how much are coues like easterns?

[EagleEye]

firtst year hunting coues going in unit 23 see lots of sign put stand on a rub line and few scrapes but did not see any bucks this weekend

 

do coues respond to grunts, rattles, scents ect

is treestand hunting efficient

[mikep35]

If you're hunting in the type of terrain that is difficult to glass , ponderosa pine, forest, etc., then looking for sign, scrapes and rubs will be a good bet. My suggestion would be a trail camera. If you can glass the area, then buy a good pair of binos, and glass, glass, glass. And when you get tired of glassing, glass some more. Mask your scent the best you can. These little deer are as wary as any animal you will hunt. There's a reason why most people on this site are obsessed with these creatures( myself included)

[bobbyo]

Charlie,

The coues will react nearly the same as their Eastern cousin. The reason most people don't use the Eastern deer methods out here is that the deer density is much lower when compared to the eastern states, so waiting a scrape trail or rattling ect would work in my opinion, but due to the realitively low deer density you may wait many hours and many days without seeing anything. This is why many people use the methods Mike talked about. That being said I know an Old midwest farm boy that arrows a trophy buck every year. He uses trails to water sources. Note he doesn't set up directly on water, but uses his Eastern whitetail knowledge to place a stand 200 yards down wind from a water hole on trails. Of coarse i have tried this myself with absolutely no success. Like Mike, I glass.

Bob

[CouesWhitetail]

I will second what everyone has said so far. Coues certainly do respond to grunts and rattles; we called in a couple bucks in Mexico last year during the peak of the rut. They came in within 5-10 yards of us. Pretty neat. But like Bobbyo said, the density of deer can be very low and so you may only want to use calling when you actually know the bucks are there (i.e., you have just seen them walking away from you or you hear them fighting below you or something like that). Sitting trails and water is effective also. Lots of coues are killed from treestands. Many people put their treestands up over salt they have put out to attract the deer.

 

Amanda

[TAM]

As Amanda mentioned salt can work to bring them in, but it's probably to late to use it this year. It can take weeks and months to get deer hitting salt on a regular basis. From my experience salt gets better with time and should be established early in the year if you plan on hunting it in the fall.

[billrquimby]

Hey guys, the Coues deer is just one of about 40 subspecies of “Virginia” deer found in North and South America.

 

I am being picky, but there is no “eastern” white-tailed deer so I'm assuming you've lumped a bunch of subspecies found east of Coues deer range. But what do you do call the whitetails north, south, and especially west of us?

 

Bill Quimby

[bobbyo]

Bill,

Although not scientifically correct. I think myself and most people on this site would define Eastern Whitetail as the deer that reside east of the Rockies. I know there are( non-coues) whitetail west of the rockies, but hunters and record books lump whitetails into two basic catagorys. The Big Ones (Whitetails or Eastern Whitetails) and The Little Ones (coues). Where is there whitetails west of us?

Bob

[billrquimby]

Bill,

Although not scientifically correct. I think myself and most people on this site would define Eastern Whitetail as the deer that reside east of the Rockies. I know there are( non-coues) whitetail west of the rockies, but hunters and record books lump whitetails into two basic catagorys. The Big Ones (Whitetails or Eastern Whitetails) and The Little Ones (coues). Where is there whitetails west of us?

Bob

 

Northern California, Washington and Oregon are farther west than we are and have two different subspecies of whitetails.

 

I know most people on this site use "eastern whitetails" for all deer that reside east of the Rockies. I was hoping to educate them.

 

The white-tailed deer is a magnificent animal and there are many more than just two types, no matter what the Boone & Crockett and the AWF record books might say. Neither is the final answer on taxonomy. For many years B&C listed the Coues whitetail as a separate species!

 

The Texas and Carmen Mountain whitetails I shot in Texas were no more like those I shot in Wyoming and Michigan than all the Coues deer I have shot in Arizona. Each subspecies is unique and lumping all except our local deer as "eastern" not only does them a disservice, it is wrong. It also does not include the subspecies of whitetails in the western United States and Canada.

 

Although its system also has its faults, I like the SCI idea of multiple categories for white-tailed deer based on regions. B&C, although it claims to be a record book for North American big game hunting, totally ignores the various (smaller) whitetail subspecies in the southern USA and Florida, as well as all those in Mexico and central America.

 

Bill Quimby

[billrquimby]

I'm not trying to put anyone down or be a smart butt. It's just that I believe members of this site should be more knowledgeable about white-tailed deer than other hunters.

 

For that reason, I'd like to add that (in addition to California, Washington and Oregon) portions of Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and Alberta also are west of us (I checked my atlas). They have some huge whitetails up there that are left out in your definition.

 

There also are several whitetail subspecies living southeast of the Rockies that are as small or smaller than Coues deer. Should we call them "easterns," too?

