Blacktail Down! 5

After missing the Eastern Washington hunt last week because of a health issue I turned my attention to the wet side of the mountains and blacktails. The Hood Canal is rimmed on all sides by clear cuts, some with locked gates and some without. The key is to find clear cuts between 2 and about 10 years old that provide plenty of forage for blacktails and yet are open enough to still have a chance at getting a shot at one of these illusive deer. Blacktails are extremely difficult to hunt because they live in the Westside jungle and not every good-looking location has them. Nine of out ten spots that have all the right "stuff" won't hold blacktails, but find one that does and you're in the money.

The mountain bike I blogged about two weeks ago more than proved it's worthiness, allowing me to cruise for miles behind locked gates covering much more ground than I ever could have on foot. I've been putting 4 to 6 miles on the bike each morning, jumping from clear cut to clear cut, many of which seldom get hunted by foot traffic. Getting in shape on the bike and treadmill, sighting the rifle in, washing the hunting clothes in "Scent Away" by Hunter Specialties, and getting the work done all payed dividends today.

I rode into this particular clear cut before the sun came up today and stashed the bike fifty feet short of the clearing just as it was getting light enough to see. One of my childhood friends, Fred Fein, had logged this area several years ago and clued me in that this cut may have some deer in it. I took a perch on a high mound a hundred yards down the edge of the cut and waited, and waited, and waited, glassing constantly. A doe fed it's way thru the cut and other than that things were pretty quiet. I could cover 90% of the cut with binocs, but one small dip in the cut was obscured. A "Crunch!"came from this area and then ten minutes later the faint sound of a stick breaking could be heard. Definitely not a squirrel!

Working my way to the end of the cut gave me the vantage point I needed to see into this hollow and I once again waited and glassed. After thirty minutes of glassing I caught a glimpse of a good sized blacktail buck just as it went into the woods along the cut. With my nerves on end I kept up the glassing, covering every square inch of the clearing. Ten minutes later a small 2 point appeared in the middle of the cut and as I swung the glasses across to check him out I caught a quick glimpse of the tip of an antler and the tip of an ear behind a large root wad. "That's gotta be a deer!", was all I could think. I trained the glasses on it for several minutes before the ear moved and the buck took a half a step forward, revealing it's true size. Getting a good look at his antlers and head I decided this was definitely a blacktail worth harvesting.

The buck was 250 yards, so I found a good rest, turned up the Burris to full power, and trained the scope on the buck. After several minutes he walked into full view and stopped broadside, giving me the shot I needed. I held the crosshairs just below the top of his back and touched off the Winchester 150 grain XP3. I knew I hit him because he kicked, but he still managed to run towards the woods and out of sight. I hustled to where he was standing and began gridding back forth across his path of travel, hopeful he hadn't made it to the trees where the brush was impenetrable. After several minutes of wondering if I'd ever find him there he was. A perfect lung shot had brought him down 50 feet away from where he'd been hit. Have you ever high-fived yourself? Well, I did it today and it felt pretty good!

After you pull the trigger the work really begins. I muscled the deer 400 yards across the clear cut to a tree next to the road, where I could skin and quarter the buck for the three mile ride out on the mountain bike. 4 hours later I was at the truck with my biggest blacktail to date. No pain, no gain!

My old Belgium Browning 30.06, which is now 40 years old, still gets the job done.

The heavy-bodied blacktail ready for skinning and quartering.

Front shoulders and hind quarters ready to go in the "paper boy" baskets and the body and head in the pack frame. Next year I'll be towing a small trailer!