Has anyone hunted any blacktail this season?

[Grunter]

I find them a little funny to look at compared to an Alberta Mulie but I also find them to be interesting deer to hunt, I hear there nearly as wiley as a whitetail!

[Tanya]

We hunt blacktail here on the westcoast all the time. They are a difficult hunt as although they may frequent an area for a few days or a week to feed they seldom use the same travel corridor. They will have 6 or 8 entry/exits to one area and use them all. A good blacktail buck is a very hard thing to come by. We also live in an archery or "multiple projectile only" area, so we gotta get real close. I got a nice old 5 X5 last year, but honestly haven't hunted much for deer this year as I have been away a lot or bear hunting with the kids. This afternoon I am taking a young boy out to try and bag his first deer. We'll see..... As far as wiley goes a certain high profile outfitter that I know that owns 3 whitetail hunting areas in Sask told me once that blacktails are WAY harder to hunt than whitetails.

Tanya

[Tanya]

A follow up on the previous post. We managed to get our young friend a big fat blacktail doe last night. Using his 12 gauge and 00Buck he made a fantastic shot on the deer as it started to move away from where he was hidden in a ditch. It is exciting to take a youngster out, and even more so when they connect on their first big game animal.

[babablacktail]

Blacktails are smart and sneaky.

I have been trying to get this one buck for 2 years now. Last year with the shotgun - this year with my bow. I finally had a look at him on Monday at around 4:45pm. I only saw him in the dark once last year so couldn't acurately size him up.

HE IS MASSIVE for a blacktail and probably pretty darn old. Managed to count tines inbetween all the trees and he is 4x5 and all the tines are long long long. To even get this sight of him I had to belly crawl into a ravine and hope the wind didn't give me away which it did about 40 seconds later. Not even a hope of getting a shot off with the bow. I haven't figured out how to shoot while laying on my belly without getting everything all hung up on stuff

His "home" is so loaded with a wide variety of security features and panic routes that I will probably not get him this year either. Oh well - I love the challenge and will probably hunt him 3 or 4 more times this season. Ya never know. Once in a while even the old boys make mistakes