule Deer in CA regularly get big enough for the records or is it just your blacktails?

Good luck to you all.

The Yosemite area has California Mule Deer which are migratory with the lower elevations hosting blacktails.
Yes, Kalifornia has produced some book heads in both Rocky Mtn Mule Deer and the desert dwelling Burro Deer. E

There are at least two California Mule deer non-typicals that have made the all time book, and are listed under the B&C Rocky Mtn mule deer category. One huge non typical buck was former number 3, it came from the Yosemite herd (it's mount now wears a rocky mtn cape though).

MtnHtr

Here's a 205 gross typical Muley taken in Northern California in 2005.



This 31" 10 x 9 monster was taken just east of the B&C Blacktail boundary in Redding Ca.

(Thanks Parrey)