Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game what all do you hunt?

Living in Tn, whitetail is about the only large game i get a chance to hunt. Just curious as to what other animals yall hunt and which one you think is the toughest to hunt.

I hunt antelope, elk and mule deer yearly. Sometimes whitetail, cougar and bear too.

I try my luck in the sheep/goat/moose draw every year, but to no avail save one moose tag 6 years ago.

Personally, I think elk is the hardest, though some disagree. I can kill decent mule deer with out issue, but elk are my kryptonite.

I live in Missouri but go out west every year. I've killed elk, mule deer, antelope and bear. For me, elk have been the toughest although I've had good success on them through sheer effort.

Mule deer, Elk and Antelope regularly. Sheep (Desert, Rocky Mountain, California) and Mountain Goat.
Sheep and goat, only rarely.

Like T man I hunt mule deer, elk, antelope, whitetails, and bear every year. I have a couple sheep heads from the Yukon & Wy. In Africa we killed Impala ,blasé buck,wildeabeast, warthog, oryx , & kudu.. In Texas we added Axis deer, Muffalon sheep, Blackbuck, and Aoudad. Plus a dozen whitetails .. My favorite is a big mulie!, I just saw one 2 days ago.. Awesome. But in a spot that was unapproachable .. If it had not been so late in the evening and the country so rough I could have killed him! But as usual he appeared too late and too far for an evening shot! Mulies rule! Huge ones.. T man likes elk, and that is fine.. I like BIG MULIES! They are tough to find and kill.

I hunt and have taken blacktail, whitetail, mule deer,elk black bear and antelope here in Oregon. I take varmints as well. I have as yet to take a cougar though.

Of the game I have taken I believe a mature blacktail buck is the toughest to take on a regular basis.

Gary

I have had the pleasure to hunt mule deer, blacktail, whitetail, bear, cougar, and elk. I also hunt coyote, and other varmint. Birds fill in when other seasons are over here. Trapping is also a pastime that helps fill in the slow winter blues. I've also been known to hunt puzzy, but that's another story!

We don't have whitetails here, just mulies. We hunt them every year and usually elk. We drew antelope tags this year, the 1st time in 23 years. Idaho limits moose to one of each sex in a lifetime. I have my bull and my partner has both.
I don't find elk all that hard to get but I've been doing it for a long time and know some tricks. I always carry wolf and bear tags but they don't come along very often. I haven't specifically hunted either.

Working on them one at a time. Have 13 of the 29 with the mountain goat coming last week.

Antelope
Mule deer
Elk

Elk are definitely the hardest.

Whitetail
Mule deer
Elk
Moose
Pronghorn (if I get drawn which is hard to do)

Elk has been the hardest...

I hunt most everything, big game, small game, upland birds, waterfowl, coyotes.

Coyotes are my favorite to hunt.

For the past decade or so, my Holy Grail has been to kill a 190+ class Mule Deer, preferably with a 30" wide rack. I have not killed a Mule Deer since I started down this path.

Yall are definitely blessed to be able to hunt so many different big game animals. One of these days I'm going to make it out west and hunt for some other kind of animal other than whitetail. Don't get me wrong I love to hunt them but I think every hunter gets to a point when he would like to take a different kind of trophy.

I hunt all kinds of stuff but I don't think elk are but a fraction as tough to hunt as mule deer. Elk are easier to see, more predictable and just plain leave more sign.

Trophy class coues whitetail are pretty sporting too. I have killed quite a few lions and none with hounds but if you don't know how to find and call them, they are hard to come by. Antelope are by far the easiest big game animal I have ever hunted with a rifle.

Trophy age black bear boars can be tough too. They range a lot, become mostly nocturnal and can hide in anything. Some other animals are just tough due to their habitat. The logistics of getting to them can be taxing; desert bighorns come to mind. I have covered a LOT of ground glassing for bighorns.

Hunting bison in the House Rock unit in Arizona is reputed to be one of the toughest hunts in the US. Packing in many miles on horse or foot, hunting in deep snow, covering a lot of ground to catch them coming off the Grand Canyon park and then the logistics of packing all that meat out.

There's lots of ways to look at this. Guys from other areas may have tamer deer or spookier elk- who knows.

I've heard Oregon has bull elk, but I haven't seen one in season for several years now. I kill a good blacktail pretty often, and lead my buddies to them every year.

In Oregon, elk in the Cascades are as hard to get as anything I could imagine. Very, very difficult unless dumb lucky. Lots of cat and mouse, one on one type hunting with sightings almost never, and fleeting running shots in heavy cover the norm.

DEWD very cool callage!! That blackmail you got this year was SICK but I see you make it a habit to shoot trophies.

Awesome!

Thank you sir!!! A lot of great memories and hard work involved!!!

TN aint far from some good hog hunting. I tried it on a lark 8 years ago, and got hooked. No, it's not a horseback elk hunt, but it's damned fun, and with good bag limits.

FC

That is true!

Hunting Hogs with an open-sighted big bore revolver is a great, low-cost hunt.

I'm blessed to live in New Mexico and we've got a TON of species to chase.

