I already know the answer, Whatda guys say?

The one you miss.

Ok, toughest species of buck to kill smartass! 😂😂

The big old smart ones that go nocturnal during hunting season. The only way you know they exist is you get a glimpse of him on your trail camera once or maybe twice. usually very late at night or early in the morning before dawn. There like a ghost.

Blacktail.

We've been on the trail of one bit toad for a number of years. Tracks as big as your hand. Nocturnal bugger. Seems to know it's the season. Not sure about the rack but guessing 300 lbs or so. Hoping to catch up one day.

An old whitetail that isn't interested in the rut.

old Whitetail buck in Northern Minnesota that lives in wolf country in a tamarac swamp . these old bucks here a strange noise, weird smell , flash of a light they stay low in a sneaky hiding place . had one old buck that lived by my hunting cabin because he knew wolves stay away from there ,buck had water .food and a 15 acre thick pine-tamarac wet woods no one ever went into and it was a very quiet place. so in the fall if he heard a door open he stayed hiding. but that old buck made one mistake after the rifle season and musket season ,he was thin and hungry from hiding. so on December 28th right at sunset this old 12 pt. walk out in the soybean field 30 yards away and myself hiding in a ground blind waiting yet for a decent buck that year ,i put an arrow thru his lungs with my x-bow and ended his life. i had never seen this old run down buck for a few years he was a ghost and did not know he even was still around. this old run down buck dressed only 165 lbs. no fat on him would have never made the winter but he still had a very nice 12 pt. unique typical rack.

A whitetail buck living in heavily timbered country. If you add hunting outside of the rut, makes him even more difficult to kill.

There was a whitetail buck that was using on my place about 40 years ago. He was bedding across the road on a neighbor that did not allow hunting, and would cross the road coming on my farm after dark, and going back before dawn. I saw his tracks almost daily. The only time I ever laid eyes on him was at midnight, and he was a nice one, probably would have dressed out over 200 pounds and I'm guessing a 150 to 170 B&C score. I have always believed that could I have hunted on that neighbor, I'd have a chance at him.

High pressure public land 3.5 yo and up age class buck.

That damn mechanical robo deer the DNR puts out

As far as species go. Put a Good bullet in the right place, use a capable caliber, and they all die.

Haha that’s a good one. 👍

My only frame of reference is what we have here in WA (so the regions are in WA, not around the country. I don’t really think any of them absorb bullets any better than others. But, here’s my observations in public land/private land that everyone gets permission to hunt:

Mule Deer: Easiest. You’ll put in lots of hiking with big elevation changes, but it’s relatively easy going. Where they live allows them to be spotted from a longer distance. They have a curiosity problem and will often give you a shot after they’ve been pushed.

SE Whitetails: Second Easiest. Same as mule deer, they just don’t give you a second chance. Push them, and they’ll run to the next county.

NE Whitetails: Hard. Really cagey before the rut. Thicker vegetation than in the SE and it’s all noisy. At least it’s noisy for the deer as well. I’ve heard a few coming before I saw them.

Blacktails: Hardest. They’re quiet, nocturnal, and have food and water everywhere. For me, they’re really hard to spot at longer distances vs other species. The only saving grace seems to be they’ll stay in a fairly small area vs migratory deer herds. The areas they live are super thick and even the open areas are hard to walk through with overgrown slash piles.

Big, old, mature muley bucks......and yes, I'm biased. The absolute biggest bucks we've seen over the past 16 years, we've only seen once and didn't kill any of them.

Had a friend in PENN back in the 80s who was keeping an eye on really large buck that pretty much was nocturnal and he saw him only a few times over a two year period. He missed him in archery season and didnt see him the rest of the archery and buck season. He figured someone else got him or was struck by a car. That same year during the two day doe season, the first day was warm and foggy, low and behold he trotted by his stand at roughly 40 or 40 yards. Last time he ever saw him.

Jud I would have to say a mature whitetail buck in SC at the end of December. He has hunting pressure for at least 4 months with legal times starting 1 hour before sunrise to 1 hour after sunset. The dumb ones have long been shot.

GreggH

Interesting topic Jud - and I'd expect most answers would be the one people have the most familiarity.


Big woods whitetail in a non-rut situation (sans baiting) would get my vote.

