I feel like it's just me and the squirrels out there.

[Jovesque]

Alright I've got some questions.

While this is my first year hunting Blacktails, I didn't have much time to pre scout and I'm getting discouraged, sore, and tired. I've spent just over 80hrs so far and have only seen one deer while on a hunting trip and a couple close encounters with bears in early season. I've got lots of patience from years of fishing, but sometimes I feel like it's just me and the squirrels out there. MU 2-6.

Could I be wasting my time in the two spots I've been going to? One is at 1200m and the other at 1000M. Both have some deer sign; it's not a lot, but's the most I've come across. Both spots are a good 2-3hr hike from my car. Typically I drive 1.5hrs, hike 2-3hrs, then scrub down and change into my hunting clothes and quietly move into position. After about a two hour sit I slowly inch my way deeper into the timber for a still hunt. Honestly I get hung up on squirrels a lot. I hear a thump, thump, thump and move in closer, thermals/wind in my face only to find another squirrel picking pinecones off a fir tree; I swear I'm starting to get desensitized by them. Usually they don't even know I'm there, but occasionally one will squawk at me, especially if I tip a bleat can. That being said I get a little excited when I hear one squawking on the other side of a knoll, thinking this could be another passer by. It's super fun overall and totally exhausting.

All that being said, yesterday I decided ignore my spots and instead drive around and check out some other locations at lower elevations. I think most hunters pass these by, as most of the vehicles I see are parked at the ends of the FSRs. Anyway, because I'm not familiar with these other spots, I'm afraid to quickly scout through them, incase I spook the game out. Instead I've chosen to blindly still hunt and spend hours covering a few hundred yards only to find no sign and get tricked by more squirrels dropping pine cones; could that be a deer?

Incidentally my trail cams have not picked up a single thing in the last two months(they're virgin cameras as far as I'm concerned).

Any tips would be great, I've been doing this all solo, side from the help of this site and few good books including Boyd's "Blacktail trophy tactics".

[Ferenc]

Find some alders... The rubs .... You'll find the blacktails soon. : )

[hoochie]

both our Mule deer this year were found below 1000m.
you dont have to be high a top a mountain to find them.
I hunt on foot, and many times when I am about to give up and turn back; I encounter deer.

[two-feet]

Spend the time exploring until you find the sign, then start hunting. Do not bother hunting a spot unless you have a good idea animals are using it. Animals are not consistently stacked up on the majority of the landscape, you need to find the pockets of game. Then you have yourself a honey hole.

Now, I have never hunted blacktail. So my advice may be total shit. But this is how most other animals behave.

[Wild one]

Region 2 blacktail can be tough it takes a lot of scouting to find good spots

all my blacktail I have taken involved a boat or hiking like hell

learn to hunt areas others don't hide from the people well enough you will find more deer. Places that are overlooked or hard to reach is how I got results

[rocksteady]

Hang in there... You can go from zero to hero in less than 5 seconds

[quadrakid]

Keep at it. October blacktails are tough. The rut will be kicking in soon and there will be much more deer movement in daylight . As said before,find a spot with rubs and does,bucks will show soon,good luck.

[stro52]

Similar experience, starting to dislike squirrels, borderline hate them. My second year and now I have learned to almost know when its a squirrel, which is always lol

[ruger#1]

Went out today. No rubs yet. Mid Nov, Should be seeing them.

[markathome]

2-6 is pretty tough hunting - I know - I hunt here and three years ago I even ditched all my other provincial honey holes to dedicate an entire hunting season only hunting blacktails in the sea to sky and came up empty. But I'm hardly bitter at all... I've totally let the season go as water under the bridge and it's rare I ever wake up at night and walk down to the basement to check the freezer in a flash back/ nightmare of a venison free winter... I think there have been two occasions where I have even refrained from boring my wife/family/friends/hunting partners about the hollow feeling left in my stomach from the '13 hunting season (ok once, and it was a business lunch).

BT hunting the s2s has it's ups and downs and I've been lucky to connect (other than 13). My advice as a semi successful bt hunter in the s2s (I'm no proguide66!) is if you haven't seen a doe or a buck - you're in the wrong place. They're out there, but if you've spent that amount of time creeping the same area with no results, you're in a low population area. Throw a little caution into the wind and cover some ground - hit up those areas that look interesting - blast in there and see if you jump deer - if you do, great! Once you jump the doe - slow down and really start looking for the buck.