Mule Deer
Coues Deer (on the hit list this year, have never killed one)
Elk
Pronghorn
Barbery Sheep (have never killed one, but have hunted them)
Big Horn Sheep
Mt Lion (I always buy a tag NOW, but i never see one when I do have a tag in my pocket)
Bear
Ibex
Oryx

Wow! Thats alot of game!

Your stance on Elk Vs MD is intersting.I find this is typical of a AZ whitetail hunter by trade. In my limited experience, there are few better western hunters than a Coues whitetail hunter. Nobody knows how to use their glass better that you folks.

I've hunted most of the same species others have listed,even though I live in the northeast.Throw in brown bear and moose, elk, mule deer,whitetails, pronghorn black bear.

I tend to agree with Dennis at least in the country I have hunted. Elk are easier to find; move long distances when spooked and tend to use big country.So you have to keep up which is tough in some big country. You have to be in shape for a lot of elk country.

Otherwise I don't consider them as hard to find and kill as a mature (big) whitetail or mule deer.

Like the poster above has implied, you want to start burning tags, set your sights on a 190" or better mule deer buck; a 180 is no slouch either .I guess many people have never seen one.

I have only seen Coues deer while elk hunting AZ;so can't really comment about them. They are beautiful little animals.

The toughest animal to find and kill that I have bumped into? A big northern whitetail buck from the big woods of northern New England (Maine) or New Brunswick.

Makes Alberta and Sask whitetails a cakewalk in comparison. And to kill one that scores 150 or better gross I would say ranks right there with a 200" class mule deer.....maybe tougher. They are very hard animals even lay eyes on, will only be visible during the rut for the most part and are very elusive in big, dense country.

Moose? Anytime I have hunted moose, I never saw any that interested me,although I could have shot many.

I pretty much hunt anything that will run from me.

Living in British Columbia we have a lot of species to hunt. I haven't hunted Maine whitetail but of what I have hunted, a large blacktail buck, say scoring 135 or better, is the hardest to tag. I mean real rain deer from rain country jungles (not the pseudo blacktails in southern Oregon and California).

Coyotes....mostly.

Me too, actually.

Whitetail and elk every year, moose most years, black bear often, and mule deer every 2-4 years when I draw a tag. Pronghorn when a season is declared and I am lucky enough to draw a tag that year. that's all our local SK big game, caribou are not on the list anymore.
Toughest to hunt by far are moose in the bush ( not farmland moose). I laugh when people describe moose as dumb. Our forest moose are far more difficult to approach than elk. Better hearing, better sense of smell. And harder to find. I shoot an elk every year for 20 years. I have only got three moose in that time.

In the past most anything edible. Nowadays coyotes and jackrabbits. A wolf remains my great white whale and I will be searching Idaho for them again this year.

mike r

These are the Good Olde Days of Alaska bear hunting! I have shot three brown bears on my own tags but helped many others where I was there at the end. Grizzly bears are far more liberal in the law and some places the limit is two per year for residents. Black bear numbers are way down due to control work in some areas, but still easy enough.

Moose are okay again as we hunt with swamp buggies and get to drive to or winch them out and hang them to work on. Shot a decent bull the last two years doing it that way.

Caribou almost every year.

Sitka blacktail numbers are back up to reasonable... They are my favorite and I have killed a bunch of seriously big ones.

Sheep and goats take either lots of effort or money, or both. Have gotten to shoot quite a few.

Elk are available but hang out with brown bears too closely for my enjoyment.

Wolves were good close to town until transplants gave them mange.

Bison are tough to draw, but doable.

Have also shot mule deer, whitetails, Columbia blacktails, pronghorn, oryx, feral hogs, alligator, and others I have forgotten probably.

Anything in the Booner category is going to be tough...

I hunt locally hunt whitetail, mule deer, moose, elk antelope when I can and black bear.All are available on one of my farms or another. There's also fully wild bison that wander around the north place that I can't hunt because my skin is the wrong colour.No shortage of coyotes and a few more wolves than necessary.

Straying a little farther from home I've taken caribou, goats and grizzlies, a few musk-ox and such. Quite a bit farther afield I've taken many African species including various antelope, giraffe, buffalo and elephant. Got a bit of a buffalo fetish going and my 3 continent total is 135. Life BG total, all in is a bit over 1000.

Whats the hardest isn't an easy call, access to the best areas is most of the battle. If you can get to them, you can probably get them. World wide you going to have trouble finding much that is smarter than a big whitetail buck. Elk are close, and have the added problem of leaving the country when they are spooked. Doesn't mean you couldnt find them again, but finding them isnt the same as being able to go there. Elephant are intelligent but might as well be blind.Just about everything else is stupid, protected mostly by the nature of the country side and their ability to get out of Dodge. Can't get 'em if you cant get to them.

Pretty much the same boat as you regarding big game. I do hunt some birds and turkey. I also like to hunt small game and think it's a shame how people have mostly abandoned small game hunting. Have spent a lot of pleasent days afield kicking up bunnies or stalking squirrels.

Whitetail in the fall
Axis deer in the summer
Hogs year around
Coyote, Bobcat and other vermin year around
Oryx or Nilgai usually Jan/Feb
Elk when I can draw a decent tag