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ryoyshi;
Good afternoon - almost - to you sir, I hope the weekend has been treating you acceptably and this finds you well.

Thanks for posting the photo, it looks to me like he's what would be considered a cranker either on the Gulf Islands or Vancouver Island where I've seen/hunted most of the Columbia Blacktail I've encountered.

In those locales, the deer themselves are quite a bit smaller overall than the ones Steve hunts up by Whistler and Pemberton.

Going off of a bit of a foggy memory, I'd say the 2 point I killed on Salt Spring Island way back in the day went about 75-80 lb carcass weight and the locals who saw it said it was a pretty decent buck. There was one hanging I looked at which must have gone a bit more than 90lb carcass and had a rack almost the size of the one in your photo, but I don't recall the bases being quite that thick.

As my friend Okanagan said, they're a different breed of cat than even the whitetail I've chased in a couple provinces, though to me they much more mirrored whitetail responses to seeing people/pressure, etc. than anything a mulie has ever done around me.

The biggest bodied Columbia Blacktail I've ever seen was outside our daughter's dorm room window at the University of Victoria! It was by my estimate about a hand higher at the withers than any other bucks on campus - and there's no shortage of them there either I must add.

Thanks again for the photo and thanks for the thread and those who've contributed. It's interesting reading everyone's experiences and how they differ.

All the best to you all as spring continues to show up.

Dwayne