Newbie needs blacktail help

[fishnfur]

Second try - please ignore if this post repeats.

Hello all!  I'm hoping some of you experienced BT hunters can give me some direction for the late season modern firearm hunting period next week.

I'm a retired Navy guy originally from Tacoma, now living in Longview.  I started hunting blacktail four years ago and have yet to score (I know, I know - another guy on the board who can't get it done!  What's wrong with these guys?).  I typically hunt Ryderwood - which is overrun with road hunters and endless people tromping through the woods pressuring the deer into total nocturnal behavior once archery elk season starts.  I am getting better every year at finding deer but still seem unable to locate them when they are bedded.  I've spent endless hours glassing reprod and still hunted my way to within 20 yards of does feeding, but I never can locate a bedded animal.  Normally, if I am lucky enough to see a buck, it is one that has caught me moving, often at distances over a hundred yards away, only to instantly vanish, leaving only a memory of another failed attempt.  Last week I still hunted to within eight yards of three cow elk bedded in sword fern.  Embarrassingly, I never saw them till they bolted.

I've read every book known or on BT deer hunting including research articles and graduate level textbooks.  I read every thread on Oregon's Ifish hunting discussion board, tried every tactic - rattling, doe bleats, scents, grunts, fawn in distress.

I've often had deer come in close but remain hidden when rattling, at least until a couple of weeks ago when I found a very fresh rub on a little Grand Fir tree.  Based on the size of the tree and the small rub, I knew it was a small buck that hit that tree.  I hid in the bushes and rattled in a little forky, which appeared out of nowhere on the old logging road at about 45 yards away.  My first real shot on a buck, four years in the making.  Took a shot at his chest but flinched just a bit.  My scope never left his chest on the shot though and buck jumps straight up in the air, shakes his head around a bit and dives into the bushes.  I thought for sure I had killed that guy but after giving him twenty minutes or so, checked the spot where he had been standing/jumping around - no blood, no hair, nothing!  I spent two hours in fairly open terrain of mixed brush and 15 year-old tree farm reprod searching out to about 400 yards.  Still nothing - no blood, no hair, no deer - just good tracks in the mud of a running deer getting the heck out of dodge.  I later found that the scope on my son's 7mm-08 that I had used that day was loose and shooting high and right.  I figure I grazed that deer or hit an ear or something to make him shake his head like that.  A couple of days later, that rub had doubled in size, so I'm pretty certain that buck is still out there.  Needless to say, he doesn't come out for rattling anymore.

Anyway - I'm hoping for some ideas on tactics for the last four days of rifle season.   I'm not quite sure what the bucks will be doing.  Many say that they will be tight to the does and not traveling much.  My reading tells me the does are often on alder benches or in bigger reprod -neither of which I have had any luck in locating does without getting busted.  If the does are post-estrous, then the bucks may be moving a bit more (which have remained invisible to me all along).  I'm hoping the State's statistics of nearly 50% of hunter success happens in the last four days will work my way.  I just need some direction.

Hope that some of you can give me some inspiration and recommendations for getting me into a successful hunt - ridges, alder, fir, reprod edges - anything!  Many thanks in advance.

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[JakeLand]

Well I am no expert but I would say PATIENCE you know he is using that area so my idea would be don't go in there until opening day of late buck season since you know the area. Be in your best vantage spot atleast one hour before dawn,make sure you have dead down wind spray on and get in there as quietly as possible.I would not use a bleat at all but I would try tease rattling it works on blacktails even though you spooked him once he will not associate it with the past the LAST hour of light at night is the BEST stay there till it is pitch black and leave as quietly as you came in good luck and keep us posted

[JakeLand]

Also if it is windy and stormy they will not be in the timber they will be out in the cuts usually where they can use there other senses if that makes sense oh yaa make sure you scope and rifle are ready for the job ahead good luck

[deerhunter_98520]

If your having problems finding them bedded then your moving to fast..slow WAY down and glass every 5-10yds for an ear, eye, tail, antler, just a piece of them...they will be as hidden as possible...this time of the year bucks will be cruising....glass cuts..find does and watch and wait for the bucks to show...as stated patience is key with blacktail

[BOWHUNTER45]

Also if it is windy and stormy they will not be in the timber they will be out in the cuts usually where they can use there other senses if that makes sense oh yaa make sure you scope and rifle are ready for the job ahead good luck

[BOWHUNTER45]

If your having problems finding them bedded then your moving to fast..slow WAY down and glass every 5-10yds for an ear, eye, tail, antler, just a piece of them...they will be as hidden as possible...this time of the year bucks will be cruising....glass cuts..find does and watch and wait for the bucks to show...as stated patience is key with blacktail

Too ! 

