I've heard it said that if you can hunt whitetail successfully then you should be able to handle any kind of hunting the world has to offer. In other words the white tail is as challenging as any game. I've only hunted what Alberta and Sask. has to offer so I thought I'd ask the rest of you guys what you think.

the chef

Are you talking about physical challenge or animal smartness? Becasue there are many people who shoot whitetails every year that wouldn't make it halfway up the mountain after sheep.

As far as animal smartness I guess it depends on how you hunt. I've been looking for a cougar without hounds for a year without even seeing any. Maybe this year I'll be able to track one down.

Brett

If you can truly hunt whitetail successfully in the woods rather than hunt on a bean field then your insticts will carry over to other game provided you are in good physical condition. Different terrain creates a different style of hunting to deal with which is just as important as hunter instinct.

Yes I'm referring to an animals "smartness" I climb mountains too and it's more challenging than sitting over a food plot.

the chef

I've killed a bunch of whitetails......and I have yet to consider anyone of them real smart.

Fair chase woodlands whitetail hunting and harvesting a trophy animal would certainly fit that bill. Being able to pattern a whitetail and hunt a specific animal, without aid of bait, or even food plots/agricultural fields (which are pretty close to bait IMO) makes harvesting a trophy class whitetail a real challenge.

I know that bowhunting them in these conditions is really a tough proposition, I've been pretty close, but never one that 'made the book--P&Y) and I've harvested a lot of whitetail with a bow.

I will say that I have been after a few species of sheep and goats in my younger days, and it was certainly more physically challenging, but none of these animal were more skittish or evasive than a woodlands whitetail. If those hunts had been with firearms I would have had 100% success every time with just moderate shooting ability.

My final thought would be that different game all present different challenges, and whitetail hunting, which I get to do more than any other type, besides maybe turkey, has helped me in my pursuit of many other species; and hunting some of the other species has helped me in my quest for whitetails as well!

Good Hunting--Don

From my experience I give the nod to Elk as being a greater challenge as far as "animal smarts". Nothing beats buggling in a 6x6, especially if he has cows, now that's a challenge.

I figure if you can sneak up close to a whitetail, you can sneak up on practically anything.

Other than that, I don't find them particularly challenging...at least no more so than any other big game species. They all have their challenges.

Cheers,
Canuck

At least in the Michigan firearms season, whitetails are not particularly hard to shoot. Yes, shoot, it's not really hunting when all they are doing is running from property to property trying to avoid lead.

I have shot two does so far, but don't consider them hunted. They know people are out and about to shoot them. With 750,000 hunters out during our firearms season it is not all that hard to bag something. Tonight the group I selected one out of stopped stark still after I shot one and stayed still for a good half hour. They knew moving could mean bad news. I did not want them to know where I was and had to wait them out.

I finally got rid of them after grunting loudly several times.

Now I have meat for the year but it's definitly not a feeling of a hunt like I get during archery season. Hunting whitetails here is much more difficult then.

People should differentiate--there's a BIG! difference between getting "a whitetail" (about as hard as falling off a stump) and getting one of the biggest, oldest, smartest bucks in the area.

In my neck of the woods, sitting over foodplots or agricultural fields, etc? Good luck! Sure you can kill does and young bucks with a big rock doing that...but as soon as the season starts (usually a little before) the big guys won't be caught dead eating anything during daylight hours. They become completely nockturnal. You need to go into the thick stuff and basically step on one or they simply don't exist.

Thank God for the rut! That's about the only time you can catch the smart ones making mistakes, doing things against their better judgement. Existing during legal hunting hours....

That's been my experience anyway.

There is a Huge difference in Whitetail Hunting across the US. So I'd have to say "It Depends." I can't speak from experience on most of the animals you are refering to besides several of the NA animals but, as far as whitetails go I'll tell you alittle of what I've seen.

