I was thinking about posting this under "Road Hunters and Trespassers" but I would surely get lynched and abused there.

For those who asked how my trip went in Sask., it went great! I got the Toyota 4X4, that I gave/sold my buddies son, in one piece.(I towed it behind my truck on the 3,400KM. trip). This year we did things a LITTLE DIFFERENTLY. We decided to hunt deer a little closer to home. This way we were able to come home at the end of every day of hunting to a hot meal,prepared by my hunting buddies wife. She is a phenomenal cook. The meals were a highlight of the trip. We would get up at 6 AM and Melody(buddies wife)would already have breakfast and thermoses of hot coffee ready to go. We would be out the door at 6:30 AM. An hour later we would arrive at the hunting area just about legal shooting time. Then we would drive the some of the bazilion miles of roads that criss cross Sask. looking to catch a big buck chasing a doe. If that did not pan out we took to driving around small bluffs and slough bottoms to chase up some jumpers. The driving would often make me sleepy and I would often fall asleep only to be awaken by my hunting partner hitting the brakes(which is usually a signal that he has jumped up a deer.) or from a punch in the arm cause it pisses the guys off cause I am not keeping a lookout for deer. Anyway, on one of these effective hunting techniques, I connected on a nice 10 pointer. At the end of the day we would hang up the deer we gunned down and go in for one of those hot meals. A big glass of whisky would be waiting for me at the table. (A highlight of the trip) Then we would hit the hot tub to soak our aching bones.(We did actually do some drives and fill the truck up with gas etc.)Drink more whisky, hit the sack to start a new day.
My partner pulled off a nice shot. We were driving around an abandoned farm yard and 3 does ran out. By the time we stopped and jumped out of the truck the deer were over a hill and out of sight. We walked up the hill to see where the deer were going to go. They were a long way off and heading for some unseen slough bottom. We could see for many miles and not a single tree to hide behind. The deer slowed from their run to a slow walk. I turned to my partner and said," f@ck it, shoot anyway." And so he did. Amazingly he connected on the first shot and the doe went down. I was not about to walk it, so we hit the odometer button and when we got to the deer it was .6 of a KM. It would be safe to say that it was a good 500 meters. It was not the first time that I have seen him pull this off. After that we went to playing practical jokes and goofing off, etc. Then sadly, it was time to leave for the very long drive home. It will be at least a year or two before I will be able to see or hunt with the boys. Next time, I doubt very much that we will road hunt. But, we sure had a swell time this year.

Daryl

Daryl, is that ten points eastern or western? Sounds like deer hunting here, except for the breakfasts waiting for you. Nothing wrong with being home every night in a real bed and home cooking. Glad to hear you had a good time

It takes a great amount of skill to hunt from a truck. 'Nuff said.

thats the problem with hunting everybody knocks everyones preferred style of hunting and the anti-hunters love it, hey if its legal, so what if the guy doesn't want to hike into the woods or take a stand, whats the diffrence in that or baiting, nothing guarantees a bullwinkle will run out in front your truck, the same with bear or deer coming to a corn pile!!!

Bearguide
Daryl doesn't need me to defend him, but I met him last spring in Whitehorse, so I feel obligated to say this- you don't have any idea about what you're talking about.

Glad you had fun Daryl. Sounds like a good time, a couple of old friends having fun and not taking themselves too seriously!

Fats- It is illegal.

Gatehouse- It wasn't meant as a personal attack, just on the particular hunting practice. Road hunters are not liked ANYWHERE, from what I can gather. Most road hunters don't know if they're hunting private or public land and 99% of shots are at running game, resulting in wounded animals.

daryl- I've pulled some shit in my younger days as well, but posting about chasing deer with trucks and drinking whiskey on a public forum will lead to disaster.

The vastness of any of the prairie provinces--parts of others, as well--prohibits any other method. Sitting in a stand waiting for game could result in sitting in a stand waiting for game. Time constraints dictate covering the most ground in the most efficient way.

[This message has been edited by Daryl Elder (edited 12-17-2001).]

in north carolina the state i live in, certain counties haves laws about shooting rifles from the road, at least 8ft off the ground or not i take advantage of whats there being i am on my land or my lease

Fats, yes we have similar laws here as well. We cannot discharge a firearm within 1/4mi of the center line of a highway and must have permission from the owner of private property to hunt there--whether it's posted or not. I don't believe Daryl D meant they were doing anything illegal during their trip. It seems the biggest offenders here are elected officials etc that shoot game from vehicles--it's prohibited to have a loaded firearm in/on a motor vehicle--and on private property without permission.FWIW

I hunted in Alberta this year and was somewhat suprised to hear the local call the dirt/clay roads highways or high grade roads. In most of my travels in the U.S. I have very seldom come across such high quality "dirt" roads.

Many of the roads we drove on were roads built with private funds, pulp mills and gas company roads. There were many hundreds of miles of these roads and no apparent restriction on shooting from these "private" roads as I saw many instances of folks doing so. The adjacent land was Crown and therefore public hunting.

Perhaps these are the type roads and lands being discussed in the initial thread.

There was the standard but not universal law about no loaded firearms in the vehicles.

[This message has been edited by Dave King (edited 12-17-2001).]

