blacktail vs mule deer scoring

[kidneystone]

For the purposes of record books, how does a judge officially say a particular deer is a true blacktail and not a mixture of the blacktail and larger rocky mountain subspecies? Since moving to WA, I have seen several bucks that were clearly mixes. Some have had large racks, but with a full black strip down the tail. It seems to me that a "mixed" buck could have the big rack genes but still have a blacktail.

 

[OregonArcher]

generically anything west of I-5 is considered a pure blacktail and is able to qualify for B&C or P&Y. However that does not mean all deer taken east of I-5 are mixed deer.

 

[Niels]

As far as where the line is drawn as far as the record books go, anything east of I-5 for scoring purposes is considered a hybrid and can't be entered into the record bucks, where Im originally from in Northern California we have only true blacktails, but from what I've heard all of the crossbreeds will have the blacktail, even though their antlers can be big enough that they look like they belong on a true muley.