 

Separating the subspecies into "Big Ones" and "Little Ones" when talking about North American whitetails would require you to lump all the small races of whitetails in the USA, Mexico and Central America with the Coues subspecies.

 

White-tailed deer are the among the greatest animals I've been privileged to hunt. They come in too many varieties to be lumped into just two categories.

 

Bill Quimby

[azpackhorse]

I know there are a subspecies in South Texas (Carmen) and one in Florida (Key), are there anymore "small ones"?

 

Also, what is your opinion on there possibly being a "smaller than Coues" subspecies in Old Mexico and perhaps parts of Arizona known as Fantails?

 

I have heard "old timers" talk about Coues in the Tortolitas, seems possible, not that far from the Santa Catalinas.

[billrquimby]

I know there are a subspecies in South Texas (Carmen) and one in Florida (Key), are there anymore "small ones"? Also, what is your opinion on there possibly being a "smaller than Coues" subspecies in Old Mexico and perhaps parts of Arizona known as Fantails? I have heard "old timers" talk about Coues in the Tortolitas, seems possible, not that far from the Santa Catalinas.

 

AZpackhorse:

 

Here are the North American whitetails that are about the size of Coues deer ... or smaller.

 

IN THE USA

Florida Key deer

Blackbeard Island whitetail

Hilton Head whitetail

Hunting Island whitetail .

Bull’s Island whitetail

Avery Island whitetail

Carmen Mountain whitetail

 

IN MEXICO

Mexican highland

Veracruz whitetail

Rain forest or Toltec whitetail

Oaxaca whitetail

Sinaloa whitetail

Lowland Mexican or Thomas’ whitetail

Acapulco whitetail

 

The so-called "fantail" has been discussed in depth on this forum. Every year Arizona hunters kill one or two mature white-tailed deer that are half the size of the average Coues deer. (I shot one in the Sierritas many years ago.) These are small Coues deer and not a separate subspecies. Separate subspecies cannot co-exist. Interbreeding would eliminate the less-dominate subspecies.

 

I'm an old-timer, too, but I have never heard of whitetails in the Tortolitas. They could have been there, though. I saw a whitetail doe in the Black Hills near Oracle Junction, where they weren't supposed to be. There used to be whitetails in the Sand Tank Mountains near Gila Bend, and a coatimundi showed up in Greer last year. Anything is possible.

 

Bill Quimby

[billrquimby]

I left out the whitetails of Central America. They are:

 

Chiapas or Nelson’s whitetail

Nicaragua whitetail

Panama or Chiriqui whitetailh

Coiba Island or Rothchild’s whitetail

 

These are among the smallest of all whitetails.

 

I find it interesting what happens near the Equator. Estrus can occur in individual whitetail females at any time. You can see hard antlers and pregnant does every month of the year.

 

Bill Quimby

[daryl_s]

While I was in Argentina I visited a small "zoo" that had some very small deer. I don't know what kind they were but they were full grown adults and they were smaller than coues. I will try and see if I can find any of the pictures that I took of them. I thought it was weird that they also had javelina there.

[billrquimby]

While I was in Argentina I visited a small "zoo" that had some very small deer. I don't know what kind they were but they were full grown adults and they were smaller than coues. I will try and see if I can find any of the pictures that I took of them. I thought it was weird that they also had javelina there.

 

I suspect you saw one of Argentina's three species of brocket deer--red, grey-brown or lesser. Argentina also has huemel, pampas and marsh deer, but the southern range of South American white-tailed deer ends north of there. Pudu, the smallest of American deer are found high in the Andes, but it's more likely you saw brockets because they are fairly common in South America. (They're also found in Mexico and Central America.) Brockets are nifty little deer with slick coats. The weight mature males ranges from 20 to 120 pounds, depending upon the species. They typically carry only spike antlers.

 

Argentina has three species of peccaries, the collared peccary (we call them javelinas), the larger white-lipped peccary, and the Chacoan peccary, the largest of the three. Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are the northern limit of collared peccary habitat. They range almost continuously all the way south to Argentina.

 

You're fortunate that you were able to see indigenous species at the zoo you visited. I spent a morning at the big zoo in downtown Buenos Aires and was disappointed to see how few South American animals they had on display. I especially wanted to the see South American deer and all I saw were axis from Asia and fallow deer from Europe.

 

Bill Quimby

[bobbyo]

Bill,

I meant no disrespect to all the unappreciated subspecies of Whitetail deer. Heck I would like to whack one of each. Do you hunt the Hilton Head subspecies with a 4-iron? . Going back to the original question. I think Charlie's intent was to get info on how The big Whitetail hunting compared with the little coues. I don't think he would get much of a response if he was more exact in his language and posed a question like, "Does the Virginianus couesi act like the Virginianus virginianus?"

Bob