BLACKTAILS IN THE BACK 40

It’s not what you traditionally think of as blacktail hunting, but with those ghosts of the forest making themselves at home around our homes, there are opportunities to hunt them – with extreme care. JD Lundquist thinned the local herd on his family’s San Juan Islands farmstead, where high numbers of deer have led managers to offer second tags. (COAST HUNTING PHOTO CONTEST)

Burned out trying to find bucks high up in the Cascades? Don’t want to pay for private timberland access? There’s another option closer to home, albeit with safety caveats.

By MD Johnson

This story actually begins in Iowa ’round about 2000, maybe 2001. A good friend of ours, Rich Patterson, who managed the Indian Creek Nature Center at the edge of Cedar Rapids, called me.

“MD,” Rich began, “I have a lady with a deer problem. She’s outside the city limits, has plenty of ground, and is willing to allow hunting.”

“But,” he paused, “she’s not accustomed to hunters and hunting. In fact, and until very recently, I would have considered her rabidly anti-hunting.”

“My plate’s full,” he added, “and I just can’t find the time. If I introduced you and Julie to her, could you help?”

Absolutely, I told him; glad to do it.

Neighborhood bucks might be tempting targets, but in addition to getting landowner permission and scoping out adjacent properties for red flags, hunters also need to research no-shooting and no-hunting areas. As the below map from a Western Washington county shows, no-shooting (yellow) and other areas can intermix. (TOM WALGAMOTT, ABOVE)

Enter, then, Marilyn K. Marilyn owned 66 beautiful acres of mixed hardwood valleys, rough and tumble bedding cover, and pasture land – she’s a horse person – on the edge of town. She was an extremely nice lady; articulate, educated, professional and cared deeply about Mother Nature, her piece of it and her role in it. Rich introduced my wife and I to Marilyn, and turned it over to us. Immediately, she began asking Julie questions.

“I didn’t know girls hunted,” she said. “Why do you do it? When did you start? Who taught you how to hunt? How do you stand the cold weather? What happens if you get a deer?”

The questions may have gone on and on, but by the end of that first meeting, Julie and Marilyn had genuinely hit it off.

“If the weather gets too cold,” the landowner told my wife, “you just come into the house and sit there at the dining room table. Make yourself a pot of coffee. And when the deer come into the backyard, just slide that door open and shoot one. Or two.”

We had a good chuckle at that, after, that is, giving the idea some serious consideration, given the temperatures in eastern Iowa often dropped to -20 or below during the late muzzleloader season in January.

Over the next 10 years, our relationship with Marilyn K. grew into a downright friendship. A single lady, Julie and I helped her throughout the year with various projects; come fall, we had 66 deerfilled acres to ourselves beginning with archery season on October through the close of muzzleloader season on January 10.

How many deer constitutes deerfilled? On the first evening we hunted Marilyn’s ground, Julie counted 76 animals from her treestand alone, including some monstrous bucks. During that decade, we used the ground as a training facility, per

Washington’s entire Stella Game Management Unit is a firearms restricted area, but that hasn’t stopped Emily and Bryce Foytack from bagging a number of blacktail bucks there with their shotguns in recent years, including this pair from 2020. The small unit encompassing Longview and nearby lowland woods “has been … productive for both kids,” reports their grandfather, Earl

Foytack. (COAST HUNTING PHOTO CONTEST)

se, for any number of novice and/ or physically challenged hunters, incredibly controlled as the situations typically were. As for Julie and I, Marilyn’s farm provided hours upon hours of enjoyment, not to mention some of the finest tasting venison available. It was, I would venture to say, the ultimate suburban hunting location, and we’ve missed both the opportunities, as well as a wonderful landowner and good friend, since moving back to Washington in 2015.

SO WHY BEGIN a piece about hunting blacktails in the ’burbs with a tale about Iowa whitetails? Well, it’s actually quite simple. There are opportunities in Western Washington and Western Oregon to hunt blacktails in the same manner as we pursued whitetails in Iowa; that is, within earshot of afternoon school buses dropping off the kids at the end of the day. Within sight of rooftops, in-use outbuildings, swing sets and inflatable swimming poles. Toby, the yard-bound Labradoodle that insists on barking at the most inopportune times? Yep, he’s there, too. Sometimes.

Before you throw up your hands in disgust, screaming, “It’s not deer hunting when you can watch the neighbor’s television from the stand!” give me a chance here, OK?

I’ll be the first to admit that suburban deer hunting isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. If you’re looking for peace and quiet, this probably ain’t it. A wilderness experience? Umm, no. Remote camping, fly fishing for native cutthroat trout and listening to grouse go to roost in the evening? Again, I’m going to say not here.

