Just thought I should post this little pic

D

deanf

New member
deer.jpg


4-point blacktail taken with the Mossberg 590 shown, with slugs.

My first buck.

Weighed in at 100 pounds exactly at the butcher.

The hardest part was holding him down for the camera before I shot him.

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"Anyone feel like saluting the flag which the strutting ATF and FBI gleefully raised over the smoldering crematorium of Waco, back in April of ‘93?" -Vin Suprynowicz

[This message has been edited by deanf (edited October 31, 2000).]
 
Only 100?!?!?! I'm not critisizing, that is a VERY nice buck, that, and I didn't get anything this year, but the 3 point blacktail I shot a few years back went 120 with the guts out, and skinned. We gueesed him prolly 150 live weight. That rack is MUCH larger than the one on my deer. Mine wasn't soo wide.
What state were ya in?

Speaking of posing with live deer. My uncle was driving down this road (that he probably shouldn't have been on) and saw this NICE buck standing there. So he jumps out with his bow and shoots it. He runs out, grabs the deer, loads it in the back of his suburban, and starts driving down the road again. He didn't take the time to gut it because (he probably shouldn't have been there). So he gets back out on the main road and he heeres this snortin' comming ftrom the back, he looks back, and this deer is just sitting back there staring at him. As soon as they made eye contact the buck started getting reall p*ssed, kicking and snorting, and raising a fit, it broke one of the back windows, and kicked my uncle in the neck. My uncle got mad and stopped, jumped out with his bow, and was gonna shoot it again, but as soon as he jumped out, the deer followed him and ran off into some woods. My uncle followed it and found it bedded down, and shot again. This time he gutted it, and put it back in his truck. He swears it's a true storie.
 
That's a Washington blacktail. I'm told they tend to be small. My dad's 5 point whitetail was 115. We put the heads next to each other. His had more points, but mine was certainly thicker. What all that means, I don't know. Maybe the butcher didn't weigh it right. That's fine, 'cause he charges by the pound. If you can convince me it's more than 100, I'll certainly tell people that.
 
Nope, it's a 4. (We're talking western method here.) The eyeguards are just 1-inch. It does have the beginnings of another point on the back of each side, but not enough to count.
 
They actually break up blacktails into two weight and trophy classes.
The Sitka Blacktail in Alaska
The Columbia in Washington/Oregon

In general, the further south you go, the larger they get.
I'm not sure that Sitka's actually weigh less than the Columbia - they are smaller but "chunkier" if you know what I mean. The racks are certainly smaller. The one in your photo would make B&C if it was a Sitka. B&C minimum for the Sitka is 108 points, for the Columbia it's 130 points (I think..).

They used to think Blacktails were a subspecies of mule deer, or even a hybrid between mulies and white-tails. The latest DNA studies indicate that just the opposite is true. Blacktails and whitetails are distinct sub-species and mule deer share DNA traits of both of those species - the mule deer is a hybrid of the other two.

Not that any of that matters - the important thing is that blacktails taste better!

Nice buck!



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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan
 
We do have a hybrid blacktail/mule deer in the Cascades. They are found deep in the forest, where not many venture. I got this one last year and he dressed at over 180 lbs. Got him on the western slopes, just 30 minutes for Portland.
robertpic.JPG
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>the mule deer is a hybrid of the other two.
[/quote]

uh. The black tail and white tail both have *main beam* antlers. If the mule deer is a cross of these two, why does it have *forked tine* antlers?

If this was true, And the Black and White tails crossed to make a mule, subspecies. And the muley is fertile, not a hybrid-evolutional-dud, then muleys could mate with white tails, and blacktails to produce fertile off spring, and if this could occure, why don't we see more *freaks* and *unclassable* deer that share many characteristics of both, or all three, depending on many generations of cross-breeding where muleys and whitetails inhabit the same areas?

I would lean more toward the idea that the black tail is the product of the white tail and mule deer. The Blacktail has whitetail like antlers, but is big and dark in body like a mule.
Also, it's tail is black (on the side that shows, it's white underneath, but I've never seen them raise it in alert) much like the tip of a mule deer tail, but the rear side of the rump, the back of the hams is brown, except for a small area on the inside of the legs, and under the tail. This is mostly true for white tails too, where as mule deer have a large amount of white on there hind end.

If you think about an evolutionary tree, and think about the physical characteristics of each species of deer, I'd be more likely to believe that none are hybrids of each other (though a few infertile ones will arise here and there, probably in less populated deer areas where they are looking harder for mates) But species that evolved and split differently. Probably the blacktail was around first, then the muley split of, and subsequintly evolved, then more recently the white tail and black tails split, and evolved their own ways. Or, Maybe not. :D


This is my Black-tail. Shot near mineral lake Washington. .243win. It went probably 150 live weight. (it's right antler was shot off by SOMEONE ELSE. Honest :D)
Nickdeer.jpg




[This message has been edited by BadMedicine (edited November 02, 2000).]
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>That's a Washington blacktail. I'm told they tend to be small.[/quote]

I guess that means small when compared to WA whitetail.

This particular deer spent it's life in an environment with little severe weather, probably plenty of food (apples, crops, nuts) all winter, little hunting pressure, and no predators save the occasional hunter and dog. The relatively good nourishment, as compared to a deer living in the cascade range, is what I think explains my deer's nice rack.

My dad says there is a spike (which I saw after I took mine) a 2-point, a 3-point, and a 7-point that all frequent the area where I took this one. The spike let me get to withing 15 feet of it to take a picture while it was laying down in the grass to eat apples.
 
Bad,

The prevailing view for many years was just as you describe, based on the characteristics of the animals. However, they've now done the DNA testing and it shows otherwise. DNA doesn't lie (except in California courts...).
You have to remember that these crosses happened long ago and there has been hundreds of thousands of years of adaptation to the environment going on that confuses the general impression.

Here's a couple of other weird items that have come up through DNA sampling.

SE Alaska brown bears are genetically distinct from inland grizzlies and brown bears found elsewhere in Alaska. SE brownies are actually closer genetically to polar bears than other brown/grizzlies - weird but true.

The Rainbow trout is not a trout. It's actually a salmon.
The Atlantic salmon is actually a trout.
Brook and lake trout are actually char.

All these fish are members of the "salmonid" family which includes salmon, trout and char, but they've had them on the wrong branches all these years.

It's like nothing is sacred anymore!



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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>

It's like nothing is sacred anymore!
[/quote]

:D that's right, blame evolution :D
 
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