Free: Contests & Raffles.
Some really cool bucks....Curious....did your Grandpa ever call them bench legs?? I ask because when I was younger I had a meat delivery route every week to Goldendale and delivered to all the markets and meat shops.I would rush through my route and the boss gave me permission to stop and hunt on the way back to Yakima. I got to see a lot of nice bucks hanging in the coolers and I even shot my first buck by Goldendale. NEVER EVER did any of the locals including the meat market guys call them Bench legs and they had coolers Filled with them ( 1968-76). I started seeing the term when the internet started spreading that term.For some reason I have an aversion to that term. Are all the bucks that come from that area cross breeds??...Where do the 100% mulies come from to do the breeding with the 100% blacktail does or vica versa? No big deal though...everyone calls them what they want. AGAIN...COOL bucks.
I believe as time went on and people talked more about the deer in the area they realized that they weren’t pure Blacktail deer, that and the line drawn the Boone and Crooket club. As people’s lifestyles changed from substance hunting to pleasure hunting they start to care more about what the deer species really was, instead of just food for the table. We didn’t call them bench legs either, just term picked up from the internet. I don’t know what a better term for them would be.My other uncle has killed some with a lot more mass and width, but wouldn’t score high in Mule deer category, probably 150-160’s.
Good point, what I remember as a kid listening to the old timers, if the deer had a black tail, we called it a blacktail, if it was "less than all black" it was a mule deer or "had some black tail in it". I never heard the term "benchleg" (I don't even like using the term) until I came on here, it is a hunting magazine/internet/government school biologist term, not an old timer hunting term. I don't remember anyone ever judging a buck by its antlers, only its tail end. I do remember the old timers talking about seeing does with an all black tail and someone would say "you should have shot it". I would say that the old timers knew that black tails showing up in traditional mule deer country wasn't a good thing and they knew it should have been taken out. I also remember that I frequently saw does with a black tip only or half-black tail. Nowadays in those same areas all I see is an all black tail. For instance, in the Yakima area, there would be a couple of bruiser mule deer taken every year in the Naches/Nile/Ahtanum areas, good luck even seeing a decent buck these days.Boone and Crockett were frontiersman when I was a kid, not something to measure your hunting prowess by. I would say it wasn't until the early 90's when B&C became much of a bid deal in the hunting mags. Sure, you heard about it but no one paid attention to it. It really wasn't until the hunting mag guys began to say "so-and-so has killed 10 b&C bucks", or something like that. Before that, you just knew the guys in your camp and maybe a couple of guys around town or other camps that always got big bucks and big bulls. In fact, the local papers would have a pic of a local guy who shot a big buck or big bull. I'll tell you too, there was no limp wristed "harvesting" in the head line, they called it killing or shooting back then, "local man kills big bull", "Local man shoots giant buck", as an example. I'm not really that old but I was fortunate to hunt with men, while in my youth, who were born around the turn of the century and who were hard. Quote from: buckcanyonlodge on January 31, 2023, 02:09:04 PMSome really cool bucks....Curious....did your Grandpa ever call them bench legs?? I ask because when I was younger I had a meat delivery route every week to Goldendale and delivered to all the markets and meat shops.I would rush through my route and the boss gave me permission to stop and hunt on the way back to Yakima. I got to see a lot of nice bucks hanging in the coolers and I even shot my first buck by Goldendale. NEVER EVER did any of the locals including the meat market guys call them Bench legs and they had coolers Filled with them ( 1968-76). I started seeing the term when the internet started spreading that term.For some reason I have an aversion to that term. Are all the bucks that come from that area cross breeds??...Where do the 100% mulies come from to do the breeding with the 100% blacktail does or vica versa? No big deal though...everyone calls them what they want. AGAIN...COOL bucks.
Agree with most here. I never heard them called Benchlegs, and we hunted the Ahtanum for years. My Gramps started hunting there in the late 40’s. All I ever heard them called was Mule Deer/Blacktail crosses or hybrids. And that’s what most of them were. Mule Deer characteristics with Blacktail tails. Once in a while you would see a pure Mule Deer. But it was rare. This was the biggest I ever shot. 1995. That deer was close to 275 - 300 lbs. Biggest deer I’ve ever seen on the ground. Big Mule Deer ears, body, and a pure Blacktail tail.
1995, 1995 was a good season, regular deer season ran into November. You hunted Elk in the snow. Bowhunting season was for the Fellons and a couple of weird dudes from the west side who wore a loin cloth and shared the same tent. 1995 was almost the beginning of the end. Quote from: JBabcock on February 02, 2023, 09:39:53 PMAgree with most here. I never heard them called Benchlegs, and we hunted the Ahtanum for years. My Gramps started hunting there in the late 40’s. All I ever heard them called was Mule Deer/Blacktail crosses or hybrids. And that’s what most of them were. Mule Deer characteristics with Blacktail tails. Once in a while you would see a pure Mule Deer. But it was rare. This was the biggest I ever shot. 1995. That deer was close to 275 - 300 lbs. Biggest deer I’ve ever seen on the ground. Big Mule Deer ears, body, and a pure Blacktail tail.
