I have been fortunate in that I have been able to hunt all over the USA for many species of deer, moose, bear etc and have realized like others on the forum that there is so much more out there to hunt. The question is, does deer hunting after hunting bigger critters still excite you and get you blood going like it once did? Most of my friends don't understand my feeling of wanting to hunt something different and bigger rather than go deer hunting all the time.

Doug

Sure! But I use a big bore revolver nowadays. If you change the way you hunt and attempt to close in further, the adrenaline rush hits when you do it the hard way.

Doug, Sure it is, but Africa is still topps.
Off the subject but are you guys going to be at the "Grand" in Vandalia? It is the largest of its kind, almost a mile of trap ranges. If you are we maybe we can hook up.

I still enjoy deer hunting after perhaps 60 plus years of hunting them....I like to hunt any big game animal...but my favorite is the Cape Buffalo and always will be...

Mike,

I will not be there but a few of my guys will be. Look for Jim Foster or David Vaughn, they are on the ATA/PVA team. I saw David last week in TN and he was getting ready for the shoot. Unfortunately I have other committments this year. I leave Wed. this week and realistically will not be home until the 13th of Sept, unless you count in for a night to do laundry to catch another flight.

Doug

The day that deer hunting no longer excites me is the day I quit hunting.

AD

Even after all these years, deer hunting still excites me as much as it did when i was a teenager. I rate the common old white tail as my 2nd favorite game animal, right behind cape buffalo.

Don't get me wrong I still love to go deer hunting, but there are still so many more flavors to taste out there.

Doug

My answer is a definate no. I still deer and elk hunt but it takes the big boys to get my blood boiling. It was once said that once you have hunted ele its hard to take other forms of sport seriously. Im sorry boys but even though i still do it it doesnt mean as much as it used too.

I started hunting on mule deer, and I still get excited going after them. I mostly don't shoot the bucks anymore, I am looking for that one wallhanger.

That is not to say I don't also get excited hunting other animals, because I do. I am on a Cape buff kick now, I don't think that will wear off soon.

jim dodd

I should hope not!! I got the bug 10 yrs ago while helping my hunting partner and his dad move their Buff Trophies to their shop and I've yet to go to the Big A.

While I look forward to the opening of deer season, going after Buff in the tall grass really gets my blood pumping.

To tell you how bad a case I've got. On vacation We stayed three days in the mountains. So in the evening for fun I like to "hunt" deer. It drives my wife crazy. I'll just cruise the back roads for three or four hours searching for deer.

Then the next evening I got a little smarter. To keep her from getting pissed off I told her we would make the 40 mile drive to the casinos, so I got to cruise 80 miles "hunting" for deer. We spotted two small herds of elk. My wife even got excited a little.

I hunt deer any time I'm driving through deer country.

I've wondered the same thing myself after my BC bear hunt and my plains game safari last month. I spent this past weekend at my deer lease here in Texas and saw some nice bucks......It excited me a little knowing there were some really good deer roaming around. It's hard to say but my guess is that I won't get as excited as I used to before I started hunting other, bigger and more exotic, critters.

I'll let you know around Nov/Dec!

[ 08-11-2003, 17:20: Message edited by: TXPO ]

I love to hunt, like most of you. I have come to the conclusion that as long as it is a chalanging chase, it does not matter if I am hunting Buffalo with the 450 or crickets with a bb gun.

It is the chase that I long for. As long as it is still challanging, I will enjoy hunting them.

[ 08-11-2003, 17:57: Message edited by: Wendell Reich ]

This might shed some light as to my mindset when it comes to hunting. Every summer we go to at our in law's cabin in the PA mountains, part of the fun is ground hog hunting. There was one particular hog that was so smart, he always managed to duck at the last second. Well I timed his daily sojourns into the clover and noticed than at a specific time in the middle of the afternoon, he would come out to a spot where he could be nailed. I donned my bug tamer suit, headed out early and set up an ambush. Three hours later, he poked his fat little body out .

I waited until he stood up and nailed him with a 35gr Hornady Varmint express pill out of my 22 Hornet. If a varmint does that to me, imagine what a deer does! jorge

The best thing about deer/elk hunting is its a tradition in my family...My kids, grandkids and all of us look forward to hunting deer and elk right here at home in Idaho...None of us drew on deer or elk this year so we will be hunting the open hunts...Very challanging in Idaho..

The important thing is the get together and the grandkids..I may not fire a shot but my grandson will I assure you..

Deer hunting is better than sex.Ya thats what I said.You can have sex 12 mounths a year. But deer hunting only comes around once a year.I take 2 of my 3 furlows just to go deer hunting and I put in around 50 days a season <bow and gun>.

I will say what everyone here knows, is true, and that is: Once you've been in the thick with a big old Mbogo, a deer ain't gonna get your heart beating like it once did! The fact is I have taken deer as big as anything I've ever seen in magazines, and only hung the head and horns on the fence, where I killed them. That fact alone makes the prospect of the "OLD MOSSY HORN" a little less of an inticement to climb the mountain.

Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy all hunting, but the draw, today, is the camp mates, and family getting together, for the cooking, and the campfire ribbing of one another. It's the watching the kids get excited about the prospects of something for the wall, that sets my heart afire, not the deer, per se, he does nothing for me at all.

Today I really only get excited hunting game that bites back. Even the plains game I take in Africa, are very much secondary, and do not really get me pumping! BuTTTTTTTTT give me a big Cape Buffalo in the high weeds,and tight jesse and my heart can be seen pumping through my shirt!Not even a world record deer could do that for me!