Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Blacktail hunters

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..🤣