Nocturnal Blacktail

Your best chance of catching that buck in the open in the morning will be after a rainy night with no moonlight for him to feed. If there is any artificial light such as street lights he will still be able to see to feed at night.
 
CRO said:
Your best chance of catching that buck in the open in the morning will be after a rainy night with no moonlight for him to feed. If there is any artificial light such as street lights he will still be able to see to feed at night.
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there's no lighting anywhere near the big open meadow. It's pitch black out there. That last capture was from last night when it was cloudy and raining and he was doing his usual rounds. I actually think there's more food back in the brush area right now with all the berries and whatnots.
 
Evan B said:
My solution last year in another spot I hunted (had a draw tag for a controlled hunt) was to use my 12ga and a slug. It got the job done but I want a bit more reliable accuracy. That would do the job right there. (my default is my 6.5 creedmoor with scope)
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that JM Mossberg was collecting dust in the back of a LGS so picked it up for another winter project...refinished the furniture, thorough cleaning, resolved a loading gate issue after a call to a lever action gunsmith...after checking in with his Mom gifted it to a high school senior who life guarded at the pool I swam in, he got his first deer with it.
 
Jim F. said:
Blacktail bucks DO make scrapes, but they can be difficult to locate due to the dense cover they favor. I found scrapes when I hunted the Klickitat. They don't seem to scrape as frequently as Whitetails however. Scrapes, rubs & marked low-hanging tree branches are the way they attract does during the rut.
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I stand corrected.

I have never seen one. I have seen a lot of rubs.
 
from your aerial photo it appears that the state land has over a 100ft of elevation behind the field. A hike back in there and up that hill might give you the ability to look down on his bedding area or what appears to be small openings on the state land below..
 
I'd certainly try to investigate for sign in that gully between the heights in that photo. The 2 small stands of timber on the lower slope of the back rise says prime bedding area to me. Any way to set-up cross canyon & watch that steep hillside?
 
I've made a few attempts to find vantage points back there but nothing really works like you think it would. It's pretty much a "hunt in the thick brush" situation.
 
My .44 Mag lever gun/Ruger Super Redhawk combo does well in that sort of terrain.

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2MANY said:
Squirt some deer, hot vagina juice around on the ground.

He will get dumber.
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You're not wrong, but that's strangely not legal in Oregon. Yet for some reason, it's legal for me to leave a pile of apples out there for em.
 
That's a nice blacktail. I haven't been hunting in about 5 years now but going after the big ones was exciting. I called in a BT buck that I only had night pictures of. In Washington we got a few days in November but it's worth a shot. In my opinion a big OR or WA blacktail is a harder target than a big whitetail or mule deer. Just the fact you know he's back there should be enough to get you charged up to go. Try still hunting with your shotgun. You might just see a flash of brown but it's still exciting. If you're just looking for meat I'd probably leave him be and go get a spike.
 
Scudley Do Right said:
That's a nice blacktail. I haven't been hunting in about 5 years now but going after the big ones was exciting. I called in a BT buck that I only had night pictures of. In Washington we got a few days in November but it's worth a shot. In my opinion a big OR or WA blacktail is a harder target than a big whitetail or mule deer. Just the fact you know he's back there should be enough to get you charged up to go. Try still hunting with your shotgun. You might just see a flash of brown but it's still exciting. If you're just looking for meat I'd probably leave him be and go get a spike.
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I actually prefer spikes/does. I got my "any deer" tag last year and shot a doe. I'm very much a meat hunter, so if I even had a smaller buck scouted out, I'd be after him. I have only been getting this guy. I actually got the same buck on cam a year ago too.

I'm actually stoked that I'm seeing more spike/forked young elk on cam this year. If I have a shot at those vs the big boys, I'm taking the youngins every time.
 
Have any of you noticed the differences in meat flavor between deer species? Maybe it's just me, but it seems that muleys taste better than blacktails, and whitetails taste better than both. In my experience, there is no finer venison than a young whitetail doe.
 
Breck said:
Have any of you noticed the differences in meat flavor between deer species? Maybe it's just me, but it seems that muleys taste better than blacktails, and whitetails taste better than both. In my experience, there is no finer venison than a young whitetail doe.
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I grew up on mule deer and whitetails shot in central washington. The blacktails I've eaten from around here are so much better I have a hard time putting them in the same conversation. That doe I shot last year was probably the best wild game I've ever eaten.
 
It could have something entirely to do with what you grew up with. Growing up and hunting deer in the Rockies in Utah, muleys were about all we had to choose from. Then I relocated to SW WA and blacktails became the norm. The years I spent hunting in NW Montana yielded almost exclusively whitetail. I'm sure personal taste has a lot to with it as well.
 
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