It’s a different kind of critter, this suburban setting, and to repeat myself, it’s not for everyone. (To clarify, for the purposes of this article we’re using the Merriam-Webster definition of suburbs, “an outlying part of a city or town,” rather than encouraging you to hunt, say, the suburban Portland and Seattle communities of Tigard, Gresham,

Shoreline, Burien, etc.)

That said, some incredible blacktail bucks, if that’s your personal gig, spend their entire lives on these suburban fringes, and if you’re willing to do what it takes to get to them, you just might be in for the hunt of a lifetime.

I’LL GO OUT on a limb here and say the two most limiting factors to suburban hunting opportunities come in the form of 1) legal issues – can the ground legally be hunted? – and 2) obtaining landowner permission.

Not all suburban properties are open to hunting, even should the landowner be receptive to the idea. Often this prohibition relates to a local or county no-shooting ordinance. Maybe the property, though considered a part of the ’burbs, still lies wholly or in part within the municipal city limits. In Iowa, all hunting had to take place a minimum of 400 yards from any occupied or residential dwelling, unless permission from all of the residents was first obtained. Three of the four isn’t going to cut the mustard, so to speak.

The reasons why a parcel can’t be hunted, despite seeming suburban, are lengthy and varied; however, I’ve found my county assessor an invaluable source of information when it comes to researching a parcel in order to answer the can-I-or-

There are other options for blacktails in or near the ’burbs, including select county and community forests, while certain Willamette River Greenway properties are available for deer hunting. Best bet is to get a good map and do your research to figure out what’s

OK where. (TROY RODAKOWSKI, BELOW)

can’t-I question.

What I’ve done in the past is, via the assessor’s website, taken a parcel number to my local sheriff, and just asked him, plain and simple, is there any reason why, should I get permission, I can’t legally hunt deer on this property?

Here in Wahkiakum County, I also have the luxury of having a retired Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officer nearby, and I’m not shy about asking him the same question. Due diligence here is the key.

Besides shotguns, another short-range option for blacktails is a muzzleloader, which Holly Merclich used to take this blacktail in Washington’s Snoqualmie Valley during the general rifle season.

(COAST HUNTING PHOTO CONTEST)

NINE TIMES OUT of 10, the suburban properties we’ve gained access to came as a result of deer/landowner conflict. That is, the property owner is tired of the deer eating his or her flowers, and, after exhausting all nonlethal deterrents, comes to the conclusion that maybe there are a few too many browsers and a drop in numbers might be a good thing.

Take, for instance, a local couple upon whom I’ve hunted for two seasons now. Mister and Misses X own but 5 acres on the edge of town; however, it is literally crawling with blacktails, some of which are downright impressive, and, as I’m discovering, are not unaccustomed to hiding from hunting pressure.

But I digress. A couple years back, a friend of Couple X sent me a text that read, “So and so is having a deer problem, and wondered if you might have a solution?” Not knowing where Couple X lived, I called the lady of the house, told her of her friend’s text, and asked if I might come up and see what I could do to help. Friends, met with open arms is an understatement. I learned in short order that the couple did indeed have what I’ll call an overpopulation issue. I discovered, via the assessor, that the property lies entirely outside city limits, and, according to the local constabulary, carries no legal reasons, per se, prohibiting the discharge of firearms and/or hunting.

But I wasn’t done there. I asked Couple X a series of questions, such as, How are the neighbors going to react to gunfire, albeit rare? How do the neighbors feel about hunting? Is there any one individual I need to be aware of, i.e. an anti-hunter or, for lack of a better phrase, an essentially crabby person? And what about that 40-acre open pasture adjoining their property? If a deer doesn’t drop immediately and gets into the field, are there any problems with retrieving said animal?

And then I asked questions specific to them and their property: Are there any deer you don’t wish me to shoot? There was one, the wife said. A weeeeeee little spike that hung around. Its two antlers were the size of No. 2 pencils, with a body to match. Left him alone. Anything else? Stay away from this spot. Don’t go there. Treestands? Ladder stands? Ground blinds? Could I set a ground blind up and leave it in place for the duration?

To me, and in no other form or style of hunting, is the ability to practice exemplary public relations – hunter/ landowner relations – more important to overall success and, perhaps most significantly, to the continuation of a good working relationship or, in the case of my wife and I and Marilyn K., a friendship, than in the suburban hunting situation.

It’s a tall order, this finding a place to hunt in the ’burbs. Researching the legality and/or feasibility of hunting said parcel. Locating the landowner. Obtaining permission. Developing that relationship. It’s a lot, and I know I’ve only touched on it briefly – skimmed, actually – here. It is, and as much as I hate the phrase, a fluid and dynamic situation. It’s important to be flexible. To be able to accept the word no or, in frequently rare circumstances, a “Get the hell off my property!” kind of reaction to your “Might I hunt here?” query.

