Darkness consumed the Douglas fir forest in Oregon’s Cascade Range. Unloading the rifle, I headed for the truck. It was pouring rain and windy. Perfect blacktail deer hunting conditions, but the season had come to an end.
I had hunted 31 of the 35-day season. I saw one buck. It was the buck I wanted, but I didn’t end up killing him. It was still worth it.
After season’s end I scouted the mountains multiple times. I saw the buck two more times. Once it was chasing does in the middle of a late muzzleloader season. I could have hit it with a rock. The other time was in late December. Snow covered the ground. The colossal buck was the only deer I saw that day. That’s common with big blacktails. I’ve seen them stay in the same place all winter, amid two feet of snow. They’re tough animals.
I began scouting for the buck in late May. I didn’t see it until July 10. I saw it one more time over dozes of scouting missions, and that was a week before the season opener. I never caught it on trail camera. I hunted for it the following season, including one stretch of 21 days straight. I saw 23 bucks that year. One of those was the buck I was after.
It was late in the season, November 4th to be exact. The wind was howling from the West. It was raining. The buck was chasing a doe on the edge of a logged unit over 800 yards away. The hike to get within shooting range took a while. When I got to where I wanted to be, I set up the tripod shooting sticks and waited for the buck to come out from behind the 10-foot tall fir trees. The doe was standing in the open, feeding. I could see the buck’s nose, the front of its rack and its tail. The rest was hidden. My pulse raced. I was hot and sweating. Three years of chasing this buck, and this was the best opportunity, yet.
Then a wisp of clouds materialized in the draw between us. Within seconds the clouds thickened. I lost sight of the deer. For three hours I sat. When the clouds lifted, they were gone. I went after them, cut their tracks and followed them into a patch of reprod. It was too dense to stand in, let alone get a shot. Visibility was an arm’s length, sometimes less. Hunting these areas of new growth from the inside is a waste of time. Another 10 years and it’d be huntable, maybe.
I headed to the fringe of the reprod, in the direction the deer were moving. I called and rattled for over an hour. Nothing. I moved 300 yards and rattled again. Still, no buck.
That was the last time I saw that deer, one of the most impressive Columbia blacktails I’ve ever seen, all of 160-inches, for those who track such numbers. I had over 350 hours logged in hunting that buck. Scouting time was well beyond that. What I learned by trying to outsmart that buck, and not pulling the trigger on just any buck, provided me with an education I could never have received any other way.
Killing a buck of any species is a great accomplishment. Consistently killing mature blacktail bucks is entirely another thing.
I’ve hunted all of North America’s deer multiple times and was fortunate to take the deer slam in a single season. This isn’t bragging. This is my resume. With 49 years of deer hunting experience, I believe regularly tagging a record-class Columbia blacktail on public land is the most challenging hunt in the U.S.
Filling a sheep or goat tag usually comes down to being in shape. Killing a big bear or moose requires patience. But no matter how good of a hunter you are, connecting on record class blacktails, repeatedly, is an incredible challenge.
The Many Faces Of Columbia Black-Tailed Deer
Columbia blacktails thrive in the Pacific Northwest, specifically from the Coast Range, through valleys, into the Cascade Range of western Washington, Oregon and northern California. The varied habitats in which they live make blacktails very challenging to hunt.
A seasoned blacktail hunter could look at the racks from various bucks and tell you which of the habitat zones they’re from. Northern California’s open country boasts some monsters. If you want to start an argument among blacktail circles–especially hunters in the Coast Range of Oregon and Washington–tell them the best bucks come from northern California. They’ll tell you they’re not true blacktails, but they are. I’ve seen the results of several DNA tests from sheds of deer I’ve photographed and found antlers in northern California, and they came back as true blacktails. Here, they have favorable growing conditions, plenty of high protein food and private lands on which to reach full genetic potential.
My best California buck was taken in mid-October. It was hot and the ground was crunchy. There was no stalking, only spotting and waiting. I heard footsteps coming down a draw. Their pace quickened. That’s when a doe came into view. She pranced down a well-used trail and stopped to urinate. When the buck reached that spot he stopped, sniffed it and lip curled like it was the peak of the November rut. That was its last move.
My only velvet blacktail was taken in early August, also in California. That buck was patterned on trail cameras. The first day reached 109 degrees. I don’t want to know what it was inside the ground blind. I lost 11 pounds in sweat that day. I sat daylight to dark and didn’t see a shooter buck.
