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Thanks for posting those! Big blacktails are something special.

Only a forky but one of my better ones.

That's a WIDE forky.

Sorry, but ANY California, or southern oregon blacktail can't be compared to real blacktails..... period...

That said, this thread isn't about" "faux" blacktail...

Why?

Because some taxonomists say that blacktail range is only farther north. Some say it ends at Monterrey Bay. Well here is a deer from Paso Robles. It aint a mule deer and it aint a white tail so tell me what the hell is a blacktail?


It's a deer that has black all the way down it's tail with forked antlers.
Maybe I should change my handle to Mysterydeerer.

Call them whatever we want, the deer from the drier southern Oregon down south through California are NOT like the rain deer of coastal WA or British Columbia on north.

The blacktail shown from near Paso Robles is way different from a northern blacktail. When I hunted them in that area of California I concluded that they are closer to mule deer in looks and behavior than they are to rain deer blacktail in northern fern jungles. Hunting them in oak and scrub and dry grassy hills is not anything like hunting rain forest deer.

The buck shown from near Paso shows a white rump with a black stripe tail down the center of the white patch. Rain forest blacktails have a broad black tail that covers every bit of their narrower white patch. In a foggy grey dawn, a mule deer type white rump patch shows up WAAAAY more than a sneaky northen blacktail with no white showing on its rump.

Been there many times with both, and have hunted both the northern blacktails and the southern ones. They ain’t even similar. If there were an easier way to ID them, they should be in a different record book, though I understand the frustration separating them. Mule deer and blacktails interbreed, and in the north Cascades of WA State I have seen four deer standing together with four different markings, from mule deer oval white rump with a stripe, as shown, to full blacktail with no white showing.

Wish y'all who hunt blacktails in the oak hills of northern California could spend a day after them on the Solduc River, just for fun comparison.

Re the original post: the guy in the video is the real deal who is exceptionally good at rain forest blacktails.

A Coues Deer looks exactly like a Whitetail.... but somehow we make a distinction.

There are actually three different types of Blacktails..... Columbia Blacktails (yes, this includes those Cali “Coues Mule Deer”), Cascade Blacktails (N. OR, WA, and S. BC) and Sitka Blacktails (spotlighted by Alaskan Midgets).

Ain’t a more handsome deer than a mature Blacktail buck.

Is this a blacktail?



Or this?



What about this one?



Maybe this?




Probly not huh?

Another not blacktail



The place is crawling with non-blacktails

We are in agreement.

I can't speak to any genetic differences in deer species, but I promise you that hunting in a rain forest is far more difficult than hunting in open, dry country.


Okie John

You mean the open dry country where a buck can bust out 10 feet away and you never catch sight of him til he crosses the next ridge? Maybe the difference is that the water(sweat) is coming from your skin instead of the sky.

I've spent decades hunting both. I'll take open country every day. EVERYTHING is easier.


Okie John

Some nice wanna be blacktail posted. Congrats!!!

That's a fact, unless you've done it, you really don't have a clue.

PS, and driving down I-5 and "seeing" it doesn't count.... Haha

Crying laughing. And yes you are right on

I Carry a spray bottle to keep it real while hunting dry country.

I grew up hunting on the Willapa Bay I now live an hour in land. There’s a difference in the deer just from there to here.
Bucks are much larger in all regards the further east you go.

Nice bucks...😎

Big blacktails are some smart old deer. I shot over one once at a smaller buck not knowing there was a big one hiding under my feet, while I was shooting! He didn't jump up until I took a step forward and almost stepped on him. That's what makes hunting them exciting. Nerves of steel and balls of brass!

Yeah they either get up 200 yards away or at your feet out of a patch of brush that wouldn't hide a cottontail. Or somewhere in between.
I've actually run over fawns with my tractor when cutting brush. Poor little buggers are told by momma not to move and they don't.

I was still hunting down a trail one day. Got kinda warm and stopped to take my jacket off. Stood there for several minutes to see if anything stirred, then set my rifle down and unzipped my jacket. Darned doe broke out of the brush about ten feet away and bounded off into the scrub.


Okie John

I've hunted down there a bunch, mostly along the Bone River. Brutal ground, slippery, steep, wet, and covered with brush. Plus the weather is usually like getting sprayed with a hose.


Okie John

What is the story/caliber on that Mod 99 Fireball? I grew up hunting deer in the "Big Thicket" of East Texas. Lots of rain ( nothing like you guys get, but plenty anyhow) and thick, thick, thick! My family was a Winchester Mod 94 family "by gawd!", ha. That ans 12ga with buckshot. It took my 20 years to get a long (for me, 276 steps) down a pipeline row. I hunted the rows a lot, but still the deer came out within 100yds of me! What made you decide on that Savage?