My hunting partner and I have a rule - no sign no hunt. And we're pretty thick headed so the sign needs to be right at the end of our nose.

2-7 / 2-9 and 2-11 in my experience hold higher density than 2-6.

Here's our BT from today. My oldest daughter sighted him at 75 yards and got my attention while we were semi-sneaking along - clever girl.

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k102/Mark_Robichaud/IMG_0078_zpsjpbkrsql.jpg (http://s86.photobucket.com/user/Mark_Robichaud/media/IMG_0078_zpsjpbkrsql.jpg.html)

[Fella]

The blacktail bucks in my spot were still mostly moving at night 2 weeks ago. I know because of my cams plus the time I've spent there. Should be heating up soon though. Keep at it, they don't call them timber ghosts for nothing.

[avadad]

Blacktails are hard but very rewarding. In the past few years I've been planning my hunts around lunar cycles and my success rate has improved (Isolunar). For blacktails I look for the forest floor to have a good amount of moss or other vegetation. I've never seen a deer where the forest floor is brown. Once i find some game trails and other sign i go real slow. It might be a little early to be using the can call IMO. Might be best to save that for the rut. Your odds of finding deer go up substantially once you get some snow on the ground. Few things are as thrilling as tracking a buck in the snow. This hunting thing you have taken up is not as easy as the shows on youtube might lead you to believe. In BC the success rate is around 30% and you are choosing to pursue blacktails which are the hardest of all species to locate and its early. You will see more deer if you venture east into region 3 or 8 into mule deer country. Enjoy your time in the outdoors, be prepared and try not to get discouraged. I hunted for 4 years before I even saw a deer in the wild and didn't kill a buck until my 7th year. It's not about the killing…its about the hunting! Good luck!

[avadad]

There is also a group on Facebook dedicated to blacktail deer hunting.

[scotty30-06]

Tough hunts but stick with it brotha....most guys don't get much there first years of hunting

[Treed]

Lol. Blacktails like to live. I've hunted 2-6 and seen a lot of sign and some great bears, called a few does. Have some great sheds but no bucks. Shot a few on the island but none on the mainland. They are seldomn, the terrain is tough, and the pressure is high. Makes for a hunt for the skilled and determined (A bow to proguide). Find pockets of old growth fir amongst the bedrock outcrops, with ocean spray (plant), a stream nearby. Trails and fresh sign (stuff 3 months old ain't gonna help). The only problem is that when you find them, you have to get them back down. Good luck. See you up there. Those days are great days - no disappointment with no kill.

[Jovesque]

Thanks for all the help and encouragement guy’s; it helps to know what you have experienced when it come to finding these guy’s. Even though I haven't seen much sign I really do enjoy being in the forest this time of year.


Yesterday I checked out a new spot that looked interesting - it has a couple clumps of alders and some really beautiful old growth; one tree looked to be over 2m in diameter. I found a few spots that looked like beds, but I didn't see poop anywhere. I also found a nest of some game trails - no rubs. On a side note there was a fair bit of old bear sign in the area and what appeared to be an old mj plantation. There were bags of top soil scattered every few meters or so in what would have been a clear cut 20yrs before. :?


I’m going to head back out today and continue the scout in this spot. I have more ground to cover before I may well rule it out.





Here's our BT from today. My oldest daughter sighted him at 75 yards and got my attention while we were semi-sneaking along - clever girl.

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k102/Mark_Robichaud/IMG_0078_zpsjpbkrsql.jpg (http://s86.photobucket.com/user/Mark_Robichaud/media/IMG_0078_zpsjpbkrsql.jpg.html)
Congratulations markathome, looks like a good family outing and memory. Thanks for sharing. Cheers.

[604Stalker]

Its year 3 and without a doe draw last year I still would be skunked. Keep at it you will find deer eventuality.

