Hunting the blacktail deer

The Pacific Ghost

Most Challenging Trophy

A trophy Columbian blacktail buck is America’s most underrated deer hunting challenge. Here’s how to tip the odds in your favor.

Webster defines the word nocturnal thusly: “Pertaining to night, happening by night; roaming at night.” Few definitions describe a mature Columbian blacktail buck better than that.

A November 2002 hunt with crackerjack Oregon blacktail guides Doug and Janet Gattis drove this point home. This hunt also reminded me of one other fact: Hunting mature blacktail bucks is one of the most challenging hunts I have ever done.

More Dracula Than Deer

For those who aren’t familiar with the “Pacific Ghost,” as many serious blacktail hunters call their favorite quarry, there are two subspecies of blacktails: the more primitive Sitka blacktail (Odocoileus hemionus sitkensis) of the Alaska and British Columbia coasts and the more common Columbian blacktail (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) found from central California north through coastal British Columbia. According to Dr. Valerius Geist, one of the world’s foremost experts on the history of deer, mule deer evolved from a cross between ancient blacktails and primitive whitetail deer some two million years ago. Today Columbian blacktails readily interbreed with mule deer wherever their ranges overlap, creating several different hybrid mule deer subspecies.

I first learned about Doug and Janet Gattis’s guiding operation, Southern Oregon Game Busters through a fellow Alaskan, who had taken a huge muzzleloader buck the prior year. After doing some research, I found that not only does the pair have a tremendous track record of producing better-than-average blacktail bucks for clients, but as hunters they also have taken more record-class bucks than anyone I had ever heard of. (They have 21 blacktails mounted in their home, the smallest of which scores 117 Boone & Crockett points and seven that beat the minimum score of 135 for entry into the all-time B&C book.)

Growing up in the farm country of southern California, I cut my teeth hunting blacktails and their close cousin, the California mule deer, which gives me a great appreciation for consistently successful blacktail hunters. After three decades of serious deer hunting from Alaska to Mexico, California to the Carolinas, I have come to believe the “Pacific Ghost” is without exception the most difficult trophy-class deer on the continent to take.

The reasons for this degree of difficulty are many. The deer live primarily in mountainous terrain with thick cover. Most hunting seasons occur when the weather is hot and dry, making still-hunting or spot-and-stalk hunting extremely tough. Often the very best hunting occurs on or near private agricultural lands, meaning the unattached hunter is unwelcome and thus forced to hunt more unforgiving public ground.

The main reason, however, is the deer’s nocturnal nature. While all mature bucks of any North American deer subspecies are creatures of the night, none I have hunted do a better imitation of Count Dracula than the Columbian blacktail. Their preference for nighttime movement was underscored by an Oregon Department of Fish and Game research project that used cameras keyed by an electronic beam/receiver setup that took pictures of the deer as they moved through their natural habitat. The cameras were set up on several well-known trails.

According to this study, only 17 percent of all bucks moved during legal shooting hours – which means that 83 percent of all the bucks in the study area did not move when it was legal to shoot. In fact, prime buck movements occurred between 10:00 P.M. and 5:00 A.M., with more than 40 percent of the bucks photographed during the after-dark period being mature 4-point-orbetter bucks. Interestingly, during this survey the does and fawns displayed a more balanced travel tendency, with 44 percent of them being photographed during daylight hours.

Local Knowledge, Timing Critical

As is the case with most all big game hunting, an intimate knowledge of the country is very important to consistent success. Doug Gattis likes to begin scouting his hunting areas well before the early rifle seasons open. As the calendar pages turn, he uses his past experiences with local deer movement and patterns, as well as the availability of key food sources, to track deer movement and place hunters. Janet is a Medford native, and Doug moved there when he was 15 years old; the two have been outfitting in the area full-time since 1990.

Currently they guide on both public and private lands throughout southern Oregon for blacktails, spring and fall black bear, varmints and spring turkeys, as well as east of the Cascades for elk and mule deer on private ranchlands. Being local residents has helped them obtain permission to guide on several tracts of private property in the Medford area, which is the hub of southern Oregon’s trophy blacktail hunting.

My first hunt with Doug and Janet proved quite educational, even for someone with a lifetime of blacktail hunting experience. “The average age of the blacktails our clients take is between 31⁄2 to 41⁄2 years,” Gattis said. “That’s simply because a blacktail will not grow antlers that score over 100 inches until they get that old. When you start hunting bucks that are at or near the B&C record book minimum of 135, they are usually at least 41⁄2 to 51⁄2 years old. That means they are mature, skookum deer that are hard to kill.” If you like blacktail deer, also see our Axis Deer Hunting page.