Jaguartx, the vids are Steve Isdahl. He's a guide in B. C. who really gets on a bunch of big blacktail bucks. I follow him on another site. He typically hunts pretty high up (~3k') near Whistler and I haven't been able to make his technique pay off where I hunt at ~250'. Still a lot of fun to watch. Dude really has a passion for it. Sells a blacktail hunt app (which I don't have).. Has a Facebook page dedicated to hunting mature blacktail, etc

Fireball, this are outstanding bucks!

Nice rack....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sxUDBTww4xw

I want a Blacktail. Maybe next year. It will probably be the first hunt I ever book a Guide for.

Hope you have a GREAT hunt, enjoyable and that you get to tag a good blacktail. They are pretty.

There are very few guides for wet country blacktails. The only guide I know in wet western WA tells his clients that a stubby antlered 2x3 is a trophy... and it is!

I've been out catching steelhead in heavy rain and will opine in again as I dry out.

The quote above is loaded with unstated assumptions that do not hold true for rain deer nor rain deer country.

Assumption 1: You can see the next ridge.

Assumption 2: You can see the ground on the next ridge (and the one you are on) through the vegetation or at least see close enough to the ground to see a deer.

Assumption 3: The deer busts out. I am trying to recall the last time I saw a blacktail bust out and run. Rain deer blacktails freeze. They sneak. They crawl. They rarely run, and when they do they don't lift a tail and flash the white underside to get my attention like a whitetail.

Hope this is taken in the fun it is written. I enjoyed hunting blacktails in California. Never considered them real blacktails, of course.

You find waaaaay more guides in California and southern Oregon than you will up here, for good reason. Let me know when you get serious Mike.

Ha ha. Maybe the southern blacktail are the real ones and you guys are hunting something else.
FWIW I've never hunted whitetail. Maybe this year since I've moved to AZ but coues are a whole different deal.

Oregon/Washington Coast holds some big Blacktail bucks. They are smart, mysterious ghosts that inhabit the deepest thickest schit you’d ever not want to be hunting in unless you’re obsessed with owning one of these big boys...

Horrible weather offers you some help by masking your movements and sounds you typically make underfoot stepping on broken, dried limbs or getting your clothes and gear snagged on vine undergrowth and devils thorn as you slowly try to move through it.

Many of these monster stay nocturnal, only leaving their secret beds at dark, and returning to same before light.

On rare occasion, I’ve seen them, either at a distance so great that my spotting scope could only pick him up..Or, by chance going down a steep mountain side to recover an elk putting me on a collision course with one that had made his bed tucked deep into a canyon with thick dark timber only yards away.

Clearcuts and the rut you have a decent chance at picking up a nice fork, 3 or small 4 point with a tight bone basket above. But, the big gnarly old Blacktail is a different animal to hunt...😎

It's rare to see a buck like this in the daylight. His little head was doing the thinking for him this day...

Blacktail. He got BIG eating corn in my yard.



More blacktail.





When they get bigger than these yard bucks they disappear until breeding season.







P

Dang Petting Zoo in your Backyard

OK. Thanks guys.

One option would be go hang out at pharseller’s place, drink beer and smash a whopper..🤣

Zowie! What a HOG!

My grandson has been running trail cameras on the Olympic Peninsula of WA for the past few years. Two of the biggest bucks he has photographed NEVER show up on any cameras in daylight, even when he puts feed out and a few other good sized bucks show up there. One of those biggest bucks will not ever come to the feed, not even at night. Furtive isn't a strong enough word. In fairness, he has two big bucks that he has watched for the past two years that do come out in daylight, at least a bit.

Yep once the velvet comes off, your chances of seeing em are slim, except the last few days of October, first couple weeks of November. Season ends Halloween in Washington

Here's a California Columbian blacktail

Another California blacktail

Sounds like a plan.

There are 6 subspecies of mule deer found in California. The Columbian Blacktail, Rocky Mountain Mule deer, California Mule deer, Inyo Mule deer, Burro mule deer, and Southern Mule deer.

The ranges overlap, but for a blacktail to qualify for the California Big Game record book it has to be taken west of Interstate 5. Blacktails are numerous in the Sierra Nevada, but because of interbreeding with muleys they won't count in the record book.

Come on over.













P

Haha there Ya go Mike!!!

You know it!

This photo shows a young blacktail forky that I arrowed in Napa County, California. I skinned and quartered the animal right away because it was a hot day.

Sherwood

Are the Blacktail seasons open during the beginning of October? I was just thinking I have the first 10 days of October off work because I'm in for WY antelope. Even though I have PP I don't think the draw odds are 100% but they are close. But I will need a back up plan if I don't draw.

Wa will be oct 12th til the 31st. Oregon I think opens the first of October. I would trade the last 3 days of October for the 28 days prior...