BUT LET’S ASSUME you’ve accomplished all this. You’ve located property. Done your due diligence. Obtained permission. Talked to the landowner and, best-case scenario, gotten introductions to the neighbors, one of whom has also asked you to hunt on their place. Schwing! Now what?

My local property is tight; by that,

I mean there are houses on three sides – north, west and south. A big pasture lies to the east, but it’s rimmed by houses, all occupied by residents. My ground blind, used when I take my grandkids as observers, and treestand can’t be more than 30 to 40 yards from my landowner’s garage and shop. Oh, yeah; I can hear and in some cases see everything that’s going on around the neighborhood.

My first and biggest imperative on this property was where to position a stand both to take advantage of deer movement and, more importantly, provide safe fields of fire. Information pertaining to deer movement was, fortunately, taken care of by the landowner. A semi-professional photographer, Mister X enjoyed deploying a series of trail cameras around the grounds, and could – and did! – provide me with details on this trail, this staging area, this small clearing, and what blacktails were using what when and where.

Helpful? Absolutely. True, I could have done it myself using the same technology, but hey, why look a gift horse in the lips, eh?

With this information, I knew where to set a stand, but what sort of stand? Because I’m not an archer – which, by the way, is often the ideal choice of weaponry in a suburban setting due, of course, to the silence – I had to think hard about stand positioning and fields of fire. Ultimately, I chose an Ol’Man Assassin 18-foot dual ladder stand (millennium-outdoors .com) for my vantage point. One, the height would allow increased visibility over Washington’s notoriously thick Westside. Two, the height would also provide a downward angle or trajectory to my shooting; that is, not quite vertical, but nothing horizontal and potentially dangerous to the surrounding homeowners. And three, the double seat lets me put Julie or one of the grandkids up there with me. Nothing like a little company in the deer woods, eh?

WITH THOSE SIGNIFICANT variables

addressed, let’s round out this blacktails in the ’burbs tutorial with a look at a handful of other considerations, such as:

Firearms: Suburbia typically means short-range shooting. At Marilyn’s in Iowa, 60 yards was about as far as we’d shoot. Here in Southwest Washington and on my initial suburban parcel, 40 yards is far; however, and while the distances might be short, I do want something that will drop a deer in an extremely short distance, if not in its tracks. Why? Well, the neighbors might be understanding, but having a nice four-point stagger into their yard and drop dead next to their petunias might be – well, that might not be cool. True, I could pack a 105mm howitzer into the stand and still have one run,

but I’ll be as prepared as I can be.

This all said, I shoot one of three firearms when I hunt the ’burbs. The first is a Marlin 336 in .30-30, a tackdriver topped with a 1.5-4x scope that sucks up every ounce of available light, a good thing given the increased deer activity we all see in those final 30 minutes. The second is a CVA Accura V2 muzzleloader in .50 caliber, this one carrying a 3-9x Konus scope and packing a 300-grain PowerBelt poly-tip overtop 100 grains of Hodgdon White Hot pelletized powder. And the third is a Mossberg M835 12-bore outfitted with a red dot sight and filled with Winchester Double X #00 buckshot. All three are incredibly accurate, reasonably shortrange firearms that, should I do my job, do theirs just fine.

Scents and cover scents: So here’s where you can get a bit lax. Because suburban blacktails hear and see humans every day all day long, the bugaboo that is scent and scent elimination, to my mind, doesn’t come into play. Much.

Oh, ’burb deer still know, if deer do indeed “know” things, human scent isn’t a good thing. However, if they ran from it continually, they’d be – well – continually running. This what it is, I don’t pay much attention to eliminating my human scent when hunting suburbia.

In fact, and a trick I read years ago, I’ll often leave my truck running when I arrive on location and step, albeit briefly, in front of the exhaust, leaving the fumes to wash over me and my clothing. Suburban deer smell vehicle exhaust every day of their lives; what’s one more whiff of petroleum fumes?

What I do believe in is the use of natural scents, specifically curiosity or sex-based deer attractants. Halloween, and I’m hanging Wildlife Research or Hunter’s Specialties scent wicks with doe-in-estrus formulas; maybe not blacktail specific, though H.S. and Wayne Carlton both offer blacktail specific lures, but just something to grab a passing buck’s nose.

Scrapes, rattling: I’ll make a mock scrape or two at the edge of the property. Rattling? I’ve done it, but am still waiting for success to come and visit. However, I’ve talked to plenty of diehard blacktail hunters who are firm believers in both rattling and calling.

NO, SIR. HUNTING suburbia isn’t for everyone. Truthfully? I do enjoy the quiet and serenity of an off-thebeaten-path backcountry jaunt. Just me and Mother Nature. However, when that stranger calls and tells me, “Say, Mister X told me you were helping him with a deer problem. Well, I have this big bear, you see, that’s tearing up my Asian pear tree, and, well, would you…?

I mean, who am I to say no? NS