In some areas the whitetails are like ghost especially when pressure is high and numbers are low. I've been places where it was practically a joke to get a deer. On the other hand, I've hunted places where it was a true chore and you had to be at the top of your game just to get a Doe or a Small Buck. I guess this sort of concept could apply to any animal provided the same pressures and number density.

I will say that they have awesome eyes, reflexes like a cat, a nose better than a good Blood Hound, and a pretty good set of ears as well.

Reloader

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Thank God for the rut! That's about the only time you can catch the smart ones making mistakes, doing things against their better judgement. Existing during legal hunting hours....

Preach On!!!!!

Reloader

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Originally posted by calgarychef1:
I've heard it said that if you can hunt whitetail successfully then you should be able to handle any kind of hunting the world has to offer. In other words the white tail is as challenging as any game. I've only hunted what Alberta and Sask. has to offer so I thought I'd ask the rest of you guys what you think.

the chef

I think that when that was first said back in the 1930's and 1940's, whitetail numbers were extremely low and just seeing a legal buck taken was a community event. So it was probably true then.

I've been hunting for over thirty years, mostly for whitetails, mostly with a slug-gun or rifle. I have also done a lot of bow hunting for whitetails and elk, rifle hunting for antlope and a trip to RSA for plainsgame. In my experience, shooting a mature whitetail, especially with a bow (and I too am talking about not using bait or food plots) is far more difficult than anything else I've done. In South Africa I got my shot at a very good kudu after waiting just short of an hour (my PH timed it) for it to walk out from behind a shrub. We were standing on the edge of a small clearing, exposed enough for it to see us, with my rifle up on the shooting sticks. No mature whitetail buck would have stuck around for more than three seconds under those conditions.

I find it takes much more effort and knowledge to successfully hunt a mature bull elk than to kill a mature whitetail buck.I know several people that kill whitetail bucks every year but despite having hunted elk for several years,they have not killed one.

Here's a thought:
How many bowhunters have put a big whitetail in the top 100 of of the Boone and Crocket, not P&Y, book.
Now, compared that number to how many bowhunter's have put a mule deer buck into the top 100 in the Boone & Crocket.

Regarding elk and whitetails, it depend's how and where each is hunted.

A guy from, say Maine, that can consistantly track down a big buck in the north woods for miles and kill him will adapt quickly to elk hunting and will prove a better elk hunter than 99.9% of the locals.

A guy that sits in a deer stand off an Iowa corn field, and by better than average tree stand placement (or dumb luck which factors heavily with this sort of hunting), shoots a big buck will have little success killing bull elk based on this type of hunting.

The still hunter must genuinely match wits with a cunning animal. To achieve success consistantly is not a matter of luck.

The stand hunter must use his knowledge of a whitetail's habits and limited home area to ambush the animal (and/or be lucky).

The elk hunter who can consistantly kill a mature bull elk on public ground is an honest to gosh hunter.

The elk hunter who can consistantly kill a mature bull elk off his back deck or in an ag field owns the right piece of property... huntin skill's got nuttin to do with it.

More paralell's could be drawn between other animal types... bottom line, all mature animals of a given species have their own special challenges. Terrain and hunting style have more to do with the challenge than the actual species. There are plenty places where a sheep hunt is a lot easier than an elk hunt and vice versa.

Change the word "Whitetail" to "Blacktail" and you have yourself a formidable quarry.



MM

Have hunted Whitetail for a number of years, and don't know about other game. Keep in mind I am a meat hunter, could care less about horns which means I usually kill younger deer. Elusive bucks are tough, older does, the toughest challenge of all. I can lure that buck in during the rut, the doe, a real challenge. I have watched one particular huge doe trail me to my stand, always keeping a tree between us. Got one shot over a 3 year period with a bow, and missed. The big buck of the area, several chances, just his luck and my killing a doe on doe day instead of waiting for him that I did not get him. I do not still hunt that well so I pattern and place my climber in the "right" tree.