Spent my whole life hunting and culling them. Probably have taken 200 or so although since I lived on the central Ca coast the above guys will probably tell you I wasn't hunting blacktails, oh well.
Scout when they are in velvet. Their horns are tender so they will be out in the open more and not in the thick stuff. Once their horns harden, they go in the thickest, nastiest stuff around and mostly go nocturnal until the rut. Hunt as close as you can to the rut. For the Cal. coastal season that ended in late Sept, that meant the best hunting was the last week of the season because the bucks were starting to get stupid.
On my ranch we would suddenly see deer during the last week that we hadn't seen all season . They had been there all along but stayed out of sight until their hormones got the best of them.
Man I miss hunting them.
