First Columbia Blacktail

[Grasp]

After three years hunting in the lower mainland I finally got my first columbia blacktail. I have a half a dozen Sitka's under my belt but no columbians. This was a backpack still hunt and I packed him about just over 5kms through the mountains. I was in the chilliwack valley. A lot of the stuff I read on this forum really helped out. Anyways thought you all might want to check it out and just wanted to say thanks to all the locals for the helpful posts. I am no expert by any means but I am more than happy to answer any questions people may have. (Other than where he was shot :razz: )

http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=6051&stc=1

http://www.huntingbc.ca/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=6052&stc=1

[takla1]

congrates on the BT,generally they all have to be worked for,any details?was he with doe's ect
thx takla

[BigfishCanada]

Wow, i bet that was hard work!!! Congrats, well deserved

[Grasp]

congrates on the BT,generally they all have to be worked for,any details?was he with doe's ect
thx takla

Took this guy last week and you can see by his neck I don't think he was really rutting yet. No does with him that I could see. I had a can call and a set of rattling antlers. I was flipping the can or ratlling maybe every 5-10 mins. It felt like he was headed right to me when I saw him. He was uphill and heading sidehill towards me. My gut says he heard the can but I can't say for sure.

[markathome]

Nice Buck - how heavy was that pack? Man it can be a load of work hauling one of those guys off the mountain slipping and sliding your way to the truck. Congratulations!

[.264winmag]

Nice tall timber buck, congrats!

[BCBear]

nice head gear on that one, congratulations on a great bush deer

[Grasp]

Nice Buck - how heavy was that pack? Man it can be a load of work hauling one of those guys off the mountain slipping and sliding your way to the truck. Congratulations!

Weighed the pack when i got home and it was just under 120lbs with all my gear and the deer. No exaggeration it was the heaviest pack and one of the worst walks of my life. That walk out normally takes me an hour and it took 4 hours. In hindsight I should have boned out the deer instead of just quartering him. Oh well, next time :)

[Knute]

Congrats, nice buck.

You earned him.

[takla1]

Took this guy last week and you can see by his neck I don't think he was really rutting yet. No does with him that I could see. I had a can call and a set of rattling antlers. I was flipping the can or ratlling maybe every 5-10 mins. It felt like he was headed right to me when I saw him. He was uphill and heading sidehill towards me. My gut says he heard the can but I can't say for sure.

Id say he was defineately comeing in to the rattleing.Ive shot many BT by rattleing them in from a stand position ,they usually come in fairly quick nose to the ground alternating head up high for a look.The rut in region 2 usually gets going decently the first week of nov and that when ive had the best luck with aggressive rattleing.
The doe bleat doesn't carry far but BT will hear the rattleing from a long distance.
The BT buck mounted in my avatar pic I shot nov8th a few yrs back and he was bedded with 4 doe's and he was rutted up good,thick neck.He was shot at the same location ive taken other bucks that came into the rattle.

takla

[boxhitch]

congrats for finally putting a grasp on a Columbian. You could say you have a grasp for the technique.

[Grasp]

Id say he was defineately comeing in to the rattleing.Ive shot many BT by rattleing them in from a stand position ,they usually come in fairly quick nose to the ground alternating head up high for a look.The rut in region 2 usually gets going decently the first week of nov and that when ive had the best luck with aggressive rattleing.
The doe bleat doesn't carry far but BT will hear the rattleing from a long distance.
The BT buck mounted in my avatar pic I shot nov8th a few yrs back and he was bedded with 4 doe's and he was rutted up good,thick neck.He was shot at the same location ive taken other bucks that came into the rattle.

takla

That's good to know. I feel good about my spot and i think there's bigger guys in there. Gonna hold off now until the rut really kicks in and the bigger guys are moving around more. I'll focus more on the rattling and see how it goes.

[Grasp]

congrats for finally putting a grasp on a Columbian. You could say you have a grasp for the technique.

well played sir.

[deadlyshot19]

Nice buck! Great work with the calls.

[nature girl]

Very nice blacktail and I bet you are hooked on the blacktail hunting now. A well earned deer. Congradulations.

[ryanonthevedder]

Nice buck. The Chilliwack isn't easy hunting by any stretch so good for you!

[Blainer]

The hard work paid off, good on ya!