But I can easily understand those responding with trophy mule deer (due to the general lack of them) or blacktails.

Blacktail hands down

Scott, I’ve come to appreciate whitetail, especially western whitetail, timber or prairie bucks. Easy to get jaded after watching Texas or Midwest “lee and Tiffany” or any of the qdm areas with highly restricted private ground etc.

Personally I love em all, the terrain each inhabit, and their habits. I’d take bucks over bulls every day and twice on Sunday personally. 👊🏻

Any buck that gets a few years under his belt in a otc public ground area is a different animal for sure.

Your very first one

*grins*

Last year was a first in seeing a robo deer in action for me.
I wonder if that buck was even operable (from shrapnel) by the end of the season - he was a stud.

I’ve sat with the warden while runnin a couple robo deer, pretty funny. 😂😂

I will say, if you do fall for a robo buck, you’re quite the stupid sumbitch, that’s for sure.

I would freaking LOVE to sit with a warden and watch that action - and hopefully be close enough to hear conversations inside the cab (assuming windows are open and more than one person). LOLOL

The funny part about the above photo is when we drove down that road some time later, there was a live, smallish buck standing next to robo deer - perfect scenario.

I'd have taken more time to snap another photo but didn't want to bugger the operation for the warden (or pi$$ him off).

I'd take a guess at Sitka blacktail.

I hunt reg'lar blacktail in coast and cascade conditions but it's southern-ish and I sorta prefer to hunt before the rain starts 'cause it's more difficult and fewer people bother to try so at least I'm alone crashing through the bushes. Add even more rain and even more ferns .. it's gotta get harder yet.

Tom

Try mule deer in South Florida.

Mature whitetail buck on State Gamelands in southeast PA. Especially in Amish country

A mature Whitetail mountain buck.

Dave was having a property dispute with the neighbor of the land he was hunting.
Early up in the tree on Saturday morning, he saw movement, a buck.
Drew his bow back, aimed and fired.
Thought he saw sparks, but the buck was still standing.
Aim, shoot again!!
More sparks!
Cement yard buck!
True story

Blacktail.

i once watched a large old buck at about 600yds as he was watching a 6pt between he and I chase and breed a doe in a soybean field. As the young buck eased away with rhe hot doe the large buck skirted until I lost sight of him but he never stepped in to the open. An extremely old buck .....say 5 1/2 and up is like a a 50year old man,.... would he get it on if convient with a hot package?.....yes indeed. Would he go to the bars and night clubs on a maybe, or one your subject to get stabbed or shot at usually not.

JO'C said Coues Whitetail in Arizona, Sonora - the smartest that is.

He is getting it plenty. Just not moving when and where you can see him as you said.

The one you don’t see....

and a big mature Blacktail.

🦫

Jack O’Connor never hunted a real Blacktail… hint 😂

With a 7 month season, and a fist full of otc tags, I’ll put them last… grin

Species not imagination and pretend..

And I’ll admit, a real Blacktail is toughest, hands down… tons of otc tags, like Roosevelt’s elk, yet no one buys em.👊🏻

I love it!! Haha 😂😂

Big blacktails are bitches. I've had the bastards let me nearly step on them. I had one let me shoot right over his head at 20' away as he lay in his bed and I shot at a younger buck. He jumped and ran only after I was done shooting at the younger deer. Too many stories to tell. Blacktails are the real deal. Most guys never get a good one, shooting only meat bucks.

I’m sure it’s a Coues whitetail but for a buck that most have the opportunity hunt if they want I’m going with a black tail.

all these old bucks and kinds can be tuff but these old whitetail bucks that live in wolf country ,thess old bucks are hunted year around by wolves so rifle hunters to these buck`s are easy to avoid . but when these old whitetail bucks get too old and beat up from the rutt they either die or killed by the cold , wolves or maybe a late season muzzleloader or archery hunter , i have killed a couple of very nice old bucks last week of December when its cold and snow is deeper that`s when a old monarch buck might come to a small food plot in the woods right before sunset once in a while , this does not happen every year either for me . now i am getting to the age or just old its harder on my body , but i have learned plenty while on a stand in the woods of the when ,why,how to have a chance at a old monarch buck with my bow, and i have missed a few too ! good luck this fall,Pete53

How about a net B&C buck of any species on public land? Gotta be pretty tough!
Is it the habitat or the habits of blacktail that make them so tough? Is there an actual skill to killing mature blacktail bucks? Or just tenacity and being in the right place at the right time? I’m truly curious. I’ve never hunted them before. I’m really intrigued and admire the big woods whitetail guys who consistently track big bucks and make the shot to seal the deal.

