Blacktail hunting is the redheaded stepchild of the major North American deer species. This is due to no fault of their own. They occupy a much smaller range than the omnipresent whitetail and the western mule deer. However, chasing these gray ghosts in the misty rainforests on the west coast puts one in one of the most challenging environments on the continent. On the northern edge of their range conditions are even harsher. I’ve been fortunate to spend a good portion of the last year hunting blacktails in some of the toughest country on the northern coastline of British Columbia, and today I will share some of the challenges the area presents.
Background
While I currently live on the north coast of BC, I grew up hunting blacktails on Vancouver Island. While both areas are rainforest and hold blacktails, most of the similarities end there. Blacktail hunting on Vancouver Island involves glassing clear cuts and still hunting stands of old growth for the most part. The weather, while wet, is typically very mild and the deer are reasonably plentiful in spite of the high cougar, wolf, and black bear populations. Growing up on the island gave me a basic understanding of blacktail habits. What it did not prepare me for is the unique challenges of a north coast hunt similar to Southeast Alaska.
Access
One of the first issues I encountered blacktail hunting was access. Unlike in the south, logging and its road networks are not widespread and there are no young clearcuts near me. Bushwacking is a long and arduous process due to the thick alder, willows, and devils club down low and blueberries higher up. This makes travelling long distances off trail only practical on multi-day backpack hunts. Additionally, the undergrowth is so thick that moving quietly is virtually impossible, making still hunting very difficult.
Low Deer Populations
Another significant challenge was the drastically lower deer populations. Large wolf, wolverine, black and grizzly bear, coyote, and mountain lion populations all combine to lower deer populations. Competition from moose in also serve to push the deer out of some of the prime cover. This has led to the deer living in very thick and steep country near the coast where dense cover helps protect them from predators and the trees are too thick for the larger moose.
Harsh Weather
Thirdly, the constant rain of the coast is now accompanied by unpredictable winds and freezing temperatures. This complicates choosing clothing to stay comfortable and still be able to move through the really rugged terrain without sweating out. Gore-Tex provides a waterproof and breathable material but is anything but quiet moving through the undergrowth. Wool on the other hand is warm and quiet for those who don’t mind being wet.
Adaptations to Adversity
All of these challenges forced me to change the way that I hunt a great deal. The difficulty of the terrain and lack of trails meant that I needed to find spots close enough to a road that I could safely navigate in with a headlamp in the dark for a day hunt. Travel in dense brush on steep terrain in the dark is very slow, so this set a perimeter of the areas that would be accessible.
Once I had established what areas were actually accessible to me for non-overnight hunts, I had to actually find the deer. In the past, glassing clear cuts in the summer and setting trail cams has helped me find deer. The lack of logging and low deer densities made both of these strategies minimally useful. Instead, I relied on the more traditional techniques of using sign to locate the small pockets of deer and making an educated guess based on the topography and foliage at how they were using that area.
Even then, I had a limited number of spots that were both effectively huntable and held deer. Where typically if the wind was not right, I would hunt a different spot, I had to change my tactic. Instead, I would take long circuitous routes on an approach to a spot or adapt my plan to hunt the same deer on a different part of the trail or feeding grounds. Having fewer options forced me to become more creative in how I hunted the spots that I had.
Outcome
My first close call blacktail hunting the area was with a 4×4 buck where I couldn’t get a shooting lane. It was late October, but he had clearly started rutting and was following a skittish doe through thick timber. I returned several times to see if I could locate him but had no luck.
Finally, I connected during the November rut. The buck was a 2×2 with extremely odd non-typical antlers. He had bedded on the wind free side of a bluff and was moving down to his trail to service his rub in the muskeg on the other side of the bluff. As he paused halfway behind a tree, with the wind swirling, around 44 yards. Worried the wind would betray me, I steadied the crosshairs of my Tract Toric scope on the half of the deer that I could see, with a steeply quartering shot angle. My Bergara B-14 sent a 123gr Hornady SST right where it was supposed to go and the buck dropped in his tracks.
Despite not having the largest set of head ware, the buck was very valuable to me. Almost all of my family’s meat comes from hunting and fishing. As such, it was an enormous relief for me to put a buck in the freezer. Additionally, the difficulty of the hunt made him more meaningful to me than his size would suggest.
Closing Thoughts
Learning to hunt new areas and new species is always a learning curve. Adapting to different animals and habitats forces us to mature as hunters in order to find success. Hunting Sitka blacktails on the uttermost northern edge of their range was a bitter challenge. However, oftentimes the difficulty of the pursuit is directly related to the sweetness of the success.