Pound for pound, the diminutive and secretive Columbia blacktail presents as challenging a hunting proposition as does any deer species found in America. There are few places--Oregonians and Californians may disagree--that hold more potential for big blacktail bucks than Washington's Cascade Range and its Gifford Pinchot National Forest (GPNF), more than 1 million acres of public ground. Located in the southwest corner of Washington, the GPNF encompasses 1.3 million acres in portions of several counties, three ranger districts and parts of at least nine game management units. One of the oldest national forests in the country, the GPNF became part of the Mount Rainier Forest Reserve in 1897 and was established by its present name fifty-one years later. The 110,000-acre Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument is found within the GPNF, as are seven wilderness areas totaling slightly more than 180,000 acres.
>> Where To Go: My first two blacktails and my first Roosevelt bull elk came out of the southern third of the GPNF, the Wind River Ranger District, and not far south of the Trapper Creek Wilderness Area. We frequently accessed this area via Forest Road 54 east of the crossroads community Chelatchie (FR54 is the mainline road connecting, in a round-about fashion, Chelatchie and Carson to the south and east). From the FR54, using a forest-specific map, we would drive, park, walk and glass, often exploring as much as actively hunting.
There's a lifetime worth of opportunity just in this district alone, and few were the times we left disappointed in the number of animals we encountered.
>> These Ain't Whitetails: Despite thirty years spent chasing Midwestern whitetails, I was totally unprepared for Washington blacktails. First, the country they call home is in many cases best described as impenetrable. "You really don't want to step off that logging road," my wife told me one morning as I prepared to leave the gravel behind. She was right. Between the slash, tangled vine maple, reprod (short for reproduction, or young trees planted after a logging operation is completed), and prehistoric ferns, it was, literally, a jungle in there. Just seeing deer in that mess is difficult.
Additionally, blacktails are extraordinarily shy and, to a large extent, much more nocturnal than whitetails however, you can combat this trait and the jungle-like cover in which they live. One way is to arrive early, stay as late as legal shooting time allows, and sit where you can see timber edges, hidden meadows and clear cuts. However, it will behoove you to get up and away from the forest roads. Trust me...every mature blacktail buck knows that the crunch of heavy mudder radials on gravel isn't a good thing. To that end, aerial maps or satellite imagery, along with old-fashioned on-foot preseason scouting can point you to those promising stands and out of sight of traffic.
>> Get Good Gear: With blacktails, I can't stress the need to use good optics enough. You want something that's clear and of high enough quality that you won't get eye strain because you'll do a heck of a lot more spying than you will shooting. You'll want equally good glass atop your rifle. Shots at blacktails can range anywhere from archery-close to beyond 400 yards, and usually longer than shorter. As for caliber, I'm fond of a .243, though my wife's boy has taken several blacktails with an old Remington bolt action in .25-06, a popular cartridge throughout much of the Cascades.
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