Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters favorite hunts?

Coming back from antelope hunting the other night, as I was sitting in the nightly traffic jam in Rygate, MT, amidst an endless line of commuters in their BMWs, Audiis and Mercedes inching their way back to the bedroom communities of Shawmut and Barber and Lavina, and the glare of the lights from the big box stores, malls and casinos assaulting my eyes, I thought back on what some of my favorite hunts have been.
I thought it would be interesting to ask the members of this forum what a couple of their favorite hunts have been. Perhaps it was ALL of their antelope hunts, or maybe it a hunt in Canada where the outfitter was just fantastic, or maybe a trip to Africa where the variety of animals was astounding or maybe it was a hunt where you were in the best condition of your life and covered the mountains like a wolverine.
Maybe your favorite hunt hasn't happened yet. Whatever you favorite was, or will be, if you are so inclined, I think it would be fun to read about it.
I think my favorite hunts have been for mule deer up on the Canadian border, when its so cold and raw that all sane people are home. The terrain seems to go forever, most of it unmarked by anything other than a few tougher than hell farmers and ranchers. The rut brings lots of bucks out where even a duffer like me can see them, and sometimes I shoot one I shoot one, but whether I do or don't doesn't seem to matter much. The sense of freedom, at least to me, is exhilarating.
My other favorite hunt hasn't happened yet, but will be a caribou hunt in Canada where I can fish for native brook trout.
Now, when I thought of this favorite hunt thread, I was thinking mostly of big game hunts, but if any shotgun hunters want to talk about their favorite hunts, I don't see why they shouldn't. Of course, we all know that a shotgun isn't really a sporting firearm, but rather a crude tool, somewhere between a garrot and a cattle prod, and that "hunting" with a shotgun is to real hunting what dynamiting carp is to fishing, but go ahead and post your favorites. You are among friends... hehe

Royce

DIY bear hunt by canoe in Minnesota, 1996.

DIY mountain mule deer, goat and sheep hunts in the Rockies, early 1970s.

Tracking and calling a cattle-killing jaguar in the jungles of Costa Rica.

Calling in rafts of mallards, redheads, and canvasbacks to old rice fields in SC.

Lee
Thats great- What I'd like to hear also is why the particular hunts were favorites-
Also, the jaguar hunt sounds fascinating-I'd sure like to hear lots of details about that- Thanks, Lee

Royce

every hunt i have had with my dad and granddad. if i had to pick one, it woule be two. the hunt in 2003 where i took my first coues with my dad by my side, spotting my shots (all 8 of them) or this past november when i did a spot and stalk mountain lion hunt. i had never even seen a lion and the first time i did, it was 20 feet from me! while on the stalk for that lion, i asked my past grandfather to help me all he could that day as it was a life long dream ( im 21) to harvest a lion in AZ. i asked for his help that day because i was carrying his old hunting rifle, a rem 721 in 270 that shoots bug wholes with federal factorey 140 accubonds. i know that he helped me that day because i was able to stalk within 20 feet of the lion with a steady breezein my face. he also helped me calm down and take the one shot that it took to harvest that lion cleanly. i will never forget that hunt as long as i live.

my funnest hunt was a hunt i didnt even have a tag for. my dad had a 36b december whitetail hunt and we got to spend i believ 17 or so days in the field hunting, it was a blast!

I think my favorite is Stone Sheep hunting.

The memory of one of my favorite hunts will be the one I just finished- my Colorado muzzleloader moose hunt, DIY, with my best friend.
We hunted the same unit he took his bull moose 3 years ago, and the reason I applied for the area was because of his familiarity with it, and the fact that he had told me he would go with me if I drew.

We scouted for two days prior to the season, and camped out in my pop-up camper. Weather was generally good, with a lot of rain on opening day.

I found my bull on the second day, and took him down with one shot, on dry land. It took the two of us 3 and a half hours to get the bull skinned, quartered, and all the meat back to camp.

That night, we celebrated with hot soup, a game or two of cribbage, and some Jim Beam. Next day, we just hung around camp, cleaning up stuff, and savoring a great Colorado fall day. My buddy went down to the beaver ponds and caught brookies with his fly rod.

My friend and I have shared many hunts over the past 25 years, for ducks, geese, pheasant, mule and whitetail deer, elk, and moose. Most of our hunts are successful, partly because we are there to help each other out with scouting, preparation, game care, and what not.

My favorite hunt occurred at my grandpa's (now my dad's) farm in west central Illinois on opening weekend in 1986. I shot my first buck (a small 8 pointer) and then the next evening I let a monster 12 pointer pass and he went right to Dad like I hoped. Dad got him, and the picture is still in our office. I hope to have memories like that with my sons.