The next morning I moved the blind further uphill, where three trails merged. With the intense heat I figured deer were moving to higher elevations to bed in the shade and catch relief from rising thermals. At 10:00 a.m. a good buck passed by. I stopped it with a grunt. One arrow finished the job. Big bucks often bed multiple times in a morning before reaching the place they want to stay.
The Coast Range could arguably be the toughest habitat in which to hunt Columbia blacktails. Nowhere have I caught so many big bucks on trail cameras, yet never seen them in person. Once these bucks strip their velvet in late August or early September, they almost instantly turn nocturnal. Many Coast Range bucks live in a small home range, less than a square half-mile, I’m sure.
My best coastal buck came from Washington’s San Juan Islands. I always heard
stories of how small bodied these bucks were. But one I caught on trail camera all summer proved otherwise.
I was in a ground blind opening morning, but the buck didn’t travel its usual trail to feed in a nearby meadow. At midday, when deer were bedded, I checked trail camera cards. That’s when I discovered that the day before the season the buck had stripped its velvet. For the afternoon hunt I moved the blind 300 yards further into the timber, closer to the buck’s bedding area. The goal was to catch the buck on the move before dark. With only a few minutes of shooting light left, the buck came down the trail. The 17-yard shot was simple. A buddy’s family owned a butcher shop and he helped me get the buck, whole, to the scales. It officially weighed 194 pounds. Not all island deer are small.
Habitat Challenges
Imagine taking wily whitetails and sticking them into hundreds of thousands of acres of the most densely forested, brush-choked, rugged mountains in the country: That’s blacktail hunting in the Cascade Range. Toss in a growing number of cougars, coyotes, and black bears that routinely prey on blacktails, increase the number of hikers exploring the lands in which blacktails live all summer long, open the land to archers all of September, rifle hunters in October, rifle elk hunters in November, and late-season archery deer hunters the latter part of November and into December, and the chances of finding a wise buck dramatically decreases in the western slopes of the Cascades.
I’ve spent more time hunting blacktails in the Cascade Range, specifically in foothill country between 1,500-3,000 feet in elevation. They’re pure blacktails here, near my home in western Oregon.
One buck I chased for three seasons. I got thousands of trail camera pictures of it but only saw it in person, once. That was on Thanksgiving day. I’d just logged 125 hours sitting in ground blinds, tree stands and covering ground, rattling for this buck. A doe came down a trail near my blind, and behind it the biggest bodied blacktail I’ve ever seen. The shot came in the closing minutes of daylight. It felt good, but in the low light I gave the buck time.
The blood trail was easy to follow. I found the buck 70 yards from where I shot it. It was only a three point, that was all it would ever be. I was alone and had no way to weigh that deer. The biggest blacktail I’d ever seen on the scales tipped it to 216 pounds. This buck was bigger. I missed Thanksgiving dinner with the family that night.
Spend any time chasing Columbia blacktails on the valley floor and you’d be quick to agree these are the hardest bucks to fool. These bucks live among people on farmland and public waterways bordering rivers. They swim — a lot. They know when the school bus comes to pick up your kids, when you let the dog out, when you’re on a tractor to do work, when you’re in a boat fishing rather than hunting, and when your sights are set on them. They’re smart. I swear they can read your mind.
One big buck I was targeting in a river bottom had me flustered. I had a tree stand near a bedding area and a ground blind a half-mile away, near where it fed into fields. Every time I sat in one stand, the buck would appear on trail camera at the other. I had over 70 hours of sitting time on that buck, that’s not counting the 1 1/2 hours of driving time for every hunt, one way.
I felt I was getting close to killing this buck. One morning I couldn’t make it. I texted a buddy the night before, telling him to hunt my ground blind in the morning. He sat less than two hours and shot the 142-inch buck as it walked back to its bedding area. Sometimes killing a big blacktail comes down to catching them at that arbitrary moment where they let down their guard, which there seems to be no rhyme or reason for.
Year-Round Scouting
I live in the heart of some of the best blacktail hunting there is, in Oregon’s McKenzie River Valley. Our family homesteaded the region and began hunting blacktails here in the mid 1800s.
I run trail cameras year-round to learn all I can about reclusive blacktails. At the time of this writing, I have 153 trail cameras set in three states, spanning over 800 miles.