Gattis generally runs about 70 percent success on early rifle hunts, 50 percent success during bow hunts – both excellent numbers in this game – and 100 percent success during late-season muzzleloader hunts. “Our rifle clients average taking bucks that score about 100 B&C points for a big 3x3 and 120 B&C points for a typical 4x4,” he said. “At the same time, game department statistics show that unguided public land rifle hunters take bucks that average 11⁄2 years old at a much lower success rate.”

However, as the Oregon study showed, the biggest bucks tend to move only at night, making them tough to take on early rifle hunts. But don’t despair. There is an equalizer – the rut.

“The very best time to take a book-class blacktail is during the rut, the same as it is with other deer species,” Gattis said. “Here we often begin to see rut activity by the end of October, when – if the weather cooperates – you can find the bucks beginning to chase does. However, the very best time of all to take a dandy buck is during the late season, when you can hunt with either a bow or muzzleloader. From about mid- November through the end of the season, you have your best chance to catch one of these old bucks moving during legal shooting hours. On rut hunts, we usually see more and different bucks chasing does each day. It is an awesome time to be hunting.” In 2002, the season ended either Dec. 1 or Dec. 8, depending on the game management unit.

On that first hunt in 1999, Doug and I pounded a superb private ranch he has the exclusive guiding rights on. Most days, the weather was perfect for blacktail hunting – which means morning temperatures at or below freezing, with a steady rain and/or drizzle – and we looked over an average of seven different bucks a day. “These blacktails are without a doubt the most weathersensitive deer I have ever been around,” Gattis said. “When it’s raining and cold, they move; when it’s dry and even a little warm, they don’t; it’s that simple. Rainy weather improves a hunter’s chances tenfold.”

I was being a gambler on this hunt, passing on the “good” bucks in the hope of beating the odds and finally taking a real whopper. The day before Thanksgiving broke cold, the rain was coming down hard, the barometer was falling, and my prayers were answered when Doug and I spotted a lone doe being tended by two bucks. One was a massive 3x3, but the other was a huge 4x4 with big eye guards. The range was only 60 yards, and the Nosler conical bullet did its job to perfection. This was indeed the buck I had dreamed about ever since I was a snot-nosed kid tagging along on Dad’s blacktail hunts. Local taxidermist and official B&C measurer Dennis King later taped the buck at a gross 1584⁄8, and net 1552⁄8, B&C points, which would place it in the top 50 of all time. Yes!

A Bow-and-Arrow Dream

As previously mentioned, weather is more important when hunting blacktails than perhaps any other North American big game animal. In late November 2002, the weather was perfect – for golf or gardening, but awful for blacktail hunting. It was warm, dry and clear (I never even unpacked my rain suit), and the deer were moving only on the cusp of daylight or well after the sun went down. At season’s end Dennis King said he only got in 15 to 20 percent of the blacktails for mounting that he normally gets – “the lowest number I can remember” – and his area business has been open for more than 25 years. That’s how slow the hunting was.

I was working a spot I had tried my hand at bow hunting the year before with no luck, though we had chased some dandies around. Local bow hunter Jay Love was hunting with me and had set a couple of Ol’ Man tree stands in funnels we had picked out the prior season. Jay has taken several good bucks with his bow, most either by spotting-and-stalking or rattling, which can be very productive during the rut, and his advice is always solid.

I only saw small stuff early in the week. When the last day of the season broke frosty, I chose to sit the same stand I had begun the week hunting. Two pee-wee bucks walked by in the morning, so I climbed down, had a nap and was back on stand by 3:00 P.M. As the sun began to set on another blacktail season, I spotted movement to my left. Big antlers! Jay had set the stand in exactly the right place – in a funnel through which a traditional rub line passes – and the buck walked through an opening in the manzanita only 25 yards away. After a season of tree-standing whitetails, the shot was second nature and the tracking job a short one.

Once again, I had hit the jackpot hunting with “Team Gattis.” This massive 4x4 buck has gnarly bases and good eye guards, scoring 1424⁄8 Pope & Young points. That would place it in the top five of all Columbian blacktails ever taken with bow and arrow. For more about other types of deer, see our Whitetail Deer Hunting page. To someone who hunts mule deer or even whitetails, antlers that size might not seem like much. Those who seriously hunt the Pacific Ghost – the Columbian blacktail – know that it is a tremendous buck, the kind of deer dreams are made of.

And he’s just one more reason for me to come back again next year and see if, by some twist of fate, I can do better.

By Bob Robb

This article and many more like it can be found by Successful Hunter Magazine. Visit them at www.successfulhunter.com