Having read the recent disagreement regarding success odds given on a hunt for sale in another thread I was curious about sucess rate perceptions in areas other AR members hunt in or are familiar with.

It seems to me that in some cases, game densities are so high and/or hunting pressure is so low that success for a sportsman can be a virtual guarantee. For examples, I hunt public land here around Dillingham, and because I am willing to put in a little more effort in order to get away from other hunters I reasonably feel, (and have the history to prove it,) a guarantee of bringing home a bull moose. In another case, I used to have access to a ranch in the lower 48 that had relatively low hunting pressure on the property in question and the adjoining ones also so I felt confident in my ability to take a nice buck deer or guide a friend to a nice buck over the course of a weekend hunt. Lastly, for a few years I float hunted the Missouri River Breaks in central Montana, (public land,) for mule deer. in this case, deer numbers were good, hunting pressure nil, and were I still familiar with the area and if nothing had changed I would have felt honest and comfortable assuring anyone I was taking in there some kind of guarantee for the opportunity at a good buck.

I don't consider my experience to be unusual and anyone that knows me would tell you that describing me as anything more than ordinary would be generous. I just thought that a little extra effort, experience, a sense of curiosity and adventure could or does pay off in better than average hunting.

Point being, do you all think there is a circumstance where the opportunity at game becomes too good and therefore takes away from the experience? Never mind the fence issue if you don't mind, its a well beat to death subject.

quote:

Originally posted by Scott King:
Point being, do you all think there is a circumstance where the opportunity at game becomes too good and therefore takes away from the experience? Never mind the fence issue if you don't mind, its a well beat to death subject.

I cannot imagine a hunt for free range animals where you were so covered up in wild game that it would "take away" from the experience. Especially a hunt like the one advertised

quote:

Point being, do you all think there is a circumstance where the opportunity at game becomes too good and therefore takes away from the experience?

If it is a Guided hunt, and the guide is any good and knows the area he/she is hunting, than having a guarantee of seeing game or having shot opportunities is not a bad thing.

To me it is when Guaranteed Kills of "X" sized animals is thrown in to the mix.

The concept of what is or is not a hunt, is an individual concept, not everyone looks at things the same way I do or you do.

For me a hunt means going out and killing whatever I am hunting, does not matter the size, for that reason, I have a lot of successful hunts.

For someone interested in real trophies, they might go on 2 or 3 or more hunts, and see several animals, yet none of them meet the hunters expectations.

I personnally don't know of anyone that is not happy seeing lots of game, even though they may not see what they want to shoot, but have met a lot of folks who don't really like looking at real estate for a week and not seeing a dadgum thing.

Since hunting is what you make of it, I can't say that "too many animals" would ruin a hunt for me.

That being said, one point could be if you are trophy hunting, and the area is overpopulated and over its carrying capacity, you will likely not see the full potential "trophy" game that one would expect from the area hunted. But I think that is an entirely different issue than what you are talking about.

Being able to scope several nice sized bucks trying to pick out the biggest has never hurt my feelings.
But then, every hunt is different. Some are pretty easy; some you have to really scramble. And you have to let the animals win every once in a while or they'll stop playing.
It's the memorys that count. This is why I may have a 2X2 nailed on the barn and think more of it than the 6X6 next to it. To me, a hunting trip is a lot more than just killing something.

quote:

Originally posted by wasbeeman:
Being able to scope several nice sized bucks trying to pick out the biggest has never hurt my feelings.
But then, every hunt is different. Some are pretty easy; some you have to really scramble. And you have to let the animals win every once in a while or they'll stop playing.
It's the memorys that count. This is why I may have a 2X2 nailed on the barn and think more of it than the 6X6 next to it. To me, a hunting trip is a lot more than just killing something.

I agree, a hunting trip is more than just killing.

I found it interesting or maybe odd on the other contentious thread that the one poster seemed to find the lack of mandate to suffer a deal killer for him/ her/ it. Suffering or straining or extreeme exertion seemed to be the posters reason for living. At least on an internet forum.

Whether duck hunting or dall sheep hunting, it seems to me the leg work before the actual chambering of a cartridge in the firearm is a significant part of the hunt. Some of the "strain and suffering" perhaps. A carefully researched minutely planned elk hunt that culminates in a liesurely stroll over hill and dale to put oneself in rifle range of a good bull is certainly different than a start at the bottom, pack to the peak dall sheep hunt but I'm not sure less valuable. A hunt that sticks out in particular in my mind was a duck hunt on public land I'd spent months planning. It was opening weekend and my partner, my young male labrador and I had spent hours driving there. My partner and I agreed we'd pick out shots and only take one bird at a time since it was my labs firt hunt and we'd use this trip as a training exercise. 14 ducks and a few hours after opening light the three of us were done hunting for the day and it'd been a great adventure for all. The actual hunt couldn't have been easier, (leisurely paddle in the canoe, swarms of puddle ducks beehiv-ing around our decoys,)but nearly 20 years later it still stands out to me as a singularly happy moment. The research, scouting and worrying had paid off in a great first experience for my retriever and a memory I'll carry to the grave. The easiest of hunts imagineable, but none more valuable to me.