[caddisguy]

Been trying to whack a blacktail for years... this is year #4. I am only just starting to "get it" ... and dang those squirrels are annoying and tastey lookin... wish there was a season for Douglas squirrels... my freezer would be full

I have a doe tag for Boston Bar in November, but not sure about chasing a doe outside or my normal area during the rut

[brian]

Ohhh man do I know your pain, that was a lot of my experience when hunting the lower mainland blacktails. It was so discouraging to come home exhausted time and again with nothing to show for it in terms of protein content. But the very next week I would be up before dawn heading back out there for more abuse. My learning curve went way up when I moved to the island and started to get onto deer on a regular basis. Hell I am still learning so much every season.

Now here's my advice, your wasting time hunting areas that you have no idea will pay off. This is the pain of not scouting. Sitting over or still hunting unproven areas means you are relying 100% on luck. It'd be nice if you could tip the scales back a bit, but this requires knowledge and skill. Being a new hunter it is your job to get both. Don't worry you're on the right track if you can spend 80 hours out there this season and still have the determination to keep going. You need to get out there hiking and learning what secrets the mountains hold. Deer heavily use very small areas of their home ranges and make less use of the majority of it, they really do live in pockets. Learning about 200 meters on the entire mountain may be the difference between filling a tag or getting skunked. But which 200 meters on the entire mountain will make the difference? Only your boot leather can tell you that. If I were you I would ignore your sit and ignore still hunting. I would hike full speed and cover as much ground as you can looking for sign and animals. Pick terrain features on a map and hike to them to check them out. Look for benches, ridges, easy travel routes. Don't be afraid of spooking deer. Blacktails are homebodies, it takes a lot of pressure to get them to abandon good bedding sights. So at very least you will know where the deer are bedding if you are jumping them while hiking. Hell you may even have a few good opportunities as sometimes they'll stop and look back to see if they are being pursued. A whistle or loud MAH can stop them too. But I digress, my biggest mistake when I was hunting the lower mainland in my first years was spending too much time "hunting" and too little time learning the area. Your instincts will kick in as you learn more about deer on the mountain. Sometimes when hiking a little voice in your head will tell you to slow down, listen to it and hunt. Just keep looking for deer and sign. Try to cover the entire bloody mountain, leave no stone unturned. Down low, up high, east, west, north, south, far from the road, close to the road everywhere could hold deer and you won't know it unless you check it out.

[caddisguy]

Good advice from Brian there.

I hunt this thing I call a micro mountain. It's about 2x the size of a sports stadium. I have spent a lot of my 4 years learning my micro-mountain inside and out because I thought it was a great spot. I have come to realize it is a decent spot, but not a great one. It holds bucks and I am going to shoot one, but only because I committed so much time to learning that spot. If I could do it all over again, I would have done a lot more scouting. I did a lot of scouting, but should have done 20x more.

[604Stalker]

Right if there was a chipmunk season I would be laughing... Also apperently eating rodents with caddis guy.

[Mtn Wonderer]

I came up with recipe over the years, After I found my hunting spots for blacktail, 7 days equals one chance at a BT buck, I am more of a meat hunter and Have shot a dozen blacktails over the years only four of them have been true four points. my biggest blacktail was a 3 point with big Mass.

I never hunt sitting in one place, always moving slowly watching watching, you'll see that blacktail with the wet polished antlers looking back at you, boom.

Hunt up in the morning down in the afternoon and go out when its Ugly!!!

By far one of best challenges in BC for hunting.

Good luck to you

[Jovesque]

Well first of all it’s really cool to come back and see that I’m not alone, and more good tips to go on. Thank you!


Today I went back out for 8 hours, mostly I covered ground by zig zagging back and forth between an old cut line and a river bed(appx area 40hectars). There were a lot of ups and downs, but there were times when I slowed down to hunt because it looked good and felt right. I saw lots of game trails, a few sets of fresh solo tracks, and one older set that was quite large(elk?). I also think I spooked one, I only heard it. All in all I was excited with the area and wonder if it will be worth going back to. Only saw four poops though; could it be that they’re just constipated? :) I jokingly like to think so. It felt good to get back to the car and change into some dry clothes and now that I’m back home I know I’ll feel it tomorrow.


Brian thanks for the tip, that combined with Caddisguy’s affirmation seems to feel right to me. I’ll change things up a bit and push fast for more info. I’ve seen a few other places on google earth that intrigue me and I’ve meant to check them out, but since the season opened I guess I just focused on one area. I suppose I wont know until I go look.