My 2002 DIY elk hunt in MT. 3rd day of the hunt we now have an ambush plan for the early AM. Awoke to single digit temps, howling wind, light flurries. We get to our ambush points just at shooting light and I see the elk will be headed a different way back up this morning. I got a hill between me and them, lumbered (I always lumber, I'm 5 9" weigh 235# and live @ 900ft above sea level) my way up a small but steep bluff, around a small knob look out onto the sage flat where the elk should be, they're gone!! Down a shallow valley, up another small hill, look for the elk again, they're still gone!! Look to the sage flat above me where I know they're headed and they're there already! Try to pick a branched antler bull @ 4x in the rifle scope, can't, all I find are spikes. Pick up the binocs, find a small 5x5 raghorn, it's the only branched bull in the herd and 1st elk I've seen in shooting distance ever (this is my 3rd tag). Put the crosshairs on the middle of the front shoulder, press the trigger, recover from recoil to see a hobbling elk with the bottom of his front leg dangling by a strip of hide, I've misjudged the range by almost exactly 100yds. Rifle goes boom 6 more times, putting 3 more holes in the elk at distances from 425-500yds. One through the ribs/lungs, One in through the throat as he was facing me, one into the other shoulder, finally anchoring him. When he's finally down and not going anywhere I get that same feeling I got when my dad told me to pack a bag I was headed to MT on an Antelope hunt at 12, or when I killed my 1st whitetail buck @ 14. Hadn't really had that feeling since. Not picture perfect, not by a long shot, but a bull elk, on my own anchored just before he made it to land that would have made recovery extremely difficult due to neighbors that don't like each other. Elk to me was/is the end-all be-all of NA big game hunting, and I will remember my 1st for a good long time.

My all-time favorite hunt was my first deer hunt when I was 12 which was with my dad, uncle Dave, and other relatives on and around Dave's in-laws farm in eastern South Dakota. The rifle I used was a Springfield that Uncle Francis, a gunsmith, had sporterized for my by then deceased grandfather (still have it, will stay in the family). In retrospect it was one of those "coming of age" events where I was treated as an adult and expected to act as an adult. It's hard to express, but taking a nice 8-pointer with a good shot (Dad taught good technique with much practice) was just icing on the cake. A picture of me with the deer was that year's Christmas card.

My favorite hunt of all time was in '83 with my brother and my 4x4 F150 about 15 miles west of Trinidad Colorado.
Just the 2 of us had leased an old line shack from a Rancher on private property.
The rancher and his son or brother would stop by every day nosing around and asking if we had seen the 28" mulie hanging around the burn, or the 30" mulie around the windmill?
The fun was in the way they became jealous and changed their tune after we both knocked over some good bucks. Mine was a 4x4 typical and my brothers was a 5x9 non-typical. Neither was close to 30" wide but both nice and heavy racks.
I heard them saying things like we have hunted this ranch our whole lives and never seen bucks like that.

When it was time to leave the ranch, they all showed up at the line shack and helped us load up and followed us out to the paved highway. The game warden stopped us before we had gone a hundred yards.
When we were all outside our trucks the game warden walked up and put his hand around the base of the biggest buck and said I am going to confiscate this buck for my office. I said based on what, he said let me see your tags. He proceded to search everything looking for anything, he even looked at the inspection sticker on my truck. All the time he was talking to the rancher by name, it was obvious they were in collusion with a scheme, but we were clean and he finally had to let us go.
It looked like the ranchers teenage son was going to actually cry as he watched us drive away with those two mature bucks. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

DIY mule deer and speed goat hunts in Wy.

I remember it well. One of several but such a one that sticks in my mind.

It was 1969 and I was quail hunting just below the caprock in west Texas on a friends place. There were four of us hunting. We had made a morning circle and did pretty fair. We'd come in for a bite of lunch, rest our feet and give the dogs a break.

Pop and Crisco, just country German shorthairs without a hint of ch behind their single names appreciated the break as much as we did.

After a bite of home cured ham sandwiches and big glasses of tea we cogitated about where we should try in the afternoon hours.

Mr. Harry, my friend's dad was laid up with a catch in his back so he couldn't hunt but he said, "There ought to be some birds on the 7N fencerow.

Now this fencerow was about a half mile walk from the house. It was a typical rolling plains fencrow, meaning that it was mostly down and grown up with shinnery. An occasional big misquite grew in it and drift sand had built it up until its crest was about three feet above the fields beside it.

On the west side of this fence was an old CRP field of about a hundred acres. On the east side was a harvested grain field.

Mr Harry opined that he felt well enough to give up a ride in the back of his pickup around to the lower end so we could hunt the fence row and be headed home.

