With hunting in full swing, friends are always sending me photos.
Don't know anything about this one but it's big.

nice!

Private ranch,B zone

That’s a great buck!!!

Truly strawberry-kiwi? Hope there was a chick takin the photos…..

Nice buck.

Niiice!

Huge

How do you know this? Looks like high desert X zone to me.

Big old buck, congrats to the hunter!

Doesn't look like B Zone. Looks like a Mulie, rather than a blacktail. Regardless, it's a really nice buck !

I was sent this photo 2 weeks ago. It's a buddy of a buddy. It's out of covelo.

You know that steams that bunch of Bambi huggers out there....great buck!

Looks like that to me, too. Up around Alturas, Ravendale country. I've hunted antelope up there but not deer. Never could pull a deer tag in that area. But I've seen some really big bucks like that one in the original post.

L.W.

Yup, that’s a shooter! Congrats.

That's no Blacktail.
That country is not at all like B Zone either.

That sure looks like a mule deer to me - Covelo is Blacktail country. It’s a great buck either way, but would be one of the best blacktail ever taken if it was a blacktail.

No way in Hell that's a Blacktail.

I have hunted and driven through the Covelo area a lot in the past and never seen any country that looks like that. It’s a great buck nonetheless but I have a hard time believing that’s a Blacktail.

It's not a Blacktail, and it's not even Covelo. BTDT.

I’d guess either east or north of the Sierras. High desert mule deer. Not B zone, maybe a Covelo hunter but not Covelo. Wherever it is, nice buck.

Cool buck, chit hole state

Hell of a buck

And WA isn't ?

For sure. That looks like a Bodie Hills buck. Definitely an Eastern Sierra deer.

Nice deer for sure.

Can anyone ID any of the plants in those pics? It appears the dead taller brush is the result of a fire perhaps, or the drought is REALLY bad there. Looks very fire scar type lower growing plants, but I can't make out what they are.

I've seen some of the "prairies" in Humboldt, Del Norte, and Mendicino counties, actually more than some of them, and those don't appear like that, but perhaps after one of the big fires has roared through one the pics here are what they look like a couple of years later.

Never seen a blacktail like that either, but wonders never cease if that's what it turns out to be.

It is a nice buck.

I've been in/on lots of "prairies" and have never seen one like that. A far as fire/burn scars go, I see no evidence of burning or charring. And if you look closely at the righthand edge middle of the third pic, you'll see mountains in the distance. That is not a view from Mendocino County and Covelo is pretty much in the middle of Mendocino County.

Not bad, not bad at all.

Craigster, yeah, that third pic looks a bit different. I didn't think that terrain looked like any of the prairies in the coast range. But the dead bushes in the first two pics look really similar to some areas up here about 2 years after a fast burn through grassland that is starting to get some junipers growing. Except those ain't junipers. I'm trying to figure out what they might be if those pics are from the east side of the Sierra, and can't come up with anything, or why they are dead now, unless they're up fairly high and the fall has made them drop all leaves already.

Who said WA isn't a chit hole?

How do we know its from California?

I thought weird too for A California blacktail with that terrain. Too me me more mulie and the guy's wearing pretty heavy clothing for an October California hunt .

probably wrong though, just speculating

great deer none the less

Look at the ears...the head and the terrain.
No mistaking it for a Blacktail.

It's a great Muley Sal but again how do you know it's from California?

I can't guarantee it's origin.
I see it's been posted on a California hunting page on Facebook.
Every once in a while California puts out some gigantic mule deer.

Gotcha.

And yes it do.

Yessir, that’s a nice one 😊

My bad

thought you insinuated that was a black tail as posted other California black tails in past

Modoc county I 'm bettin. And mule deer will breed with blacktail.

Beautiful beast of a buck. Ears look 100% mule deer to me?

Yup, looks a lot like the Likely Tables area. I killed a real nice buck a few years back in X2, just a couple miles South of the OR border.

Mule Deer / Blacktail cross = Bench Leg