Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire muley / whitetail cross

geedubya;
Good afternoon my friend, I hope that the day's being good to you down in Texas and you and your fine family are well.

Since you asked what we think that nice buck might be, here's my thoughts on it.

Up here we've got both mulies and whitetails, the species sometimes overlapping and sometimes sticking in some places more than others.

For example we'll see whitetails within a mile of our place reasonably often, within 2 miles regularly, but have only seen them in the yard twice in 30 years. Mulies we'll see usually weekly and now that it's hot out and we keep water pans filled for them, they're around daily. I've got a gimped doe bedded 20' from the front door in the shade as I type and there was a pair of spikes bedded underneath the deck this morning.

Here's what our mulie ear spread looks like when they're down and totally relaxed.



When I was initially discussing this with John Barsness back in '08 when our youngest shot this buck, he commented something to the effect that this was the widest ear spread he'd seen this far north and that it must get fairly hot here. It was something like that flavor anyways GW.

Then we can see that our "average mulie buck" up here would have more ear spread/bigger ears than your buck does. Seeing as it's nice and warm down in Texas, I'd guess that the "average mulie ears" are fairly big down there as well?

Brow tines sometimes come into the discussion, but in my experience they're also both genetic and regional. For instance in our valley it's an odd thing to kill a mulie on the west side and into the next valley - the Similkameen - that will have much of anything for brow tines. To the east of us however and into the Kettle and Christian valleys, about half or perhaps more of the mulie bucks will have brow tines.

The yard mulie bucks are typical "east side" mulies that are about 50/50 brow tines or not.

Way back in the day, the only buck I saw which I thought might be a cross was to the east in lower part of the Kettle/Christian confluence. It was a spike for antlers, but had a bit of a blocky face for a whitetail. It's tail was slightly short for a whitetail but far too long for a mulie, however there was a few wisps of black hair on it, which I've not seen on any other whitetail bucks I've shot over the years.

The ears were perhaps a wee bit big for a whitetail, but it was the tail which we thought was the oddest bit about it.

It had been shot in a whitetail buck only season and I'd have shot it and tagged it as that seeing it only in the field for sure.

What it truly was of course I can't say, but that's the only one I've personally seen in the flesh that I thought might be a cross.

If you can recall the tail on your buck in the photo, that may or may not tell "the tale of the tail", you know?

All the best.

Dwayne

Muley ears & Muley rack ='s Muley !

Its a friggin mule deer. Antlers, ears and most especially a whitish butt with a white rope-like, black tipped tail spells 100% mule deer.

Looks like a damn mule deer from those photos. Got anything more convincing?

No recollection on the tail as that was 20 years ago, before digital cameras, and I slept last night.

What made me curious is that white-tail deer typically have brow tines (eye-guards) and for the most part don not have bifurcated main beams.

ya!

GWB

When it moves fast does it run or stot?

I am only 300 yards from the Salmon river which has lots of whitetail cover and lots of whitetail as a result. But my place has lots of mule deer on it and occassionaly a whitetail come up this far from the river bottom. I have deer on the place year round and am familiar with the differences between whitetail and mule deer and this little guy is different from our usual mule deer. If I could get a good video of him it may be more clear as to why I am referring to him as a cross.

Anyway he is my deer and I can call him anything I want -


https://www.themeateater.com/conser...ten-do-whitetail-and-mule-deer-hybridize

Hybrids, as you would expect, often look like a combination of whitetail and mule deer. But sometimes it’s hard to tell whether you’re looking at a strange whitey or muley, or if you’ve actually got a hybrid. Even though the species have very different tails, antlers, ears, and coats, there’s so much natural variation at play that many of these characteristics aren’t useful for identifying crossbreeds. For example, if you see a whitetail deer with an unexpected fork in their antlers, it’s mighty hard to tell based on antler characteristics alone whether you’re just looking at a whitetail with a nontypical rack or a hybrid.

I know a whitetail when I see one. "Your" deer has nothing that indicates any whitetail genes are present, at all.

Fact. Sorry.

That sure is a mule deer tail it's sporting. That's a mule deer not a whitetail.

They will and do crossbreed, they are unable to reproduce the same hybrid species...sterile...this from my RP-biologist friend who is a Mule deer specialist. Otherwise we would have a separate species of hybrids.

I don't see the Whitetail in that deer either.

