Blacktails = Frustration (w/PICs)

I have got to say, I have a lot of respect for you guys who can consistently take blacktails in the early seasons with primitive weapons. Last season I got a ML and hunted the late season in the Satsop Unit. In 5 legit outings, I got shot opportunities in 2 of them. I thought that was pretty good. This year we got an early season and I thought it would make for better hunting in that the deer would not be pressured, but I was wrong!

So last year and this year comprise all of my recent BT hunting experience, except when I was younger (10+ years ago) and I perched on a landing and shot deer with a rifle.

I had all of yesterday available to hunt (Dawn to Dusk) and I felt like I had a really good chance of scoring with the weather. I started out on a gated road following a creek bottom, and riding my bike up the spurs and trails into steep little clearcut patches. Eventually, I pushed/rode up a long quad trail and watched some overgrown canyons for a while. On my way back down (very steep trail) I lost concentration and overgrabbed my front brakes and went over the bars. NBD, except my cell phone came out of my pocket. I never saw anything on this portion of the hunt.

Following that I headed back to a V shaped ridge between 3 roads. I have seen deer going up there, on occasion. I still hunted from the low part to the high part into the wind. Saw my freshest sign of the day there, but no deer. Here is a view from the ridge into a bowl I hunted along later on.



Then I headed to a clearcut that follows a bigger stream on 3 sides. I watched the bottoms from 10 to 11, and at about 11 saw a doe. The stream is in the RMZ.



Then I went for a long still-hunt in that big timber on the top right portion of pic #1. Looked pretty good, but I did not bump or see anything. I came across the picture below out there. Some animal used this random area as its septic tank. There was not a tree above me, I can't figure out why it kept shitting there. All that black stuff is poo.



Then I realized I had lost my phone so I headed back home to tell my wife that I wasn't dead, but my phone might be history.

After that I went up and tried pushing through alder patches in a hidden meadow.



I went back in my original location to find my phone and as luck would have it I found it, right where I thought I would.

Check out this dude waddling along the road on the way out. I ran along side him to give him the Big Stick photo shoot, but he would not look at the camera.



Finally I checked out 2 more stream bottoms and worked myself into range of the area I saw the one deer in earlier. Here I made a mistake. I had the wind perfect, my shooting lanes all open, and the area they were feeding was in full view, as was the escape route. My mistake was I sat on top of a stump, instead of in front of it. I had on nice camo, facemask, etc, but my silhouette was right there in the open.

Right at 715 I could hear brush cracking/hoofbeats coming out of the bottom. At about 40 yards 2 does, come out of the heavy stuff. One looks directly at me, makes a hiss or a huff sound and walks directly away. As she does this 3 more deer follow her through the brush. The last one clearly has something between his ears, although not something big. I had the wind perfect, if I had not gotten made they would have come out and started feeding 40 yards away.

As I was walking back to my truck in the dark, another one bounded across the road in front of me.

Oh well.

I guess this is a BT thread, so here is a picture I took yesterday. Can you see her?



So, what tips do you guys have for the coming weekend? I think I get Saturday morning for a while, and that is it. Do the spots I hunted in look promising, should I toss some of them out and replace them with others?

Thanks.

what is that critter?

Porcupine

Good report RR. That poop looks like old Elk poop.

if you have time i saw two deer inside the fence at the old oakhurst site.

That unit is not open Larry. Minot, Capitol and Wynoochee.

It wasn't elk poop. These were all individual turds, swirly shaped, with grey mottling. Cat or bear, but I can't figure out why they were in such a small area.

That is a pretty clean picture of the doe through the bino's.....did you just put the old point-and-shoot right in the eyehole?

It may be worth it to go hunt those same deer again. Blacktails usually don't go far.

That's what I did. I have never done that before, I bet you could get real good shots if you have a spotter on a tri-pod. I was holding the binos with one hand and trying to click the shutter with the other one.

I usually skip the early season and focus on the late season, as the bucks aren't stupid yet. That is except for this year. Tomorrow after I run through the Quinault unit for elk I'll make my way back down the Nooch to see what I can see.

Know of any apple orchards? Those are helpful early and late, if our pet deer are any help.

If you have found the deer, mainly does, remember those areas, as they hang in the same vicinty. The bucks will move to them in the late season.

There's a good chance the does will come in for a fawn in distress call. You could try to call them in, or just use it when you think they've spotted you.

Bear looks like People Schit, but MUCH larger, and w/o the telltale bits of napkin/TP laying nearby.

Racoon mark their territory.

Our remodel house has apple trees, the deer have gotten so lazy that they just bed down under the trees in the garden half the time.

