What is big game hunting like in your area?

[fishinma]

Where I Hunt

I live in a suburb 15 minutes south of Boston. We are over run by whitetails. Our state biologist figures 17 to 19 deer per 2 square miles. My town is archery only. There is no discharging a firearm in town limits. We are also over run with lyme disease and the ticks that cause it. But with that said I use a spray bottle of Permethrin insect killer to kill all the ticks that land on my camo. It is the best stuff out there if your in the northeast to help keep you safe. Seeing deer here is no problem. Avoiding them at night with your car is another thing. If your a avid archery hunter there is a need for skills here in south east Massachusetts. "Tight lines and straight shots to all in 14"

 

[mouser868]

I live on a 15 acre deer trail, meaning the whole property is nothing but one big deer trail. I fill my tags every year, or at least I fill all the ones I need to to fill the freezer and generally the deer are shot out the kitchen window. My house is the best deer blind I have ever owned.

 

[NHSHOOTER]

Here in NH I think the hunter success ratio is about 6% maybe 8, you can go days without even seeing a deer. Personally I do pretty well sitting in a tree undetected works well for me. I just seem to have found a really good spot (transition/escape route) some years back and have stuck with it. I do know many hunters that have not tagged out in a number of years.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

NY is on the down turn, as far as I can tell.

First, DEC management zones are much too large, resulting in one side being infested with deer and the other being nearly empty but the permit are for the whole zone and can be used in either place. That means the guy in the nearly empty part doesn't see hardly any deer and he IS going to shoot the one he does see, meaning even less next year.

Second, the deer take numbers are "estimates" and that's being generous. In truth, they're pulled from some bean counters nether region. DEC has reported record or near record deer takes the last 4 years while nearly every hunter I've talked to from all corners of the state has said that hunting is terrible and some go the whole season without SEEING a deer in places where they used to shoot several a year.

Third, coyote numbers have absolutely exploded the last few years. We now see them in EVERY location that I hunt where I had literally never seen a single one, in my entire life, until about 4 years ago.

 

[MarkCO]

I moved to Colorado at 13 and that was the first year I could hunt, I never saw an elk, but I got a deer and a Pronghorn. I have two deer tags total I have not filled, one I never went, and the other, I let 6 bucks go on until the next year. Been hunting 33 years and my deer this year was the 101st head of big game I have harvested.

So in 1980, elk tags were hard to get and success rates were about 15% or so. Deer tags were plentiful and you could get a buck and a doe tag, if I recall, success was about 60% for does and 30% for bucks. Pronghorn buck tags were harder to get, but I got 2 doe tags several years. Success was about 80% or so. With two huge winter kills in the late 1980s, then one again in the mid 90s and early 2000s, coupled with the drought the deer and Pronghorn herds were decimated. The unit I hunted in 1981 with 2 deer and 2 Pronghorn tags opened back up for Pronghorn just a few years ago and the deer herds are back too. Over the last 30 years, our elk herd has almost doubled, and I have had 2 elk tags several years in the last 10 or so. This years Buck Pronghorn...I waited 13 years for the tag...got the one I wanted at 680 yards. But the success rates are still about 15% elk, 60% deer and 85% Pronghorn.

The key in Colorado is knowing the herds and the habits of the animals in the area you want to hunt. At 21, never having filled an elk tag, I spent 3 weeks in a Wilderness area following, tracking and making notes about elk. I got a 6 point bull that year and only failed to fill 2 elk tags since. That is one reason I tell out of state hunters to go with a guide. The little honey holes are hard to find and the general habits can change yearly based on weather and water in the semi-arid desert we call Colorado. I learned a lot sitting at a campfire with some old hunters from Tennessee who had been hunting the same 3 or 4 spots for 30 years. While they are probably all dead now, they taught me a lot.

My 12 year old turned 12 on November 1 and shot his first deer on November 2. He also got his first elk, at 350 yards, so he is batting 1000 right now. He obviously has the benefit of his Dad's and Grandfather's 33 years of big game hunting, but he also has shot about 7K rounds. He probably has as many rounds through the TC Encore in .308 as most deer hunters shoot their whole life. He has great eyesight and can get into a stable position in about 4 seconds. He knows it is not "easy", but with the right tools, skills and hunting knowledge, tags get filled. Of the 6 or so guys I hunted with in my 20s, only one still hunts, and he has no kids. Makes me proud of my son, but also sad for the future.

The photo of him with his TC in .308 and his cow elk. It was 14F in the photo and was in the single digits a lot of time we were hunting.

 

[fatwhiteboy]

I don't hunt deer anymore, the draw makes it a PIA. I do hunt pigs using a guide in Central California, near the coast. MyFriend is right, we are in a drought situation right now, the Sierra snow pack is only 20% of what it should be. The guides I use are all cattlemen and sold their stock early in 2013 because the grass they rely on to feed their stock was minimal. Hope we get some rain, soon...

 

[CCCLVII]

Where I am if you can go out opening day you will get a deer about 75% of the time. I think each day that goes by your chances drop by about 1/4 to 1/2.

I don't hunt a lot of deer any more. Fortunately I am financially able to travel to hunt. Still want to go to Africa again. This time hunt stuff other than plains game.