Small antelope crossed with an elk.
Antelelk.

It could be a cross I guess but it sure looks pureblood Mulie to me. The ears, butt, tail and everything else are indicative of mule deer. The antlers on younger mule deer look just like that too. Most crosses don’t have whitetail antlers/mule deer body, etc. like people generally think.

I think the best way to tell is the location of the metatarsal (sp?) glands on the hind legs.

Yes they can cross,but it doesn't happen too often.In the western part of South Texas it's really desert type country.The whitetail deer are among the largest of the state.There are no mule deer in that area.The farther north and west of the South Texas brush country,you start getting into a mix of whitetail and mule deer.One thing I've notice about the deer in the western part of South Texas is they carry an unusually trait.They commonly have a darker or black tipped tail like the one pictured in the article below.Maybe they have cross genetics that make them carry that trait,or maybe they are just one of the many recognized sub-species.Whatever it is,it happened many years ago and the percentage of mule deer genes would be nearly none existent.Most people will find this hard to believe,but South Texas wasn't always the vast brush country it is today.When cattle were brought in from Mexico in the 1800's they brought the brush seeds with them in their bellies.This now brush country really didn't have many deer back then because it was once a vast grassland and desert.There may have been mule deer then in the western part of South Texas and maybe they could have crossed with the few whitetail that were around.As the brush thrived and grew taller it created great habitat for whitetail,not so much for mule deer.I do know the last known pronghorn antelope was killed on the King Ranch in the late 1950's or very early 1960's.It was the last one,so no chance to reproduce,so it was killed.Just shows how habitats can change over the years.

https://www.deeranddeerhunting.com/...-unique-tail-of-whitetails-and-mule-deer

Here is a picture of a buck's tail from far west South Texas near Eagle Pass.Notice the black tipped tail

Dang that's a lot of antler for an 80 pound deer.

Plenty of Blacktail/Muley crosses in the lower Sierra Nevada.
I've shot Muleys and Blacktail. The crosses look exactly how you'd think. I thought it was pretty common knowledge that this happens.

Looks all mule deer to me.

That buck's ear tag got ripped out of his right ear.

TPWD biologists say the color characteristics of mule/WT crosses are pretty unreliable.

https://tpwd.texas.gov/landwater/land/habitats/trans_pecos/big_game/wtd/index.phtml

Thanks for that article rockin'. Just what I was looking for but couldn't find. You are the googlefu master!

That's a fairly significant hybridization percentage, I'd say.

This is a mulie/whitetail cross I took in CO years ago:


When I spotted this deer it was with a couple mulie does and when they began running across a wheatfield it had a really goofy gait. It wasn't stotting like a mule deer and it wasn't running like a whitetail but sort of a combo of the 2. I was hunting meat and dropped him and when I field dressed him he had a whitetail looking tail but it was only about 3 inches long and skinny like a mule deer. The antlers were funny too with a small 3 point antler on one side with a mulie configuration and an antler on the other side that also had 3 small (tiny actually) points but they all came off one beam like a whitetail.

I took the deer to the CO DOW office in Brush CO and they took a tissue sample and after a couple of months contacted me and said it was a hybrid cross. Only one I ever saw. Since the rack was small I tossed it in the field. Kind of wish I'd kept it.

Looks like a muley tail. What leads one to surmise it's a cross?

Color variations do occur. The pic below is a yearling muley for sure and a product of a twin birthing. Nearest blacktails are about 150 miles away. Not the typical mule deer tail though.


Same buck the year before as a fawn with his sister, who was melanistic.


Their mom was a typically patterned muley and is to the far left below.


Can't make any claims as to who their father/s might have been although Cookie caught up with this guy about 25 miles away.


This fellow from a prior year was also a little strange. Had a black stripe from nose all the way down his back to the tip of his tail, but was muley all the way.


Cookie found him across 4 seasons but his existence is now uncertain.

Despite antler configuration, the below is also a solid mule deer trailing a doe through our back yard.


Takes a serious examination to definitively determine heritage. We do have some whitetails in northeast and western Oregon and a few along the Columbia River.

Once listened to a Geist presentation on deer evolution. As to gait when fleeing from danger, tongue in cheek he said mulie/whitetail crosses were totaly confused and just stood around.

We see both species fenced in on Montana's Bison Range, but haven't noted any obvious cross overs.