Scott,

A couple thoughts, that may or may not relate to your exact point, but it’s a slow Sunday afternoon. So here goes.

I do believe that hunting means different things to different folk. I also think that the geography and state in which you live and hunt makes a big difference also.

In Texas we don’t have things like Grizz that can eat you. We typically don’t have to worry about freezing to death. Don’t have to worry about hunting for days on end and not seeing animals (for the most part). Do have to worry about breaking a leg and not being able to get back to camp before the hogs eat ya'. Or a half dozen wet back sneaking up and overpowering you while your cooking dinner of an evening. Or twisting your ankle on a rock, or bit by rattlesnakes or gila monster, bit by tarantulas, stung by scorpion or killer bees, or hornets, or being trampled by the rancher's prize bull, or having heat stroke, and a few other minor things like that. Folks ask, as I go by myself quite often. Aren't you afraid. I say no, I, I take precautions, am careful. I'm not going to quit enjoying myself in order to be safe. I've pollinated all the flowers I going to, raised my kids and hope to die in the deerstand rather than at home or in the hospital. I've told my buds, just roll me out of the stand and let the hogs recycle me. Lord knows it would be fair, considerin' how many of them I've killed over the years.

I'm sixty, I've hunted most all my life. My dad nor none of my four brothers hunt.
When I was 6 I was out in the field with my dog chasin’ rabbits. At 10 I would take and make myself a PB&J, grab a fishin’ pole and a 22 rifle and slip out the door before daybreak, stay gone in the woods till near dark.

There’s not much I enjoy more than having a lite pack, some water, a book, binocs and a rifle, climbing to the top of a hill, breaking a sweat doing so and sitting, feeling the breeze in my face hearing the sounds of the day come to life and watching the sun rise.



The desire to hunt is so strong that I have ordered my life around hunting season.
Although I live in the city, I spend a good amount of time "in the woods”. For the last twelve years or so I'd say 45 days between January and October, then another 40 days between October and January. All my family and tenants know that in November and December, I’m hunting.

Now, in Texas there is public land, but it is much easier to have a lease and pay an annual tresspass fee. Over the last twelve years, hunting in the Texas hill country on low fenced ranches of 3,000 to 50,000 acres I've been able to take white-tail, axis, sika & fallow deer. Sheep, goats, pigs, javelina, varmints, turkey, dove, quail. No high fences, no trophy fees, no guides, all DIY.
Here are a few in my grandson’s nursery……









Hogs are plentiful, some years I shoot 40 or more and snare and trap others.
Consequently the pressure to kill stuff is not as strong as it once was.
I typically go once a month to my “deer lease”. One I've hunted for the last six years is about 20 miles north of the nearest town, six miles off the nearest paved road. No power, no water, no cell phone service. I have an old self contained camper that came off the back of a pickup. That’s where I sleep. I typically will stay three of four days. Don’t leave until I start back to town.

During spring turkey season I call turkey with box and mouth calls.

I have an electronic caller for calling in fox and coyote and crow. I call them year round and generally call them to within 30 to 50 yds. Sometimes I will set up on a cliff or high point where I can see for a mile or and glass and ambush them from a ways off. Snipe crows and ravens this way.





I bait and trap and snare hogs. I shoot a lot with single shot rifles. Usually at distances of 100 to 200 yds. Due to the thickness of the juniper and brush, if I shoot a hog and he isn’t DRT, it is very hard to find a blood trail unless he’s leaking profusely. Consequently I try to put a bullet right where it will sever his spinal cord and he drops and paddles. After killing several hundred hogs, it ain’t the rush it was on the first couple dozen but it still appeals to me, and makes my heart beat faster. I like every thing about it. Especially the meat.

September starts dove season. Bacon wrapped, jalepeno stuffed dove breasts cooked over mesquite coals. Yum.

October starts bow season.
November through January is rifle season.

For a number of years I’ve had two leases. That means I can take 10 white tail deer, all the exotics and hogs I care to shoot, and four turkey. As the state allows me only 5 whitetail tags, I’m able to take friends and family, and I do. Here is my oldest. A good morning.



Some places in the Texas hill country are so overrun with deer its amazing. One ranch I hunted on the ranch owner was like Dr. Dolittle. We’d go out of an evening in his old blue ford pickup. He’d have a 5 gallon bucket between us in the front seat. We’d go along a road and he’d stop take a coffee can and dip it in the bucket of corn, bang it on the side of the truck and call his pets. Deer, hogs , antelope axis would come running. It was amazing his menagerie. Course no one shot within a couple miles of his homestead.