[JakeLand]

sundance knows blacktails all post have good points

[Turner89]

I think if I were you I would try to get onto a young clearcut 1.5 - 2 yrs old first thing in the morning, and glass it very well. especially along the timber, or older reprod lines. watch it till 9:30- 10:00. Then go to an older cut with a little more cover (4-6 yr old) Glass it well for an hour or so. If you don't find any deer glassing I have had luck getting on a game trail, and walking right through the cut. Make sure your walking into the wind. This works pretty good on really rainy windy days. You don't have to worry about being quite, and a lot of times they won't take off, out of curiosity until your pretty close. At about 2:00- 2:30 I would get setup up on the clearcut you were on in the morning. Stay there until dark, and watch the timber lines. They like to eat the brand new growth that's about ankle high. Good luck

[fishnfur]

Thank you all.  Good information.  I'm curious why I shouldn't use a bleat when in my mind the late hunt seems a perfect time to do so.  It seems like bucks not currently tight to a doe should sit up and take notice.  I'm quite sure that I have not quite put all of the puzzle pieces together so ask only to improve my knowledge of how you all think while you hunt.

I am probably one of the most impatient people you would ever meet.  Mom said I was a type A personality - the Navy only enhanced my inability to wait for results.  I can barely sit for 3 -4 hours fishing waiting for a strike out on the Columbia,  I much prefer to troll or cast.  Likewise I have trouble sitting on a cut waiting for some unseen animal to stand up, take a few bites then re-bed.  A couple of hours is about my max - that is why I still hunt much of the time.  I do have two tree stands but in a couple of hours waiting, impatience, bad back and cold hands and toes have always brought me down to the ground. 

Typically, I hit the cuts in the morning then move to still hunting when I can't sit any longer.  I can move really slow and silently.  I've done only 400 yds. still hunting in a couple hours time - but it always amazes me when I get busted just slowly lifting my binoculars to my head after I have been in one place for five minutes.  Invariably, it is the deer downwind that I notice or hear sneaking out when they catch my scent.  I believe that seeing a bedded deer is a learned experience, like hunting morel mushrooms.  Once you see a couple, suddenly your brain recognizes them for what they are, not just some shape previously filtered out as nonsense.   Suddenly, everywhere you look, you find mushrooms (or hopefully a few deer) My noggin hasn't made that transition yet.

Perhaps (probably) the spots I hunt are not quite right.  I know that I should try to intercept the deer between bedding and feeding areas, but I always seem to end up in deep Salmonberry/Elderberry brush that hides anything beyond 15 yds., no matter how hard you try to look through the bush.  Vine Maple is worse - just a maze of twisted trunks and limbs.  The elk I bumped last week were on my own timber property that I know like the back of my hand. My assumptions of where animals may be bedded were obviously wrong that day.  God knows that four years of trail cam pics have only turned up a few bucks amongst many does and innumerable cow elk.

Regarding the wind and rain, I keep reading that the deer retreat to the big timber on heavy rain days (they don't like to sit in the rain - go figure)  and find the quiet sides of ridges on windy days.  If they are in the cuts during heavy wind, does that mean up tight to wind-breaking big timber or ridges?  It makes sense to me that would be the logical place to focus.  If I saw more deer, it would make a lot more sense.  Deer hunting for me often becomes a activity of faith that bucks actually do exist, and there might just be one in the area.  Days of seeing nothing are the norm.

Regarding rublines - it seems the most obvious place to hunt.  Most of the rublines I find are on spur roads that have filled in with alder, typically on top of a ridge or point, just off a well used road, or off a clearcut landing that gets way too much traffic.  Closed roads are rare around here unless you go to the Weyco properties, and I didn't support the trespass fees they imposed this year.  I've never had any response to rattling where the deer are pressured by the sound of nearby traffic.  Also, I'm somewhat surprised at the lack of new rubs this year.  Even recent scouting in the past couple of days has turned up only a few new rubs, though some of last years looked like they were getting reworked.  It seems like there is less activity this year than in the past.

All I can say is the puzzle is still a bit fuzzy.  So many guys around here have no idea what they are doing.  They jump in they rigs, drive through the "jack fir" on Weyerhaeuser tree farms and shoot the first deer they see.  Not only didn't that work for me, it wasn't much fun either.  I'd prefer to understand this game rather than just drive until I see something and then shoot it.

Sorry about the long-winded tales of woe.  I will certainly put your recommendations into practice.  Any other ideas would be welcomed as well.

Thanks again for your help!

[Tacbeav]

Lots of good advice already posted. I know you said closed roads are hard to find in your area, but I would do what I could to spend time along the edges of clearcuts that can't be seen from the road. This time of year a buck on the prowl could show up at any time of day. You may not see many deer, but when you do, odds are good it will be a buck.

[BABackcountryBwhntr]

I would use a bleat for sure. rattling, grunting, calling and glassing.... patience is key and being in a good spot.....