Love me some coues deer, love the country they inhabit and the species themselves! 👊🏻 Super cool critters

I would love to hunt them but with life I’m going to have to stick with Blacktails for a while. The granddaughter wouldn’t be happy with me hunting something without her around.

Hardest to kill meaning requires most firepower?

Or

Hardest to obtain an opportunity to kill?

What's the best sitka you've killed?

None they all die when hit in the vitals no such thing as to tough /smart to kill

We have three major species here in Oregon and I have hunted all three since the early 60's. A lot of the3 difficulty comes from the habitat they live in and the availability of alrm animals in their vicinity.

1. Hardest - Blacktail - I killed my largest buck in a clearing in the salal about 30x50'. It was about 800 yards to a house. He stood up, probably to pee. I had never seen him before. Nighht or day.

2. Second - Whitetail - I killed a nice six point four years ago. He was the third deer that came out from behind a slash pile on their way to bed. Unfortunately, the big one was next in line.

3. Third - Mule Deer - I killed a huge one when I was young. He was standing on a cut bank muching grass. I was walking up a logging road. They have gotten tougher to kill since.

There is also a fourth species- the Colunmbian whitetail which is relatively rare. Though we lived in Umpqua where they exist I have never taken one. The tags are tough to come by.

Yep, they hardly ever appear in daylight. They don't make very many mistakes either. Once a buck makes it to 4.5 years old or older, he's very hard to kill.

You would have got him had you been a 1970s-80s East Texas oil field trash redneck with a q-beam and a 22 magnum rifle.

I'm with you. Public land bucks that have made through a season or 2 are tough. I've killed a ton of blacktail but it was all on private land-no comparison to public land bucks. The deal with blacktail is as soon as their horns are hard, they go find the gnarliest, thickest patch around and never come out. I've seen them do this on private land with zero hunting pressure. You see a big buck as his antlers are growing but as soon as they are hard he disappears until the rut.

Getting a mature Coues whitetail killed is no easy task. They are some smart critters for sure.

Not the buck….but the big ass matriarch 130# doe THT sits in the timber and blows at the 12 other deer in the field….while your motionless with the wind in your face

From a bowhunter's perspective:

---One P&Y Sitka Blacktail buck, arrowed the first and only day I ever hunted them (Kodiak Island). Wish I'd bought more tags....I'd rate them the easiest
---Three P&Y Mule deer bucks taken including a Non-Typical in around 25 seasons of serious hunting
---Five P&Y Whitetail bucks arrowed in around 25 seasons of seriously chasing them
---Six P&Y Coues bucks arrowed in around 20 seasons of seriously hunting them
---Zero P&Y Blacktail bucks arrowed over 4 times hunting them....all 5-6 day hunts so not a lot of time into them. I've killed Blacktails with the bow but never a large one, although a big fork horn I got was aged at 5 years old by a biologist that did a teeth ring count. I'd rate them the hardest as I've yet to see a big Blacktail buck in my limited time bowhunting them...mostly during the rut.

None of the mature bucks of any species seem very easy except the Kodiak Island Sitka Blacktails in my experience. And I did see a fair number of decent bucks after I'd filled my tag...just out looking around when I was tired of catching fish. It was the peak rut around Thanksgiving week and there were alot of deer back in 1986.

Oooops, your gonna piss off the hardcore desert hunters off. Haha

Blacktail

When y'all say hard to kill, I can think of only animal. That would be Hubert D. Buck.

It was The Rifle Opener of 2005. I was up in my favorite stand. This was my first trip out with The Whelenizer, my Rem 7600 in 35 Whelen. I had it loaded with Remington 200 grain PSPCLs over H4895. This same rifle had a perfect record of 10 1-shot kills over the next decade, but today things were not going to go as planned.

