Been hunting deer a long time now, since 1987 in fact. Been mostly unsuccessful over the years, taken one muley, but that was a long time ago. Seems everywhere I go, there's either been a hard winter, too many people, forest fires, disease, loss of habitat, whatever. I also had to take a couple of years off for various reasons.
A few years ago, hunting in the late season in the Randle area, I called in a trophy blacktail in the last few minutes of the last day of hunting season. I'd seen the back end of this buck early in the morning as he was slinking to his bed. I knew it was a buck, but I didn't get a look at his headgear that morning. I'd been hunting that area for several days at that point, and there were numerous recent buck rubs. Also a few elk rubs, but that's a different story. I set up in the evening about 80 yards from the ridge I'd crossed paths with that buck that morning, and started calling with my buck grunt call. As the last of the daylight was fading, in came a deer, slowly, and right to me. If he'd kept on his line of travel, he was going to literally walk right over the top of me. At about 30 yards from me, he stopped behind about a 6" alder, his shoulders exposed on either side of the alder. Something was wrong, and he knew it. The wind had been in my face, but by now there was no wind that I could feel. My wind indicator on my rifle was not moving either. I could now see his rack and I just about choked. He had a 3X3 rack about twice as tall as his ears were long. Big gnarly bases, this was the biggest blacktail buck by far I'd personally ever seen. I just about passed out on the adrenaline surge.
I was sitting out in the open, in a slight depression surrounded by a couple of stumps to confuse any deer. By now I had my Rem 700 aught 6 shouldered and was aiming at an exposed shoulder through my Leupold 3X9 scope. I was solidly in the grip of buck fever and trying desperately to control my heart rate and shaking. I was pretty sure my heart was pounding so hard, the buck had to hear it. I was hoping against hope the buck would move to one side or the other of that damn skinny alder tree, but that didn't seem to be part of his plan. It was funny too, that wimpy little alder was the only tree in the immediate area that could possibly get in the way. It was the only thing between me and that buck, and he was dead center behind that tree, his shoulders and that big gorgeous rack exposed on either side of the tree trunk. His nose was up sampling the air. I knew he knew something was up, and if he did anything it was gonna be to swap ends and haul butt. I was down to about 5 minutes of legal shooting time left as well, but even worse, it was a heavily overcast day. I was in a little pocket of relatively open area in a heavily timbered area, otherwise I wouldn't have had enough light to shoot as there wasn't much light regardless of what legal shooting time was. I had to make a decision because the buck wasn't coming any further and in a few more seconds there wasn't going to be enough light anyway. Shoot or not. Well, in my fevered state, I figured I'd either miss clean, hit the tree, or put one in the shoulder as he stood facing me. I had to clear the alder to connect. Through the scope, I put the crosshairs on his shoulder just to the right of the tree trunk and squeezed off a shot. The rifle exploded and the muzzle flash temporarily blinded me. When my sight cleared, the deer was gone. Damn, I figured I'd hit the tree. I got up and went to see what happened. No bullet holes in the tree, must have been a miss. What a trophy. Man I was disappointed. But what are you gonna do.
I started searching the ground by flashlight. Didn't see anything at first then BINGO, a big patch of blood. WOW, I was elated. By now it was past dusk. In 30 more minutes, it would be pitch dark in the area I was in. To make a long story short, my buddy joined me and we searched for that deer and his blood trail for the next several hours by flashlight, using GPS waypoints to keep track of any blood we found. We were all over that hillside and up the ridge. We did find another large patch of blood, quite a distance from the first one. But I'm sad to say we..never...found...that deer. To this day, my stomach still gets in knots about this. We searched all the next day, nothing. The area was thick with reprod about 15 maybe 20 years old. I'm betting I walked right by that deer, but it was so damn thick I would not have seen it. I don't know if anyone else has lost a deer this way, but I almost quit hunting over it.
That's my tale of woe. It's not one I like to tell, I hate admitting I've shot and lost an animal. I haven't quit hunting of course, in fact I hunt more species more often than ever before. But I'll never forget that deer coming in to me, and the sight of that large mature rack. I've really got the bug now to take myself a trophy blacktail if I can find one.
My question about blacktail is what elevation do they prefer relative to the landscape? Do they prefer to hide in the river bottoms like whitetails? Or bed up along the tops of the ridges like muleys. Or both?? I'm wondering if blacktail are pretty much where you find them, not giving a hunter much to pattern. My inclination is to hunt the ridgelines like I would for muleys, but I know most blacktail are non migratory, so I wonder why they would be up there, if the snow is going to force them down anyway.
But I'll defer to the expertise of the hunters in this community. Any comments about anything related to blacktail preferences would be appreciated...
Thanks....Jeff