Yup!

I'd love to hunt the Napa valley.


Okie John

Thank you.

Oregon runs into November a few days. ODFW keeps moving the season up a day or two earlier to give the biggest bucks a better chance to escape season alive. I've literally killed a pile of bucks on the last day of season. It just gets better and better the last week.

I flush quite a few of these bigger deer and appreciate the fast follow up shots of a lever action. The thing about a Savage is the accuracy is far better and, pointy bullets. We take some long shots (600 is not uncommon) but most are not that far. I am often looking 300-400 when in open ground. Not Winchester 94 country. The flushing as close and fast, and the open ground is long. Savage works for both. I normally hunt with a 99 in either 284 or 270 Titus. Long legged for lever guns the Savages are.

Yours sounds like perfect 94 country. Last one I got with a 94 was a few years ago, last day of season.

That's a good one!

How many of these states sell OTC licenses?

My best faux Cali blacktail from almost twenty years ago. Man I love hunting these guys.

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The CA A Zone season runs from the 2nd Saturday in August for 44 consecutive days which makes it end around the 20 something of September. You have to apply for the tags but they have never reached quota. The northern area of Ca around Mendocino county is some of the best hunting. From SF Bay southwards the lions have been hammering the herds. The rut kicks in towards the later half of September making them easier to hunt. There are seasons open later in Ca but those are primarily mule deer areas.

2nd deer I ever killed, and still my best blacktail

Great thread, and I hate to be the downer, but the reality is in extreme northern Calif, Shasta and Siskiyou Co's many factors have conspired to decimate the Blacktail population. Check the stats before you book a hunt. Probably the highest mortality for incidental kills is ancient migration routes between high country and winter range, are transected by high speed highways. Cal-Trans in Yreka district used to respond, 10 yrs ago to 20+ dead deer a day. Now they tell me it's 1 or 2 a week. Change in predator hunting laws, mountain lions..nope, black bears..no dogs or bait, nope. And then, after the numbers were decimated and the reported numbers of legal kills was down alarmingly, the CDFW continued to sell 2 tags per hunter with an unlimited quota. The B zones were the cash cow of the CDFW, have to keep the cash flowing in to fund the study of non game species. And, now of course, oh joy, we have wolves. How many predators can any species withstand at the top of the food chain?

Wa and Oregon tags are otc mike. Dunno about California

Oregon has some good hunts. Honestly any blacktail hunt around here can be a winner.

This.

The deer on this thread are epic monsters compared to typical rain-forest deer.


Okie John

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

Santiam Unit blacktails, both taken 2nd to the last day of the season.

A-Zone a few seasons ago on California central coast

Oh boy that gets my blood going. looks familiar.

I've hunted Santiam and McKenzie a good bit. This one was a McKenzie unit buck. Most of the big bucks I used to hunt there had the crab claw points.

Fireball2, you have sure killed some really great blacktails. I struggle most years to even see a legal buck, they are just evil little deer but man is it nice when you do finally find a good buck!!!

Evil little deer, I hafta remember that one! Yeah, lots of fun to hunt.

OK thanks.

Good day to you sir! This buck lives not far from the GI/VI, just south of the border actually. He will likely die of old age or be hit by a car unless he develops wanderlust and some lucky hunter gets him, as he lives near/in town.

Hey, Dwayne. Re Blacktail behavior, I'd agree that northern rain country blacktails act more like whitetails. IME, the California blacktails act more like mule deer. It is a very general observation, but northern blacktails tend to sneak and hide, and southern blacktails tend to bust out and run like a mule deer. That's one of the reasons why I lean with the folks who make a distinction between northern and southern blacktails rather than lumping them together as the same deer. They don't look the same, act the same and they are waaaay different to hunt in the extremely different terrain/vegetation/climates they inhabit. And the southern ones have fleas!

ryoushi, don't know where the buck in your photo comes from and won't ask, but his antlers look remarkably like a buck that lived in the suburbs of Mission, BC.

Very nice animals, Frank! Did you hang the buck on the gravel road on a wall? 😎

That buck in the road is a dandy!!! I've hunted up outta sweet home before, Gordon lakes area. Big country.

2018 Buck

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Three generations with Grandpa, me and the kid.

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A nice one from Dad a couple years ago. Had to cut him up on the ground and pack him straight up threw the timber.

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The kids first blacktail at 13

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A decent one

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Mark - I wish that where the case with that buck - but unfortunately no I missed that buck and a guy riding in the back of a truck shot it. All I got was a couple pictures - and several nights of bad dreams about that morning

Oh, that’s too bad, Frank...We all have missed some good ones we’d like to get back. 😎

Took this picture yesterday. This buck is going to be special.