In due course of time the four of us and the dogs were deposited on the lower end of this mile long, grown up hump in the levle plains.

It was one of those fine afternoons that come along occasionally just warm enough that shade felt good but if you staid in the shade too long that light wind spilling down off the cap would cool you so you wanted a light jacket.

We started up the row after the dogs had paid their respects to the near by bushes.

We went maybe ten yards and both dogs locked up solid.

We were spread out two and two on each side of the shinnery. Roy and Bob, who was scuffling through the shinnery on the right and Mike and me on the left. I was outside man walking the edge of the CRP field.

Somebody make a step and BBrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Maybe twenty birds in the covey rise. We got a couple. About half the covey fencerowed and the others went both right and left as single birds.

Bob held Crisco because Pop was better at single bird work.

We got a few more as singles.

Started up the fencerow again. Maybe twenty yards. Another covey. A repeat of the same scene.

I remember we started on the end of that mile at 2 o'clock in the afternoon and we didn't make the end until 5 pm.

When we got to that end which butted against a dirt road we just sort of stopped. We were all loaded down with quail, light on shells and about to die of thirst.

We stopped maybe thirty yards from the road.

Somebody walked forward to where Crisco was laying on the ground and kind of pointing. Never saw a dog so tired in my life. I would have laid down too if it wasn't for the goat heads.

Quail came up like a fog. Just a constant roar of flushing birds. I don't know how many had congregated in the end of that fence row. If I said you would call me a liar.

Nobody shot, we just stood there with our jaws gapped and watched those quail birds roar into the air and sail across the road to disappear into the brush at the head of an arroyo.

We ambled home. I won't say how many quail the four of us had. I will say that the legal limit which was fifteen at the time was somewhat violated.

The statute of limitations is long past anyway.

The Fencrow is one hunt that I will never forget. Nor will I ever see its like again in this world, I do believe.


BCR

Definately,The many horseback hunts in the Selway-Bitteroots of Idaho, before the re-intro of Wolves!!!Had to sell my horses a few years back, but hunting without them isn't the same and neither is the Idaho Wilderness with or without horses.

Backcountry Elk hunts are like Lays Potatoe Chips,Ya just can't pick one!!!There all good.

Jayco <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Royce,

I'd have to pick bird hunting with my wife on our honeymoon, in the suburban sprawl around St. Xavier, Montana. (Can you tell I loved your lead sentence?)

John

logcutter,

My friend and his son just spent seven days in the Selway and saw no game until the last day when a young bull came into their cow calls. No one else in camp filled or saw a bull; just a few cows, a cow and calf moose.
I hate to arbitrarily blame wolves but.....
george

Unfortuanately,if the shoe fits,wear it.That is the case here in central Idaho.I have heard story after story of the lack of Elk in the Selway because of the wolf.I talked to three guys that packed in 15 miles and had wolves follow them and there horses down the trail a bit before disappearing in the woods.I just talked to a man and his boy who said they walked probably 75 miles and saw two deer with no Elk in the Selway off the Magruder road(Montana road) with lots of wolf sign and came towards where we live to blast a bear.

The Elk are not where they normaly are.There hugging ranches for the protection the ranchers give them from the wolf packs.Sad but true..

Jayco

I have been blessed with opportunities to hunt all type of game all over the world. Even so, my favorite hunts have been deer or goose hunting with my wife, and deer or squirrel hunting with my kids.

Without a doubt, it was the times I spent hunting with my father. Some of you guys here have heard my ramblings about Dad before, so I won't drag this on too long. I took my first buck at the age of 21 after 10 hard years of paying my dues, and learning from my father how to be hunter, and a man. I shot a small spike on the second Tuesday of Pennsylvania's deer season, very late in the afternoon and didn't get back into camp until well after dark. Dad heard me dragging the buck across the leaves and came running out to greet me. It was by far the best moment I ever shared in the woods with another human being. My memories are bittersweet though, as this turned out to be Dad's last hunt. He waved goodbye to me next spring from a gurney as they rolled him into surgery for a third attempt to stop internal bleeding. I could tell by the look in his eyes he wouldn't make it. I lost my best friend, my mentor, and my only true hunting partner that day, and while I've had many great experiences afield since then, nothing will compare to our last hunt together. As I've said before, we'll hunt again some day, Dad.

Well in a bar on 6th street in Austin in 82 there was this beautiful red headed, large double breasted mattress thrasher and I was hunting her with margaritas! I made the mistake of using too much of my own ammunition and alas she slipped back into her native environment never to be seen again. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Boss..,

Wrong ammo perhaps. Next time try Pina Coladas.