Hubert D. Buck Meets Mister Whelen

I would freaking LOVE to sit with a warden and watch that action - and hopefully be close enough to hear conversations inside the cab (assuming windows are open and more than one person). LOLOL

The funny part about the above photo is when we drove down that road some time later, there was a live, smallish buck standing next to robo deer - perfect scenario.

I'd have taken more time to snap another photo but didn't want to bugger the operation for the warden (or pi$$ him off).[/quote

I'd love to have a shot at a robot buck knowing what it was.

Supposedly there was a local guy who spotted the setup one day driving home. He got his hunting crap together and went after it, circling around
and coming up on it from the woods side. He had around a dozen rounds
in it until they somehow stopped him.

I support what they are attempting, but the game somehow pisses me off.
And, as a game, it makes me want to play.

This is a never ending argument and one that will never convince the next or previous poster.
Suffice to say, that the hardest animal I have hunted is the ones I knew to be there but never saw or got a change to shoot and those are mature dear on the back half of age that were always smarter than me. Fallow and Sambar come to mind immediately, though I do have a 208 inch Fallow buck on the wall.

Another point,
Some areas simply do not have the larger versions of the species.
South Carolina seldom has bragging rights for trophy whitetail as the crop feeding opportunites are not the equal of the midwest. Indiana breaks 170 inches with some regularity and I have seen pics of pick-up heads that are impossible to guess score being very much larger than that.

A non-rutting mature buck of any species in an area with high hunting pressure.

Blacktail and Mule deer. I've been deer hunting in the north east for almost 40 years and I've yet to see one.

The really big muleys are very hard to get. I don't know how many times I've seen one on top of ridge where he can see the whole world. The second you put glass on him, he knows he's been seen and he vaporizes. I don't know how they know they've been seen but there's no doubt that they do.
I have a lot of respect for a hunter who has several of those big heads on the wall.

200" public lands mule deer. There aren't very many of them, and they are in a class all by themselves when it comes to smart.

He's got a very valid point.

I used to know an individual in Maryland , that shot a beautiful buck out a truck window with a flashlight. Bunny cop was behind his truck before he could blink. Like 4 years later his does the same stupid crap, including the Bunny cop and much to his surprise the same deer. Game Commision used his deer to build a robodeer and my used to be aquaintance blasted it again. He laughed , The warden laughed,His wife did not.... Truck , gun etc . all gone again. Plus a DUI..........

Seems a guy can buy a big Muley, Coues, whitetail, Sitka or California Blacktail.

In early 80’s I hunted a old whitetail in Franklin county in N.C. for several years and caught up with him on my birthday in October….sitting in a climber on edge of of the river he came out of a honeysuckle thicket across the river…at 50 yards I missed him with a 308. Hunted that same tree all season and never saw him. Went back the next year on my birthday and sitting in same stand he came out and I killed him within 20 yards of where I shot at him the year before….at 7:30 pm on Oct 26 both shots….exactly a year apart. An old gentleman that hunted in the area told me he had been seeing him in a bean field for those 2 years….he was hunted by dog hunters for several seasons but lived in that honeysuckle thicket and I knew he was there by his sign, but no one else knew that and I have always said I just got lucky. He was old and past his prime but still carried a big 12 point rack and 180 lb. They are out there and know when they are being hunted and will go under ground if they get age on them…got to catch him before the rut and be lucky.

That was 7:30 am in above post….sorry.

Good job we share the same birth date. In 40 some years I’ve only killed two on my bday some due to having other tags prior to the day and others because in didn’t have a valid tag left. It sure makes it a good day when it happens on the day of remembrance and this year I will try to get my granddaughter to kill a black tail as a mentor on my birthday.

I think this is the Idaho record non-typical P&Y mulie, taken about 20 years ago. If I remember the story right, it was 1 of 3 similar bucks hanging together before the rut. You don't just run out and shoot you one of these. I do remember that he said it jumped the string and he hit it a bit far back. They had to track it the next morning and there was almost no blood on the ground. The tracks were quite small for it's size, about like a doe, which made tracking very difficult.

The toughest buck to kill is your next one. After all, the others you have killed are already dead right?

Big Muley timber buck for us flatlanders. Have to contend with altitude and unfamiliar territory.

The one who knows you are there like beaver 10 just said.

