Whitetail-Muley cross?

[Heredoggydoggy]

This afternoon I took a ride up Swakane Canyon, and on the way out I had the spotting scope on the window mount to glass for deer.  About an hour before dark I was looking at some does, and panned over to the left, and WOW!  What a rack!  A big buck was laying down chewing his cud, and it was obvious he was old and big.  But then, on looking at the antlers, it was a whitetail-- but all the does were muleys.  His coat was different, too, kind of a dull cinnamon brown.  The head and antlers were whitetail, but when he finally stood up, his butt and tail were muley.  The longest tine on the left side was broken off at the main beam, and the one on the right side looked to be at least 18" long!  He browsed over to some does, and looked to be interested in mating, but the does weren't interested.  I have heard crosses happened, but until today i've not seen one. 

[sakoshooter]

I've seen a couple in the Sinlahekin. Usually very big bodied. One big cross I saw a few years back was with a bunch of other mature muley bucks and the cross was obviously bigger in body. Just before season or I'd have taken him.

[Heredoggydoggy]

I suppose you could take one of these in either Whitetail or Muley season, and still be legal?

[turkey slayer]

I have seen a cross on the other side of the river. There is a few more white tails that we a seeing every year on the Douglas co. side. but only one cross. Did ya get any pics

[Heredoggydoggy]

No, no pics.  I know there are a few whitetails in Douglas County.  My cousin, who lives ion Waterville shot a big whitetail buck up there when he was a kid. (About 50 years ago.)

[throttlejocky20]

My buddy and I put one down above the twisp river. We had seen a few whitetails down lower. But we found this deer up higher 3 hours into an all day hunt. I will try to get the pics off the old man desktop and post them.

[husky270]

Seen one in 1998 while steelheading the wenatchee river ,in late december from a boat near peshastin they swam across the river below us, had the binos ,3 whitetail does ,1 whitey 4 point with muley ass,, maybe 40 yards away,a friend of mine shot a true 5 by  4 above the old leavenworth cemetary the next season. Big old flagtail.

[Heredoggydoggy]

I guess it happens more often than I thought.  Never realised female deer were such sluts. 

[Pathfinder101]

I have a buddy that is a bio in Montana.  I asked him about this.  He said that most whitetail-mulie crosses are just cases of mistaken identity.  Biologically, it is very difficult to get a cross to "take".  Something like a 1% chance.  In other words, to get a whitetail-muley cross, 100 whitetail bucks would have to breed 100 muley does for one successful pregency to come to term.  Even then, there is only a 50% chance that the fawn will be a buck that you could even identify as a cross (pretty difficult to identify a crossed doe). 

[halflife65]

I'll look for it, but I just read an article about this yesterday.

It's usually a case of mistaken identity - it does happen but very, very infrequently.  The bio that wrote the article mentioned that he had tested 200 "crosses" and none of them were actually crosses - although antler configuration may have made it seem that they were.  Also, they don't tend to live very long.  Evidently, they get their survival strategies screwed up between beelining out of there and stotting (mule deer.)  They don't effectively get away from predators, I guess. 

I dunno - just going off what I read and, of course, I believe everything I read because it's on the internet.  The survival strategy thing seemed wonky to me but maybe it's true... 

However, everything has an exception and maybe you really did see a cross...certainly not saying you didn't because it does happen and maybe you were lucky enough to see one.  Pretty cool, anyway.

[Pathfinder101]

I dunno - just going off what I read and, of course, I believe everything I read because it's on the internet.  The survival strategy thing seemed wonky to me but maybe it's true... 

Maybe it's just the opposite.  Maybe they're survival stragegy geniuses and they never get killed and that's why the bios hardly ever get to test a real harvested one...

[bearpaw]

I posted a video on my facebook page of a 4x4 buck muley hot after a whitetail doe, saw it on our way out hunting early in the morning this fall, first time I ever saw a muley buck after a whitetail doe, usually it's a whitetail buck after a muley doe. I will try to post video on here later if I have time. For now you can see it on my facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/BearpawOutfitters#!/DaleDenney

[Shed Stud]

I saw at least one wt doe in the swakane this summer. So she's in there and i'd bet some horny muley got at her. But thats just one. She looked like a normal wt

[PolarBear]

We had a whitetail doe over at our place in Republic a couple of years ago that had 2 mulie  fawns on her.  That also was the same doe with the candle shaped antlers so she was all goofed up to begin with. 

[NoBark]

2 posters mentioned crosses with 'bigger' bodies.  Why would a cross make a muley bigger than other muleys?  An average muley is bigger than an average whitey?  I would suppose the cross would be somewhere inbetween?  An biologists around???