I know of a set of orchards in the Minot unit. They are in a field and have a prime cut behind them, with a brush/treeline between. They require about 8 steep miles on bike to get to (no atv/cars allowed). If we could get permission from the farmer they would be a lot closer, but he looks like a hunter (judging from the amount of racks hanging on the outside of his shed) so I doubt permission is forthcoming. My bud and I are still deciding if it will be worth the effort this weekend. Because if we do morning or afternoon, we'll be riding in the dark for a long time.

Unfortunately that unit with won't be open in the late season, so that herd I was watching in the evening will not be accessible to me. I will auction off the GPS coordinates I guess (that's a joke), probably just tell a buddy where to try. It is a landing you can drive to (but shouldn't), and is set up perfectly for west wind.

Thanks for all the tips. Good luck on your elk hunt Andy. We are starting to paint the interior this week.

Those BT's have been eluding me lately too. We need some crappy weather, I'am huntin an area full of sign and the only deer I see is in the dark when I'm driving out, did see a big buck 2 nights ago. Last night was cool though we took our usual 2 mile walk and finally saw the bear that has littered the road with its poop. Every 20ft or so is a pile full of seeds and cherry pits, haven't seen a cherry tree but it must be somewhere. My buddy had his rifle huntin bear I had the ML huntin deer the bear was a little out of range around 500yds. I was glad he didn't want to shoot. Then as we were walkin out I blew off a cow call and got an immediate response, sounded close. Got to the truck and kept cow callin and got 4 more bugles back. Sounded like 2 bulls one was close and sounded real deep and throaty almost a little horse, sounded almost like a donkey. 5 mins later and a few more cow calls we hear a bugle the other direction that was a nice high pitch sounding bugle. Must have been 2 bulls unless the 1 covered a lot of ground quickly and let a different tone bugle go. Kinda weird I have been huntin this spot and haven't seen any elk sign at all.

I think the full moon and clear weather were playing a factor this weekend. I didn't see squat while out Saturday...but I don't expect to see squat. I keep my expectations very low when deer & elk hunting.
Deer were probably hunkered down all weekend during the day in the thickets awaiting night-time feeding. You see how bright it's been at night? Thought I left the back porch light on last night but it was just the moonlight...

Full moon + fog = Go fishing!

+1 for both you guys. I knew my chances of catching a BT in the open was pretty small, so I didn't even try last weekend. I painted.

Actually, I tangled with some fish in the early AMs before painting, but wished I was on the water the whole time. Had a boot king grab a RVRWhrlr right on the surface. That was weird. I landed him too.

Had my hardest grab of the entire season too, it was an absolute chomp I almost heard it, it was so hard, the fish came right off and my spinner came back bent 90 degrees.

Saw a spike BT yesterday with the boys.

I hunted hard sunday morning without seeing anything except a nice ruff grouse. I did see one of the biggest buck tracks ever!! Windy, full moon, sunny, and warm...... equals time to regroup and wait until late season.

When the bucks shed their velvet they nearly turn nocturnal... They're a real pain in the butt to kill.

If you have buddies find patches and make pushes through them into a clearcut and have a shooter in the clearcut... You've got to push them out of their beds.

If you are solo hunting it is so important to have the wind in your favor (use a breeze squeeze) or something alike and hunt slower than a turtle... My rule is take 2-3 steps and wait 15-20 seconds... It's amazing if you can stay quiet with the wind in your favor how close you'll be when deer stand up when they finally hear you.

You'll find the smaller blacktails from time to time with the does in this early season but it's extremely rare to kill a big one..

The rut is the answer, you need them bucks up looking around for the does.... Personally, that's why I've gone to Archery for deer this year. We get Nov 20th-30th in a heavily populated blacktail area. They'll be on the move at that time. Anywhere from November 5th through the end of November but the peak of the rut falls November 18th or so....

Good luck out there.

Keith

Thanks for the tips. I actually pretty much arrived at the same conclusions. My hunting buddy asked me what should we do different next year in the early season, and I told him basically what you said (stlhdr1). No more glassing edges for hours on end. Glass first light, last light, and then arrange to push brush out to shooters in the open.

My late season starts on Nov 26 in the 6-5-1, so I hope we will be getting the end of the rut, but it goes through Dec 15th. I have heard that there is a second rut for the does that did not get any. I got a long lecture at a wedding a couple of months back, about how WA has a really poor buck/doe ratio and that there will always be a second rut because there is no way for the bucks to service so many does.

The muzzleloader season we used to hunt now starts Dec 1st and runs through the 8th. We have killed good sized bucks with the does in the first week of December. It was apparent they were still rutting although not as dumb as the typical mid November blacktail....

Good luck with the late hunt, and don't give up mid-day. We've shot a lot of our bucks from 10am-2pm that time of year up and moving around with the does...

Keith