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Thread: Blacktails in the rain

  1. #1
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    Apr 2013
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    Blacktails in the rain

    I made several trips around Harrison, Hope, Boston Bar, but didn't see anything. Most of the time was raining or at least drizzling. Any tips for hunting in this miserable weather mayhem?

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  3. #2
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    Re: Blacktails in the rain

    Quote Originally Posted by warbird2006 View Post
    I made several trips around Harrison, Hope, Boston Bar, but didn't see anything. Most of the time was raining or at least drizzling. Any tips for hunting in this miserable weather mayhem?
    Get out of the truck and have a look in the timber
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  4. #3
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    Feb 2021
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    Re: Blacktails in the rain

    Wonder if anyone has tried one of those portable ground blinds.
    Find a game trail or where you know doe hang out,
    Set up, give a few calls, open a beer and wait.

  5. #4
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    Nov 2014
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    Re: Blacktails in the rain

    Quote Originally Posted by NĄck View Post
    Wonder if anyone has tried one of those portable ground blinds.
    Find a game trail or where you know doe hang out,
    Set up, give a few calls, open a beer and wait.
    Beer and gunpowder, what could go wrong?

  6. #5
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    Dec 2008
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    Re: Blacktails in the rain

    Quote Originally Posted by Harvest the Land View Post
    Get out of the truck and have a look in the timber
    This is what I found works best lol.. Find a deer trail and start creeping around like you have lost something. You will eventually be rewarded. The rain is great as it noisy and you can move around, find some Cedar trees they like to sit under them in shitty weather.. I have found that BTs are normally in the closets spot that everyone speeds past on their way to the “hunting grounds”. I have learned to hunt spots everyone overlooks.

  7. #6
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    May 2007
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    3,066

    Re: Blacktails in the rain

    Quote Originally Posted by Harvest the Land View Post
    Get out of the truck and have a look in the timber
    Timber hunting Blacktails in the rain has got to be one of my favourite things to do. It puts things a little bit more in your favour.

    Don’t discount hunting cut blocks in the rain either though. I quite often found them mere yards from the timber and my theory always was the rain made it quite loud in the timber making it easier for things to sneak up on them with their reduced hearing and sense of smell. Out in the open they could rely on sight to make it harder for something to get close so we quite often saw them bedded down in the open not far from the Timbers edge so they could make a quick escape.

  8. #7
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    Jan 2010
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    Re: Blacktails in the rain

    I listened to a podcast about mule deer hunting and applied that advice to blacktail hunting. You have to get into the area that you’re hunting in the dark, sit at the edge of a cut block, clearing or somewhere with good visibility. Get there at least 30 minutes before light & sit, you could see a buck heading back to its bedding area.

    About 30-45 minutes after full daylight then you start your spot and stalk hunt. I think it’s better hunting BT’s in the rain, fog, wind or blowing snow, I think it covers the noise that you make. As others have mentioned here on HBC over the years regarding BT hunting, take 3 steps, stop, look. It’s painfully slow but I have crept up on many deer that way.

    I also find that when you’re moving that slow sometimes you’ll see them before they see you. If you’re moving slow and the BT see you first, they’ll get accustomed to you if you’re moving slow and they won’t view you as a threat. Don’t make much eye contact, make sure the wind is right, act like a deer and how they move and you can get super close to does and fawns, I’ve even sat down 10’ away from bedded deer.

    I think the other thing that helps is what I call doing a death march, do the sitting thing in the morning and then do the slow creep hiking through the whole day, don’t go back to the truck, get away from roads, find old growth forest and hunt right until dark and hike back to the truck in the dark, which is true for elk hunting too.

    Get to know the area you hunt, it’ll take years to really figure an area out and keep discovering new areas. Do all these things and you’ll harvest a buck or two every year.

  9. #8
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    Re: Blacktails in the rain

    Quote Originally Posted by NĄck View Post
    Wonder if anyone has tried one of those portable ground blinds.
    Find a game trail or where you know doe hang out,
    Set up, give a few calls, open a beer and wait.
    I had a couple doghouse blinds out this season, but ended up not using them much. I just had them out incase I wanted a break from any snotty weather. I put them out too late (vehicle issues) too in my opinion... mid August... I think it actually resulted in the deer avoiding close proximity to the blinds when the season opened. I did sit in them for a bit a couple times... man who knew it would be so hard for me to sit in one place for any extended period haha ... props to those who can sit in blinds or tree stands for hours

    Also noticed a widow maker wanting to fall towards one of the blinds. At one point I actually thought if I gave the tree a shove in the right direction, it wouldn't fall on the blind. Nope... my little shove wasn't changing the direction it wanted to go.... SMASH... dead center of the pop-up blind. It actually survived with the only damage being a broken fiberglass tent-pole-like support thingy. Was pretty amazed.

    But anyway to the OP it's like others say... blacktails like to stay in their rainforest jungle homes for the most part. Spring and summer you'll see them all over in the open, roads, cuts and such. Fall comes around, seeing them in the open is the exception to the norm and it's often just them crossing from one patch of timber to the next.

    You don't even need to do crazy hiking up into the saddles and benches or even uphill / downhill. Anyone who can walk a short distance can do it. Hiking in just about anywhere 50-100 yards into the timber even in the flats, good chance you come across trails, tracks, poops and such... if so, creep around and still-hunt that timber, if not, move along and take a poke into the timber somewhere else.

    That's the thing about R2. There is virtually no hunting pressure beyond view of roads and there aren't a heck of a lot of roads in R2 (especially now...) Overall R2 is probably one of the most huntable yet under hunted regions on the planet when one considers the ratio of area that exists versus area that ever sees the presence of a hunter. Driving roads and watching cuts in R2 though, it's like a lottery ticket, odds are bad. You could play 30x a year for 20 years and still possibly come up empty. All these years, I've never actually never seen a buck during season while driving FSR's in R2, day or night.... come to think of it, in all the fall seasons I think I have only ever spotted one doe while driving.
    Last edited by caddisguy; 11-28-2021 at 04:50 PM.

  10. #9
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    Jun 2007
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    Duncan
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    Re: Blacktails in the rain

    Wonder if anyone has tried one of those portable ground blinds.
    Find a game trail or where you know doe hang out,
    Set up, give a few calls, open a beer and wait.
    Problem is he will only show by the eighth beer.

    My experience is wind and rain is great for getting out there and being quiet, but they are slinking around being really quiet too. Like others said, still hunt the timber and obsessively use optics. Best case scenario is you see them before they see you. Next best scenario is they see you but are standing around presenting you with a shot opportunity anyways. I myself will more often sit around and wait for them to come to me on a quiet day with a predictable wind and when the forest is too noisy to move around in. As for how rain affects their activity/movement? I don't know if it does much, at least not light rain and drizzle. Heavy winds and rain creates havoc for their senses. I'm sure it makes them really freakin' cautious. People say they come out of the wood work and are more likely to be caught in the open, but that has not been my experience. Every rainy day deer I have shot has been in the timber.

  11. #10
    Join Date
    Feb 2021
    Posts
    156

    Re: Blacktails in the rain

    I've only ever used blinds for waterfowl. I can last a few hours before I start going a bit crazy. A flask of whiskey helps 😉
    Wonder if it's a good tactic for blacktail.

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