Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Which is harder to hunt, whitetails or blacktails

Or better yet, Go one on one with a mature whitetail buck that survived the first week of Pa. rifle season.

The problem with the comparison is that blacktails are confined to pretty much one particular kind of habitat - the Pacific coast rainforest - whereas whitetails are found in habitats ranging from North woods, southern pines, Florida jungle, and western plains' riverbottoms to Arizona desert.

Nevertheless, my bet is that if you found similar habitats (thick woods) and hunted each of them with similar methods for a good length of time, blacktails would give you the hardest time. The suckers are very difficult to pattern and they go nocturnal at the drop of a hat. Early season high altitude hunts and catching bucks that've gone stupid with the rut are the two best bets.

A mature whitetail buck say 4.5 yrs and older can be one of the most difficult animals to bag. Many professional hunters say a trophy class whitetail is the toughest trophy to bag.Some of these smart whitetails go about completely nocturnal and are near impossible to get. Guess it all depends on comparing species to species or mature animal vs. mature animal

I do know that in WA state, and perhaps other states that hold whitetails, mulies and blacktails, our F&G annual reports have consistently stated that they can easily determine the populations of both whitetails and mulies, but have no such luck determining our blacktail populations outside of an educated guess given both the super secretive nature of the deer itself and due to it's obvious formidable, ultra thick, almost impenetrable living quarters.......of which they determine to be well over 90% of the blacktails habitat. Given their reports, I know how our F&G would vote on this subject.

The task of taking a trophy blacktail (by a professional and certified scorer's standards, anyway) is in itself a truly, daunting task, at best. I've found it oftentimes even more of a challenge just to get them out of some of these spots/holes/hairballs of vegetation and rain forest, thorns, shallow runnin' creeks strewn throughout and deadfalls expansive enough to cover the devastation incurred by the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. Actually, EXACTLY all of the above every day of your hunt if you so happen to hunt in that part of the state. But most of these conditions occur throughout most all blacktail ranges.

Anyone that's hunted and harvested ANY deer in such environs and terrain can attest to the difficulty in both hunting deer in such areas as well as in the retrieving of said game . It just so happens that the blacktail variety see's fit to inhabit such areas............just our luck I guess.........grin.

Because of these aforementioned conditions, taking ANY blacktail and getting them to the meat pole makes each one of them a trophy in my book. My comments don't mean to disparage the efforts necessary to hunt, harvest and retrieve whitetails or mulies, as I'm sure that similar, but different obstacles are experienced in hunting them as well and a great deal of effort put forth. But since my territory is blacktail country, I've a much better handle on what hunting them entails.

Since I've hunted whitetails the least, I obviously can't offer an opinion based on enough experience. I have hunted mulies quite a bit and took last years 175 mulie in "the Bob" only after passin' on no less than 6 other very respectable bucks (both whitetail and mulies) and dozens of lesser ones. I also video'd 12 mulie bucks in eastern WA several years ago before taking a very nice buck 3 days into that 2 week hunt.

I's venture a guess that if someone were to comment that they saw a dozen or so blacktail bucks in that short amount of time during hunting season, they are then likely the luckiest hunter I've ever known, high on meth or seeing them through a cyclone fence.........grin.

Best part......we all have the opportunity to hunt so many different places for any deer we so choose....at least for now.

Good luck in doing so.....

How many whitetail guides are there? 10,000?

How many blacktail guides are there? 10?

If people can't make a living doing it, it must be pretty hard.

Good point.....one I've never thought of. In truth, I don't know of ANY blacktail guides, then again, I've no use for one, so perhaps I've just not paid attention.

I do know, however, that those fellas lookin' for "Bigfot" are havin' a hellava time in locating one. Whether one believes in such things or not (not), every time they come up empty, their excuse is due to the exact same descriptions I used above to describe where we hunt to blacktails. In that instance, I feel their pain...................

That is a very true statement. I've hunted both and find them to be very difficult to hunt, especially the trophy bucks. Lately have been chasing Whitetails. I've killed 2 Blacktails that are classified as Mulies because they are outside the border of the B&C boundry. Some call them hybrids, they looked like pure Blacktails to me though. Small ears and Blacktail tails. 1 scores 148 gross, the other is 131 gross. It took me 20 years to get those 2 bucks. I hope it doesn't take another 20 to get a real nice Whitetail!

I'd rate them even, both are extremely difficult animals to hunt.

Grew up hunting whitetails in spokane. For the last 13 yrs I've been hunting blacktail. Blacktails will absolutely make you rethink your ability to be a hunter. I head east for easy kills as often as I can.

Have never hunted blacktails, though I routinely hunt areas that some might consider blacktail habitat. When hunting whitetails in mature forests or mixed woods/fields, it's generally not an ungodly task of finding one. However, when hunting thick stuff, such as clearcuts, briar patches, mountain laurel, etc., it becomes quite the task to kill one. Likely your only shot is going to be when you first jump the deer, and be sure to you can hit them on the run.

Having never hunted blacktails I can't form an opinion so I won't but I do think its funny that guys think there local deer are the hardest in the world to kill.

No experience with blacktails. But they would be more like hard hunting for mulies shich is completely different game from setting in a stand for whitetails.

But until they try to actually do it, a lot of guys think setting in a stand hunting for whitetails is easy. It not easy but rather a different game of patience. Patience to sit quietly with freezing feet watching small bucks pass by waiting for a big one. Many people can only tolerate this for a few days without pulling the trigger on a smaller buck.