[Ferenc]

Nice.... Get your 2nd tag... Things are starting to pick up.. Seen some places where the ground is pawed up... And one with his nose to the ground... The Chilliwack river valley is an awesome place !!

[Grasp]

What's the general consensus on the cycle of the rut down here? I was thinking
early Nov = Pre-Rut,
mid Nov = Peak-Rut and
late Nov = Post-Rut.

[twoSevenO]

Can you share some tips on how you found the area? Google earth? out of season scouting? Find any sheds? Use any of the hiking trails to get you part ways up or straight bush wacking? Because i've tried bushwacking there and man it can be some nasty jungle-like stuff out that way.

Asking because my (admittedly limited) attempts have resulted so far in failures to find them in Chilliwack.

[HarryToolips]

Weighed the pack when i got home and it was just under 120lbs with all my gear and the deer. No exaggeration it was the heaviest pack and one of the worst walks of my life. That walk out normally takes me an hour and it took 4 hours. In hindsight I should have boned out the deer instead of just quartering him. Oh well, next time :)
Congrats on the BT and way to go on the pack out, I've packed out about that weight before, but not quite for that distance, I could only imagine that you had to take your time out and pace yourself!

[Grasp]

For starters I am a forestry engineer so have spent the last 15 years of my life bushwacking in BC coastal mountains. When I bring a normie with me on a scouting mission they think I am trying to kill them so take everything I have to say with a grain of salt.

I did use Google earth a lot. But I have been working this particular mountain for 2 years now. I spent 15 days there this year over the course of 3 months. usually burn one of my vacation days and skip work on a Thursday and then maybe a Saturday or a Sunday. I try to keep my hunting to week days to avoid the crowds. And an additional 3-4 scouting days preseason May-July. I bought a bunch of cams and checked them every 3-4 weeks.

I think one of the big takeaways is spend less time looking all over the place and focus on narrowing down to a smaller area. There are deer all over those mountains but there footprint is relatively small so if you don't take the time to scout all the nooks and crannies you can literally be walking 15 metres off a deer highway and never know it.

I wanted to find an area with little pressure so I started all my scouting trips with at least an hour walk straight up a mountain that I thought no one else was likely to do. Once I stared to get deer on cams I spent more time following trails and looking for what I have heard called a "rut hole". When I was following a trail and started to see fresh rubs all over the place I knew I had gold. That was still early season though and the bucks were still mainly nocturnal. So I moved cams to that area and started to take inventory. Once I had a good feeling for the deer in the area I left it alone for 3 weeks so my scent would die off and they would go back to normal behaviour.

First trip back in there I got my buck. I think once you find a good spot it has the potential to keep producing so I left all my cams set up and now I am going to wait for the rut to peak and go back in maybe mid-November. All I can say is don't give up. Of the 25-30 days I spent on this mountain over 2 years I never ONCE actually saw a deer with my own eyes. I ONLY had cam pics. I felt like I was going crazy but I just never gave up. Look for those high elevation alpine meadows and big gnarly old growth decadent fir. Where I got my buck was smack dab in the middle of the forest, no opening no nothing. Just a pure timber stillhunt. Like I say, I am no expert by any means but happy to help if I can.

[Grasp]

Congrats on the BT and way to go on the pack out, I've packed out about that weight before, but not quite for that distance, I could only imagine that you had to take your time out and pace yourself!

The voice of experience :) You know that pain. I was making it like 200-300m and stopping for 3-5 mins at a time. Just had to shut the mid off and put one foot in front of the other.

[twoSevenO]

For starters I am a forestry engineer so have spent the last 15 years of my life bushwacking in BC coastal mountains. When I bring a normie with me on a scouting mission they think I am trying to kill them so take everything I have to say with a grain of salt.

I did use Google earth a lot. But I have been working this particular mountain for 2 years now. I spent 15 days there this year over the course of 3 months. usually burn one of my vacation days and skip work on a Thursday and then maybe a Saturday or a Sunday. I try to keep my hunting to week days to avoid the crowds. And an additional 3-4 scouting days preseason May-July. I bought a bunch of cams and checked them every 3-4 weeks.

I think one of the big takeaways is spend less time looking all over the place and focus on narrowing down to a smaller area. There are deer all over those mountains but there footprint is relatively small so if you don't take the time to scout all the nooks and crannies you can literally be walking 15 metres off a deer highway and never know it.