In spring I monitor antler growth. In early summer, fawn recruitment and predation. All summer I watch antler development and note when they drop in winter—that’s when I take my pudelpointers shed hunting. Between mid-June and mid-July, in one day of physical scouting, I’ll see more mature bucks than in three or more hunting seasons. They’re out there, they’re just near impossible to find during hunting season.
When bucks are in velvet, they reside in openings to feed and sleep. This is how they protect their valued headgear. Summer scouting reveals where bucks are and offers a starting point.
Though I catch numerous bucks on trail cameras, I’ve only killed two that were
patterned. It’s not that they move far. They simply live in dense cover and move under the protection of darkness.
Once a big buck is located, I note the conditions of the habitat. Study the food sources, the ages and mix of trees, the height of summer grasses and bedding habitat, and the trails being used. A big blacktail buck is never anywhere by mistake. Once a mature buck is taken from an area, as long as the conditions remain favorable and does are present, another buck will move in. Many of the biggest bucks we’ve taken over the years have come in six to eight year successions. Figuring out what draws big bucks to an area is the secret.
Hunting Blacktails
By opening day my maps are littered with red circles where I’ve seen big bucks while scouting.
If you’re a traveling hunter eager to chase high-country blacktails, start by monitoring wildfires in the Coast Range and Cascades. There’s plenty of public land to hunt and with the labyrinth of logging roads and hiking trails, access is achievable.
The number one factor that’s made hunting blacktails so challenging in recent decades is the lack of logging on public land. The logging lull has prevented prime blacktail habitat from properly developing. The deer are still out there, just not in the densities they once were. They’re spread out, living amid dense cover that more resembles an equatorial jungle than any Western deer habitat you’ve set foot in.
In recent years, wildfires burning throughout the blacktails’ range have created
the best habitat for them. I used to wait five or six years to hunt a burn, now I hunt them as soon as the first rain comes. Sometimes the burn is still smoldering, and bucks are using them. They’ll eat fresh grass and roll in ash to delouse their bodies.
Hunt the edges of burns, where grass and forbs are quick to grow. Avoid hunting the hottest parts of a burn, where the soil got scorched and will take years to re-nourish.
Over-the-counter tags are available for blacktail hunters, as are special-draw permits. California has the earliest deer season, opening in mid-July for archery blacktails. Washington and Oregon have seasons extending into late November, early December in some units.
Hunting blacktails in the higher elevations during general rifle season is one of my favorite pursuits in North America. In October, nighttime temperatures are dropping, rain is replenishing the land, and the leaves of vine maple are turning vibrant colors. It’s a beautiful time to be afield, but also the toughest time to kill a wise buck. On October 21st or 22nd, the blacktail game notably changes throughout much of their range; it can happen a week sooner in the Coast Range. This marks the peak of the pre-rut for blacktails, when bucks cover ground in search of does they’ll soon be breeding. Now, high-country bucks travel up and down mountains to find does by catching pheromones from their interdigital glands and urine.
The later in the rifle season it gets, the better the hunting is, especially when rain and cool temperatures prevail. If it’s raining hard and blowing, hunt all day. Halloween is my favorite day to rifle hunt, as photoperiodism gets blacktail bucks fired-up and moving. Cold temperatures and rain don’t expedite the blacktail rut but they do make it more comfortable for bucks to cover ground without overheating. Rattling and calling can be very effective from the third week of October until the season’s end.
Three seasons ago I spotted one of the biggest blacktail bucks I’ve ever seen. It was October rifle season, and the buck was bedded in a hollow it’d likely been using for years. It was surrounded by brush and there was no prayer of getting a shot.
I sat, rifle ready, waiting for the buck to stand. A few hours later something spooked the buck and it was gone so quickly I didn’t fire a shot. I never saw the buck again but did fill my tag three days later with a cross-canyon shot on a mature buck bedded in rimrock.
When it comes to trophy blacktails, you never know how a hunt will unfold. Simply seeing a mature buck can equate to a good season. Actually shooting a big buck is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for many hunters, making all those years of time and effort well worth it.
Author’s Note: Fewer than 75 copies of Scott Haugen’s best selling book, “Trophy Blacktails: The Science Of The Hunt,” remain. Visit scotthaugen.com to get your signed copy. $20, free S&H.
Read the full article here