I’m on a bow only lease this year near Garner State Park. This is right next to the Frio river. Due to its proximity to water, game is super abundant. It is a 750 acre working ranch that is high fenced along the road in front, but is low fenced on the other sides and surrounded by a 4,500 acre low fenced ranch. The dry Frio River runs through it. You drive around on four wheeler and its nothing to see 30 to 40 whitetail doe and three or four groups of up to 20 turkey hens in an outing. One of the highlights of each trip is to go get the disks out of the game cam’s we set up and look at all the different animals that are photographed.

I take my does early for meat. I am more of a meat hunter than trophy hunter. I’ve never scored a deer yet that I’ve shot. Depending on the circumstances we may take culls and spikes. We typically let young bucks walk. Older deer that are estimated to be 5yrs plus are fair game. The circumstances and time of the season make an impact on whether I hold my trigger. I do most of my buck killing the last two weeks of December, unless I’ve seen something extremely good earlier. This last fall I probably hunted 20 days before I pulled the trigger on a whitetail. Now hogs is different. I shoot them every chance I get. I think I killed 10 hogs last fall before I killed the first deer.

Now having said all that I’ve elk hunted public land in Colorado once and in Montana once. The Colorado trip was a DIY trip that was probably the only horrible experience I’ve ever had hunting. It was the folks I didn’t know before I went that made it a bad trip. Needless to say, no elk.

The Montana trip was purchased at a RMEF banquet. I’d had a couple many too many toddies and had some extra cash. So I bought a outfitter guided elk hunt with an outfitter out of Jardine Montana. Lets see, $4000 for the hunt, $1,600 for the tags. $500 for airfare, $400 to rent a vehicle. $500 in tip for guides,$300 for food, $200 for lodging coming and going.. I can hunt monthly for a year in Texas and not spend that much.

Course in Texas I can’t be sittin’ on top of Dekker Prarie and looking over into Yellowstone at elk and bighorn sheep grazing.



I can’t be riding up the side of a mountain in the snow and look over and see a Grizz feeding on a mule deer carcass.




I can’t see a hundred elk cows topping a ridge in the pink and purple of the early morning dawn.



In Montana, I had a great young man for a guide. I told him at the outset I was there for the experience. I’d tip him more if we got a mule deer and an elk, but he would still get a tip and the better the trip was the more he would get. He took me at my word.
I got to traipse down the side of a mountain in broken timber in over a foot of snow flushing mule deer out of the thicket. I got to ride up mountains and lead a well trained horse down inclines so steep that if he’d have lost his footing, I’d been crushed. Got close to grizz, and magpies feeding on gut piles.
Although I hunted hard, and a Bull elk was just not to be had. The fifth day I was there, it was 71 degrees in Bozeman Montana. It was hotter that day in Bozeman than it was in Miami Florida.
Last mornin’ I spooked the horses when I came out of my cabin over looking the coral wearing nothing but my “Tighty whities”. The outfitter asked” what the hell”. I told him to heck with hunting, I’m gonna get a sun tan.
Consequently due to balmy weather, no elk migration out of Yellowstone. I spent the last three days cooking for the outfit and hunters. Made some good friends They liked my Texas cooking so much that I got invited back to cook at their Hellroarin’ river camp the next year.
Didn’t kill but a mule deer and that for camp meat. But I had the best time that I can remember since my wedding and seeing my children being born. I’d go back in the blink of an eye and hopefully will soon.

A chance to kill is great.
Paramount is the opportunity to see new country, have new experiences, make new friends.
Guarantees………. don’t need them, don’t want them.

Best
GWB

Excellent post!

Geedubya, You have said it all. Excellent post. Thanks for posting

Geedubya

Its been many years sinece I was in the Hellroarin, thanks for taking me back

SSR

Scott, I don't think seeing too much game diminishes the experience, but you have to have the right mentality for it. The land I hunt in northern Kansas and Nebraska has an over abundance of deer. To the point that they are pests. The landowner is an old guy that doesn't trust people that much, so I get the whole place to myself. It is nothing to see 20-30 deer cross the creek at 9:00 every morning.

I used to trophy hunt, but with 12 and 13 point bucks on the wall, I gave it up, or grew up, I don't know which. What is did by seeing that much game was to make me change the way I hunted in order to stay interested. I switched to the 30-30 from the 264WM. I bought muzzleloaders. I started pistol hunting with 41 magnums. I made it more of a challenge and it has worked. If you have the right attitude, it's all good.

Geedubya, as Ferris Beuhler would say....you're my hero.

good read, geedubya. good read...

An evocative read Geedubya, more poignant to me than perhaps you might expect.

My father also doesn't hunt but my uncle in Texas did and I also "caught the bug" wandering around the Texan scrub with a .22 and an imagination. That was fifteen years ago and I never forgot it. It's why I hunt now.

Thank you for posting.

Best,

A

Hunting is what you make of it. during the migration shooting a bull caribou is pretty much a sure thing "BUT" if he chose to do so a hunter could make it much more of a hunt by looking for just double shovels or bulls with back tines, etc.