If Alberta is similar to B.C., there are primary roads and secondary roads. The distances one must be from the road to discharge the firearm is different for the two. Yeah, I know it's hard for you guys from other areas to appreciate what we call highways and such. In the town I live in, we have dirt streets and avenues within the city limits--and people pay city taxes for the privilege of living on one! The only upside to having dirt/gravel roads is that they may be graded. If you pave it and it heaves from frost, there is no repair short of repaving and that will not happen. It was only 2 years ago that the Alaska Highway was finally paved in total( I could be wrong as some spots get dug up and left in gravel). But it beats corduroy!

Here in Alberta we have primary and secondary roads. Below these (in quality of road, anyway) are gas field roads, lease roads, cut line roads, and logging roads. Oh yes, and Cat tracks. Everything except primary & secondary are private, that is not owned by the government, but usually owned by large corporations. Access is usually allowed, except close to the gas/sulpher/pulp etc. plants themselves. As to what's legal and what's allowed, well it depends where you are. In farm land, truck hunting (from the truck, not AT the truck) is very common, and although a lot of the the locals berate the practice, in 30 years I've yet to meet a local hunter who hasn't done it. Is it legal? If your rifle is unloaded (completely, not just an empty chamber), and if you're not within 200 yards of a dwelling, and if you can get 50 yards from the road (ok, meters, damn metrification) then yes. Good luck with that. If you're hunting on private farm land with permission, do what you want and you can live with. I'm reminded of an acquaintence who bagged the torque converter from his brother's F-250 when he leaped out of the truck in a hurry. It looked great chromed and mounted at the local fish & game annual trophy dinner. - Dan

Gee, I'm really confused. In another post, the consensus was that ANYONE that even owned a four wheeler was a terrain destroying, game hoggin', unsportsmanlike slob. No exceptions. Now we have a group that is defending road hunters that happen to be in a truck. I think what we have is the blind men trying to describe an elephant while only holding one piece of it. Anyone that has hunted the bad lands out west know that your game occurs in pockets. And those pockets may be many miles apart. By the same token, in your forested lands out west or back east for that matter, the game is not evenly distributed. Here in the east it may be a matter of walking over the ridge to the next hollow. And then you are seldom a mile from the nearest road. But out west, where I hunt, we are 50 miles from the closest town (population 560)and the game pockets may be 10miles or more (maybe not as the crow flies) apart. We ride the two tracks in a truck and hunt the pockets on foot. Sometimes we do spot game from the truck. Even if the game is close enough to shoot at, we continue past and when out of sight, one of us drops off to make a stalk. If we get a deer down, we drag it to the closest point that we can get a 4 wheeler to and bring it in that way. We have quartered them and packed them over a mile just to get them to the 4 wheeler. I don't own a 4 wheeler to hunt with. I use it here on the farm and in my bee operation but it is handy to have while hunting. Once the game is down, the sport is over and the work begins. Where I hunt in Wyoming, if you don't have some kind of transportation, you aren't going to do much hunting. I guess that makes me a slob by the standards of the couch-potato great white hunters that maybe shoot up a box of ammo a year but have read up on all the answers.

Dan, that's funny! I helped a guy change out a tranny once and we discovered that the one he got to replace the bad one had a hole in it after it was cleaned off. The hole was stuffed with steel wool. The guy couldn't figure it out but it was about where you would rest the muzzle of your rifle if you were driving around with your gun in the front seat of your pick-up! Too funny

bearguide,

You are correct, it does not take a great amount of skill to hunt from a truck.

I make no apologies for hunting this way though. No laws were broken. We don't drink and drive nor do we drink and hunt. That don't stop me from
pound'n a couple back once we are home for the day. Chasing deer with a truck is illegal. We did not do that either.
Road hunting is the method a large majority of hunters in Sask. hunt. In some areas it is the only effective way and allowed by law. There are other areas that road hunting is illegal. There are unethical ways of road hunting and there are ethical ways.

Road hunting is not the method I prefer. 99% of the hunting I do is on horse back or back pack. This year I had a long hard season and I felt a little burnt out. The hell with road hunting, this year I would of shot a whitetail in a cage if I could have. Why did I bother...the wife likes venison and wanted to me to bring some home.

I hope someday to be able to take more time and hunt deer in Sask. with my bow or black powder rifle like I used to and it is the method I prefer. I would not make a special trip to go to Sask. to road hunt. But if I were there and I was limited for time,etc. I would not hesitate to jump in the truck.

A day of road hunting is better than a good day at work.....

at least I think that is the way it goes

Daryl

Daryl D

You have a blurred conception of what is true hunting and what is contemporary hunter behavior.

Iceman

Oh come on. Are we going to do that "the only true hunter hunts with/without (fill in blank here)" thing? Techniques and methods vary from place to place depending on a lot of differant things. What's legal and Ok in one spot is frowned on or illegal in another. If you're not breaking the law or doing something you just can't live with, hunt, have fun, be careful. Geeze, lighten up a little. - Dan

I agree, Dan. I watch hose shows on TNN and see the "hunters" sitting in heated cabins, called stands?, with all the comforts of my home, and I see the deer walk out onto the cultivated field with the fence in the background and get poleaxed from the "hunter's" somethingorother magnum. Wow! What a challenge. One would be laughed out of the territory if one hunted like that here. Something like the pot and the kettle?