I’ve only hunted whitetail deer but a mature buck that lives on public land or several small private parcels and has been around long enough to get shot at or bust a hunter is just about impossible to hunt. They’re pretty much 100% nocturnal by rifle season.

A good old fashion deer drive exposes those nocturnal deer.

Had an old whitetail I jumped several times, finally got him. This was on 5,000 acres in Ozona. It the only place I’ve ever hunted that Was open enough to walk around and hunt the hills , see down in the valleys.

I miss those days.

As a kid I did a lot of deer drives with my uncles and cousins at deer camp in the Northern lower. Deer hunting has changed a lot here since the 80’s. As far as MI goes deer drives are pretty much a thing of the past anywhere other than the U.P. They were a a lot of fun back in the day.

I second this. I have many times gotten night time game camera pictures of some monsters that we never killed or even saw in daylight. Hell I never even got a daytime game cam photo of them. Some of the oldest and biggest whitetails where I hunt can become so nocturnal they are virtually impossible to kill by any legal means. They only move late at night and can get everything they need in a pretty compact area so they don't move around very much at all. And the woods are so thick here you can't move through them quietly enough to slip in close to his bedding area. These are the kind of bucks that you usually only saw get killed on deer drives using dogs back long ago. Even then they learned that game pretty well too and would often slip out of an area at the first sound of a dog bark or even a tailgate dropping open. Many a stander missed a shot opportunity back when we were running dogs because they didn't expect an old buck to slip out before the drive even really started.

I used to think that I was a pretty good sign reader and stand picker, but after opening morning here on public land, all bets are off. The big guys that make it through opening day aren’t where they were where someone could get an easy shot at them. A lot of the bigger bucks that I’ve tagged weren’t because I picked a great stand site, it was because some other hunter bumped them into me. On public land we have atv riders, berry pickers, leaf lookers, nature walkers, bird hunters and several months of archery season. Anything with antlers gets pretty paranoid post rut the third week of November.

Toughest for me were the bucks in the mountains of western VA (GW National forest) in years when there was a bumper crop of acorns.

They'd feed at night and lay up in the laurel thickets during the day, you couldn't go in after em, or at least sneak up on em. But if you were walking down the trail in the dark either before or after shooting hours, you'd be jumping deer right and left.

Never had the experience to hunt anything but blacktailed deer here in California I hunted the coast for what some would call true blacktailed deer and for the last 20 years have been hunting the central sierras. Where they class them as a mix between blacktailed and mule deer or the name California mule deer. I’ve been fortunate enough to harvest a few about 10 or so and the hunting can be quite hard especially as the years tick by. This is my personal best but have seen bigger up in those mountains. Hunting public land is no joke in California lots of hunting pressure and we don’t hunt the rut for these deer. Maybe one day I’ll have the chance to hunt whitetail or true mulely.

Big woods mature Whitetail buck in a high pressure state. Hard to pattern, large home areas and outside the rut, can be ghosts. More luck than anything to put the time in and be in the right place at the right time. They best way IMO to hunt these is still hunt by cutting a track in fresh snow ala Hal Blood.

Even then you have to really know the terrain features and the lay of the land to get close.

I have never hunted Blacktail deer, only Whitetail. But that one looks like a Dandy. I would be happy to have him on the wall. Welcome aboard.

Over the years i have hunted deer, Starting in 1950 till now, having never hunted Black Tail, but I have hunted all the other species mentioned here, the really old White Faced Mule Deer, of the high desert country are hard to get to and hard hunting.

South Texas Brush Country White Tail, old bucks 7-8 1/2 yr. old, oldest i have killed 12 yr. old bucks, are cagey, and you can't crawl threw the brush on your hands a knees where they live, they do come to water at night drink maybe 2-3 min. and leave they don't stop for corn or a protein feeder, or a hot doe they leave, I have seen one old big buck that only came to water every 4 th night. Takes a lot of time and skill to dig them out of the brush country. making a good shot is the easy part of hunting them. Rio7

Had the pleasure to hunt this one for 3 years the 2nd year I had him dead to rights at 20 yards for whatever reason my faithful knight muzzleloader hung fire the following summer I saw him in velvet in my hay field several times and that rifle season we finally connected . Constant trail cam photos of him haunted my dreams . I’ve killed a lot of nice bucks but this one tested my limits