Photo By Chuck & Grace Bartlett

I’d worked my way along just below a brushy ridgeline that is carpeted thick in manzanita, then finally knelt to take a pull from my water canteen before finally topping out. It was early August and the mercury was boiling its way to another 100-degree day, but that’s what we call "deer season" out here in the far west as I wiped the sweat from my eyes then got my feet heading for the rim.

The very instant I peeked over into the little box canyon, a stunning, thick-antlered 3-point blacktail buck exploded from a copse of dark, green "pepper trees," lunging directly away from me and straight up a ridge. At only 75 yards I knew I couldn’t hardly miss. Whipping my light lever gun to my shoulder, I put the crosshairs right on the tip of the buck’s nose and pressed the trigger.

After tagging and gutting the deer, I backtracked into the bottoms to discoverer a tiny pool of spring-fed water bubbling to the surface in a hole no bigger than your kitchen sink only finger deep. But for Western blacktail hunters in the vast brush lands that cover so much of this lower deer range, it points the way to one of the most important and successful keys to finding and taking these cover-loving animals. Water now is king.

I would also make the claim here that anyplace you find a water source during the broiling hot summer blacktail season -- be it tiny spring, seep, rainwater creek or backcountry cattle trough -- you will also find deer someplace near it. They may lay up in steep, brush-lined side hills, shady canyon bottoms, or seek relief under a canopy of trees along some rocky ridge where they can catch an errant breeze, but sooner or later they must come to water and often it’s far sooner than you ever thought.

Blacktails also make for some of the toughest rifle hunting for antlered big game anywhere on the planet. And even though enormous tracts of public land blanket the West, such as national forests, state lands, Bureau of Land Management properties, and even military reservations, buck hunters here must ply their trade in withering heat. Here are some thoughts on how to narrow those odds, based on the 35 years I’ve spent hunting them.

Thick cover that runs endlessly for miles suits these deer right down to the ground. They are sneakers and peekers that live their lives in smothering cover of every kind. The species has prospered because of it. Water is the real key to concentrate your efforts around, either by setting up on stand near it; walking lightly and quietly, carefully hunting as you parallel it; and knowing when and where to do both.

You must learn to match your hunting techniques on the deer’s habits and timetable, and resist the urge to plow through endless miles of brush where all you’ll ever get is a flash of hair or bone as a buck bolts away. When I first started hunting them years ago with an old octagon-barreled .38/40, that’s how I tried to catch up to a set of antlers. Eventually I got smarter.

Another important point I’ve noticed over the years is that blacktails will often get up from thick bedding cover and go to water about mid-morning -- right when the heat of the day is really beginning to build. Ironically, most rifle hunters have returned to camp to wait out the heat of the day. Remember that buck at the beginning of this story? I caught him out at 10:30 a.m.

FOOTHILLS
Just above the smoldering brush lands lies a different world of higher elevations laced with canyons and ridges, a more open country with scattered stands of pines, valley oaks, chemise, buckbrush and oat grass. Here also hunting becomes a different proposition simply because you can either see or look across and down into cover with elevation and spot deer moving through it. One of the very best ways to take a buck in this land is by using deer drives, yet for some reason, few hunters apply them. I’ve never understood why.