I wanted to find an area with little pressure so I started all my scouting trips with at least an hour walk straight up a mountain that I thought no one else was likely to do. Once I stared to get deer on cams I spent more time following trails and looking for what I have heard called a "rut hole". When I was following a trail and started to see fresh rubs all over the place I knew I had gold. That was still early season though and the bucks were still mainly nocturnal. So I moved cams to that area and started to take inventory. Once I had a good feeling for the deer in the area I left it alone for 3 weeks so my scent would die off and they would go back to normal behaviour.

First trip back in there I got my buck. I think once you find a good spot it has the potential to keep producing so I left all my cams set up and now I am going to wait for the rut to peak and go back in maybe mid-November. All I can say is don't give up. Of the 25-30 days I spent on this mountain over 2 years I never ONCE actually saw a deer with my own eyes. I ONLY had cam pics. I felt like I was going crazy but I just never gave up. Look for those high elevation alpine meadows and big gnarly old growth decadent fir. Where I got my buck was smack dab in the middle of the forest, no opening no nothing. Just a pure timber stillhunt. Like I say, I am no expert by any means but happy to help if I can.


How many did you see while working on the mountain? Find any sheds?

[Grasp]

Do you mean how many do I have pics of on cam? Probably 10 different ones but only 4 decent ones. Lots of spikes and forky's. No sheds. Looking forward to shed season this year though. I've never gone shed hunting before.

[Thunderstix]

Nicely done man!! Now that is a hunt!

[Harvest the Land]

Awesome job - proof that all that time in the preseason really paid off. Way to go man!

[J_T]

For starters I am a forestry engineer so have spent the last 15 years of my life bushwacking in BC coastal mountains. When I bring a normie with me on a scouting mission they think I am trying to kill them so take everything I have to say with a grain of salt.

I did use Google earth a lot. But I have been working this particular mountain for 2 years now. I spent 15 days there this year over the course of 3 months. usually burn one of my vacation days and skip work on a Thursday and then maybe a Saturday or a Sunday. I try to keep my hunting to week days to avoid the crowds. And an additional 3-4 scouting days preseason May-July. I bought a bunch of cams and checked them every 3-4 weeks.

I think one of the big takeaways is spend less time looking all over the place and focus on narrowing down to a smaller area. There are deer all over those mountains but there footprint is relatively small so if you don't take the time to scout all the nooks and crannies you can literally be walking 15 metres off a deer highway and never know it.

I wanted to find an area with little pressure so I started all my scouting trips with at least an hour walk straight up a mountain that I thought no one else was likely to do. Once I stared to get deer on cams I spent more time following trails and looking for what I have heard called a "rut hole". When I was following a trail and started to see fresh rubs all over the place I knew I had gold. That was still early season though and the bucks were still mainly nocturnal. So I moved cams to that area and started to take inventory. Once I had a good feeling for the deer in the area I left it alone for 3 weeks so my scent would die off and they would go back to normal behaviour.

First trip back in there I got my buck. I think once you find a good spot it has the potential to keep producing so I left all my cams set up and now I am going to wait for the rut to peak and go back in maybe mid-November. All I can say is don't give up. Of the 25-30 days I spent on this mountain over 2 years I never ONCE actually saw a deer with my own eyes. I ONLY had cam pics. I felt like I was going crazy but I just never gave up. Look for those high elevation alpine meadows and big gnarly old growth decadent fir. Where I got my buck was smack dab in the middle of the forest, no opening no nothing. Just a pure timber stillhunt. Like I say, I am no expert by any means but happy to help if I can.

Congratulations. Somewhat old school. Simply hard work fueled by desire. That's how most of us old dogs learned to do it. So encouraging to hear this approach, instead of; 'hey, I'm going hunting, can anyone tell me where I can kill a big buck, close to the road'?

[kennyj]

Way to go!! That's a beauty and well deserved.
kenny

[diehlm]

I highly respect the way you did this hunt and how you go about it. Well done. And thanks for sharing.

[Grasp]

I highly respect the way you did this hunt and how you go about it. Well done. And thanks for sharing.

Thank you very much. My pleasure.

[scotty30-06]

Been hunting Chilliwack Valley for number of years and it does drive you nuts still waiting to get my buck out of there....spots in that valley are like stepping into a different world with how thick it is.....great job man