# Hunting blacktail in California



## weasel73 (Apr 6, 2005)

Im thinking about hunting deer in california this year...Anyone ever done it before...Im in the sacramento area..


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## Lil Sand Bay (Feb 2, 2005)

I haven't hunted 'em since I was a kid in the early 60's. If my memory serves it was a Costal season in early August. The regs then called for wearing white shirts, a good thing since a T-shirt was about all you could wear in August in Calif! Hunted in the hills right behind (West) Vacaville. They were fun little animals to hunt, hundred lbs is huge! Lots of very thick buck brush, rattlesnakes and heat; the carcass would begin to spoil on the way to the ground from the shot. Best way I found to hunt was to get on a high point on a draw and wait 'em out, as still hunting was tough for the reasons listed above. Early and late worked best as they don't like that mid day heat either. Thanks for the post as it brings back memories I'd almost forgotten.


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## Burly1 (Sep 20, 2003)

I first hunted deer in 1969. We hunted the Ventura Mountain Range, as did Lil Sand Bay. I remember it very well. Each day the temperatures were well over 100 degrees during the middle of the day. After three days of hunting, I took a fork horned buck, bedded under a Manzanita bush. The hillside on which he was bedded was so steep, that when I shot him, he rolled over in his bed and continued to roll almost three hundred yards to the bottom of a narrow canyon. It took me and my cousin about five hours to get to a fire road with the deer, and another three to get the deer into a cooler. Although we did everything we could, all the meat was ruined. We would have been better off making biltong at the site of the kill. My only souvenir of the trip was a lot of cactus spines in my hands and knees, and that little forked rack.I don't even have that anymore, as it was lost when Mom moved away from CA in the mid seventies. I never did know why CA would open a deer season in the middle of August. Seems pretty foolish as I see it now. Big memories. Burl


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## weasel73 (Apr 6, 2005)

Hey little sand bay im in vacaville...And everytime i go out to ride dirt bike i see a decent looking buck...I live in sd and im used to the whitetail and you look at these things and they make them look like midgets...


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## Lil Sand Bay (Feb 2, 2005)

Yeh Burly 1, I lived in Ventura too before getting drafted into the war. I also hunted those mountains behind Ventura towards Ojai. As I look out the window at the L. Superior shoreline, I don't miss that country a bit!


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## Dan BTC (Oct 8, 2005)

I realize this thread has been around for a while but I figured I'd respond anyhow. After reading the posts I wanted to clear up a few things about California's Blacktails. For years they have been getting a bad rap about their size. A hundred pound blacktail is not considered a monster, granted they are not as big bodied as whitetails and muledeer, but they are bigger than most people think. I have personally killed blacktails in excess of 180lbs. If you compare that to the blacktails that are killed in Washington, it's small. Washington Blacktails often exceed 200lbs.

The Blacktail I killed this year was a nice one but definitely not a monster for my area. He weighed a 158lbs, had a 22 1/2 inch spread with 5 1/2 inch bases. I live in Northern Ca, 30 miles from the pacific so there's no doubt the bucks area pure Columbian Blacktails. A very good buck in my area will be 22-24 inches wide, have 4 points on each side (not counting browtines) and be about 18 inches tall. A true monster starts at about 25 wide. Two years ago a friend killed a 25 1/2, 20 high, 12x8, that scored over 180 B&C. The widest CA blacktail listed in B&C's "Records of North American Deer and Elk" is 35 inches wide.

Weasel73, If you want to get a true idea about blacktail size check out the California field photos section of http://www.blacktailcountry.com

I don't mean any offense to the previous poster, I just wanted to set the record straight. My comments apply to only the Northern CA bucks. I know nothing about buck sizes in Southern CA., I've never


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