Free: Contests & Raffles.
That's the nice part about hunting Eastern WA, you always see deer. Black tail can be discouraging, but if you put in the time eventually you will find him. Sounds like your hunting lots of area, in the preseason try to find at least one good spot; and spend every minute you can during the season in that area. That way you avoid precious time looking for areas. These guys who have BT's hanging every year, have there hunt planned well before the season.
biggest blktail I ever got was coming out of the reprod at 3;00 pm.nice day it was about 43*blue sky,slight wind. 4x4 heavy
Most guys who are successful at hunting reprod scouted the cuts in summer and decided where they would spend their time. They will sit on those cuts the entire day waiting for something to move.
small bucks are going to be desperate and moving...ALOT and the big bucks are probably gone be in a little cover and moving...ALOTBe patient and glass 2-3 year old clear-cuts tree lines and bring the rattling anters!
I took both of my daughters to Capitol Forrest today. Didnt hit it until 11:30. Saw 2 does right off the bat and watched 4 rigs drive less than 40 yards from them and never saw them. We got in front of the does and watched them move into the reprod. After about 1/2 hour a small 2 point joined them. He was too small for my daughter so we moved. All in all we glassed and rattled up 5 spikes, 2 forkies and one 2X3. None of which big enough to take home. After a pretty crappy season, even though we ate our tags it was an awesome day with my kids. I had both girls rattling and calling in bucks.
That 2X3 that my kids rattled up came in so hot that he almost ran over us. I stopped him with a grunt at 20 feet! I LOVE rattling in blacktails (whities too).
I have only hunted Capitol Forrest one time before and that was at least 15-16 years ago. I went in practically blind. It seemed that the other folks were only interested in driving the roads and occasionally glassing. We found and hiked in little overgrown spur roads that skirted reprod and big timber to do our rattling. Most of the deer were on the South side of the unit. A couple of the spikes were in the timber just up from the power lines on the Rock Candy side. Talked to a couple of rigs and none of them had seen a single deer. We sent an old timer in after the 2X3.
I like to find a semi open spot where the timber and reprod meet and set up 30- 40 yards inside the timber. I let things settle down for at least 15-20 minutes before calling. I will start out with a doe bleat for a few minutes then let it calm down. After a few times I break out the antlers. Star out soft and gradually get more aggressive but not as much as you would with whitetails. I also go light on the grunt tube. Dig into the ground a little with the antlers and rake the brush. I prefer real antlers to bags or fake ones.
