I would like to get some feedback from some of you that regularly hunt out of your home state on what level of accommodation you require.

The reason for this is that I have never hunted out of my home state but will. I am most interested in elk and northern whitetail.

In researching, I find options from public land all the way to canned hunts. I believe my ideal hunt would be something close to a place to stay, some insight from a knowledgeable person, and good land to hunt. Be on my own as much as possible other than that.

So how do you like to do it?

Steve

It depends on your foul weather camping experience.

If you do not have much you migh want to go on a couple of outfitter/guided trips.

Or go with some buddies who have a LOT of camping experience.

I can recommend www.gowildelkcityadventures.com

I have black bear hunted with them 5 times. They [husband and wife] are good people.
They do elk hunts too, fully guided, and drop camp, where they take you in on horse back.

Joannie is a very very good camp cook.
I would go up there for 2 weeks just to eat her cooking.

Steve,

I'd really check out the states that you go to, to do your hunting...

Once the west was automatically known to be a target rich environment for hunters...

Colorado is good for hunting elk still... but a lot of the rest of the west has had hunting destroyed.... blame laws against cougar hunting, which are decimating deer herds.. along with elk numbers...wolves have been let loose which are killing vast numbers of game..
environmentalists and rich liberals in the get back to nature kick come out and buy up huge hunks of land and invest heavily in " no hunting and no trespassing' signs...

When I moved to Oregon in 1995 this state was a hunting paradise... now it is a hunting waste land...

I am originally out of Monroe Co WVa... and I have actually considered next year, going back there to hunt deer....if not go back to Minnesota where I lived for 15 years...

The game populations back east are booming and out west are dying...

It is a lot of money to make a long trip to find out there is hardly anything to hunt....

Do your research both carefully and thoroughly...

cheers
seafire

quote:

what level of accommodation you require.

My out of state hunting camps resemble an illegal moonshine operation of the 1920's for the most part. Ragged old tent with a homemade woodstove, guns and dead things hanging upside down. With me sitting in a chair in my long underwear, unshaven and eating a bowl of spaghetti with my fingers.

Decidedly low tech and functional.

Really not much different at home come to think of it.

Skinner, not sure if you are serious but that is an accurate description of many of my past hunting camps. In fact, I just returned from one remarkabely simular!

I just returned from Montana, I opted to go with an outfitter because I felt it would make better use of my time off. We stayed in a wing of their house, ate meat and potatoes, watched T.V together. For me it was like being at a good friends house, just out of town with lots of deer.

Seafire,

Here in Arizona cougar/mountain lion and coyote are still fair game year round which helps... Hunting here is pretty good but you also have to draw for tags so that can be a downer... All in all the "four corners" states are still viable hunting states...

They did release "back into the wild" the Mexican red wolf in a small area of Western New Mexico and Eastern Arizona... So far they haven't been an issue but I bet it's not long before they are ... Hopefully they're are enough realists left in these two states to take care of the issue if it becomes one. Wolf hunt anyone???

Ken....

I'm from Tennessee and I also hunt in Alabama and Georga. Matter of fact I just got back from Georga yesterday. Had a great hunt on a working peanut/cotton farm just outside the town of Ft.Gaines. The name of the place is Booger Bottom. Accomidations are 5 star, the food is excellent and the folks who own and run the operation are just super nice people who make you feel at home from the minute you walk in the door. Saw lots of deer and pulled the trigger on this bad boy the second morning.

So many hunters have gone west and north for so long that the southeastern states now have booming dear herds with huge limits on number of deer you can take and LOTS of trophy deer.

You don't need a guide either. Just pay a thousand a year for a good lease and drag in a travel trailer for your own hunt cabin. You can hunt all you want and most leases have a bunch of permanent stands that are quite comfortable.

But all y'all keep a'headin' out west. That's where all the really cool stuff is...

$bob$

quote:

But all y'all keep a'headin' out west.

No, some of us need to travel East to get to "The West"

And I've found that the non trophy 'combination hunts' are the most fun, antelope, cow elk or non trophy mule deer with bird hunting thrown in.

Better yet is an upland bird safari with a cow elk or antelope to end it.

Way less expensive too.