Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Tagging out the first morning of a hunt

I feel that is the quickest way to ruin a hunt. I'd almost rather eat tag soup and get to hunt my whole hunt than tag out the first morning. I shot my NH moose at first light opening morning in 04. I had a cottage reserved for all week. What a long week that was. Now my BIL and my wife were Moose hunting VT that week but he didn't want me tagging along . Guess he was afraid he'd have to share the credit for finding a Moose (which they never did) with me. He's like that. My most satisfying hunt was a Moose hunt in VT where I scored the last day. If I could script it that's how it would go everytime.

That's why fishing was invented. I won't look a gift horse in the mouth.

Tagging out on the first day would be damn nice..

You can fug around doing bush hippie crap after.

I'll tag out on day one happily. There's plenty of things to do in camp, as well as just riding with other hunters.

I have no problem with tagging out on opening morning. I have managed to do it about once in every three or four hunts, and I appreciate the opportunity to spend some time with my cameras once the quarry is in the bag, so to speak.

I just had a hunt that was supposed to take two days, but storms were closing in from every direction so we attempted to get it done right away on the first morning, before the weather shut us down.

Bottom line was that we got it done in the first hour for sure, indeed the first few minutes....it was almost a let-down!

Can't complain about a 'gift horse' showing itself in that amount of time though....

What's a bush hippie?

You know.

Looking for berries.

Taking pics...

Hugging trees...

Enjoying nature's splendor.


Laughing at your unsuccessful brethren

Exactly! In most places there are birds/small game to hunt as well. A quickly ended sheep hunt in ID lead to a few sage grouse being shot along with a couple limits of chukar! As well as a trip to Elko for dinner at the Star!

I like tagging out the first day. I'll spend the rest of the time helping buds, still going out in the woods on my own, fishing, what not for the rest of the trip. Some of the best hunts I've ever had were where I got mine on the first day.

I'll keep camp if I tag out the 1st day and am hunting with others.

Play spotter on a hill and use a mirror if needed to signal.

jerk meat.

catch fish.

something.

I ain't going to waste the time.

I killed a small buck opening day back in 1990 on a bowhunt with friends here in Missouri.

My buddies threw shade on me for killing a small buck on opening morning and for literally killing off my next 6 weeks of bowhunting bliss.

I had a young family back then and money was tight so I bundled up all my stuff that Saturday and headed home with my deer to cut up....it was no doubt hot on October 1st

The next day rains set in for the next week and my buddies told me they sat in the rain soaked tents and gear that week wishing they had tagged out like I did.

To this day I have no issue cutting my tag on day one.

Easily identified by their ice axe.

Tagging out on the first morning isn't so bad, leaves more time to sit around the camp and drink Natural Light.

I had 2 opening days on a moose hunt in Idaho. Opening day got hot, like 92F by my partners truck thermometer. We gave it up at noon and went home. If we'd got a moose we'd have lost the meat for sure. A week later we started over and I got my opening day moose in 10" of new snow.

I have passed deer during our archery season (October) and opening day of rifle season. The past four years, I killed a buck here in Maine on the last day of the season, be it rifle or ML. Several years ago, I passed up a 9 pointer the first day of the season only to kill the same deer a month later on the last day. He weighted less and it was a much longer drag. That is when I said to myself, if I would shoot him the last day I sure as heck will shoot him the first.

You left out "drinking heavily". And that don't include natural light.

I can find things to do, but to me there is more satisfaction in having to hunt hard to fill the tag. Its a little different if I put in lots of time scouting setting stands before the season etc. But for the kind of hunt where there wasn't a lot of on the ground prep, stepping out of the truck and shooting big bull 5 minutes later is a bit of a let down.

Besides if you tell the wife you only hunted for 5 minutes, she will divide the cost by the time and then remind you what your hunting costs per minute.

Now if I have multiple tags, its nice to fill one early so you feel like the hunt was a "success" and then can hunt hard the rest of the week with no pressure.

There are 4 in my hunting group. A few years ago, one guy scored and the next day 3 of us scored on the same day. Luckily, we didn't do all of that on the same day. I have a string of pack llamas and we got 3 of the deer about 3 miles back. I hiked 12 miles that one day getting 2 of them out.

One year I was bow hunting mule deer in the Missouri breaks. Twenty minutes after sunrise on the first morning I had a nice 3x mulie standing 28 yards broadside from me. I drew on him and had my 30 yard pin on his kill zone. I thought for a second about having nine more days of hunting and let my bow down.
Ten days later I was driving back to Minnesota never getting closer than 80 yards to another buck.
I hunted hard for ten days and saw a lot of great bucks but it has always been heavy on my mind if I made the right decision.

Mulie bucks aren't that easy to get with a bow. If you get the shot, you'd best take it when you can.