Premium California Deer Tag- Finally Drew One!!

[Shasta]

It's very difficult to get a "premium" deer tag here in California. You get three choices on your draw application, and any premium hunt is always filled by those hunters who have it as their #1 choice. Premium zones along California's eastern border are home to the much larger Mule Deer, as opposed to the usually small Blacktail Deer in the rest of the state, so competition for these tags is fierce. I haven't won a choice deer tag draw since 1988!

My brother-in-law and I traditionally put in for the late season muzzle loading rifle buck hunt at Devil's Garden in Modoc County, but with only ten tags available there is a 98% chance of not being drawn, and my luck ain't too good as it is! With a preference point system established ten years ago, we had maximum points and decided it was time to change tactics to take advantage of those points. Studying the results of last year's hunts, zone X5b right on the Nevada border had 2,627 first choice applicants for the 110 regular season tags, and 63% of those tag winners got a buck . If my math is correct, that's still only about a 5% chance of being drawn, but that's double the odds of what we had been doing, so we applied for X5b and darned if we didn't get it!

We've never hunted that area before, so a good deal of scouting will be in order. I suppose I ought to dig out my Browning A-Bolt .270 as shots in that open sage country can be long. It will be a good back-up for the gun I really want to hunt with, my 1895 Winchester .38-72 ... no wait, my 1894 Winchester .32-40 ... or maybe my Uberti 1876 .45-60 ...or how about the USRAC Winchester 1886 takedown .45-70? Decisions, decisions. Good thing I have a few months time to sort it out!

I haven't been this excited about deer hunting in a long time!


SHASTA

[Ji in Hawaii]

Congratulations, and best wishes to a successful hunt!

[AJMD429]

Wow, glad you got through the maze; it makes me appreciate owning a few acres in the hills of Indiana - way less paperwork!

Good luck on your hunt...!

[Dave B]

Congratulations on the draw and best of luck on your hunt!!!

Dave B

[pwl44m]

Good on Ya Shasta, I never hunted any of the X zones. Always just bought D3. My summer job didn't leave time for Scouting. Then when I moved to the hills I lost interest. My Nephew killed a nice Buck on My property with a BP. I think He had been eating My Chicken feed and Alfalfa. Sure was tasty.
Congratulations and best of Luck
Perry

[71fan]

Shasta,

Congrats. I too have been carrying max points for ten years, but have been applying for the Doyle muzzleloader hunt. This year I recieved notice of a nevada bull elk tag three days before the CA deadline so I opted for bonus points instead.

Over on Jesse's hunting and outdoor forum there are always some really nice X5b buck photos posted after the season. It seems to breed some of the best bucks in the state. If you do well over there I may have to change tactics too. Anyway, good luck you.

[El Chivo]

Nice going, and good luck on the actual hunt. I hear there's a 40% success rate there as opposed to the statewide 5-7%.

[RIHMFIRE]

Congratulations, and good luck...take pics!

[Griff]

Shasta, I'll tell ya the secret for getting drawn. Go into the drawing with a party of FOUR. If any one of the four get drawn, (even if it's the last tag drawn), all four of you get a tag for that zone. That's how my 3 friends and I got drawn for one of the X-9B tags for seven of 10 years from 1980 to 1990. And they still are getting drawn. The other, almost foolproof way, is to have one of the four be an out-of-state hunter... almost guaranteed to be drawn!

BTW, I noticed that this year they had 140 tags for X-5b.

[Pitchy]

Grats Shasta, lay the lead too them.

[Mike D.]

Congrats on a great draw, Tim. I hunted there often back before CA went stupid with this draw and zone idiocy. Used to be a preponderance of BIG 4X4s up there in the '60s and '70s. I'm just gonna do the G-1 thing again up on Mill Creek east of Los Molinos.

[stew71]

I've heard rumors that we have some deer out here in California on public lands. Good luck....

[Mike D.]

I've heard rumors that we have some deer out here in California on public lands. Good luck....

I don't know, Stew, but there sure used to be a few. We hunt private land, but the bucks all come down from Tehama public ground. The Modoc herds certainly have been reduced from what they were 50 years ago. When I first hunted up there with the Alturas gang we had choices of what bucks we wanted to take, but understand that at this time it's likely best to shoot what you see if it's a 3X3 or better.