Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Tag Soup

Tag soup taste horrible, thank god for friends!

I decided to just archery hunt this year. My time has been limited due to some big projects going on in my life. I had a chance to shoot two small bulls but passed. Didn’t even look forward a deer as my time was very limited. On the positive side I did get to get out both on my own and with a few friends. Life is good, take soup not good.

I am going on four years of SE AK moose tag soup. And it isn’t for lack of encounters. It happens….

Goodness.... I have the same recipe as you for tag soup.... goona be having it for the next 10 months.....

Likewise...I was surrounded by does yesterday but was looking for a buck that was hanging around this year. I finally got a shot at the buck late yesterday and missed. I figured I'd take a doe as a consolation prize today, but with 50+ mph winds and warm temps (for this time of year), the deer were somewhere else today. Long drive home....

winds been terrible in Montana this November And too warm

I ate my elk tag in September. Saw some nice Elk in NM just couldn’t get within a range I was comfortable with. It was still a great break from work

It happens...

I started out strong this season and it had potential to be phenomenal....but elk and deer in Idaho ended up making a fool of me, though I could have filled both tags with younger animals if I wanted to. I ended up eating both of those nonresident tags. I still have a short range moose tag here and could have filled it with cows/calves, but there's a couple of mid sized bulls that I am concentrating on so I guess there's still hope.

Birds and trapping will make up for the deer/elk frustrations....

T, what is a short range moose tag???

Bad choice of words, on my part.

I have a draw tag for moose here, but it is designed to reduce the moose population along the Richardson Highway and to get them away from said highway. A lot of the hunt area is near residential homes and as such, I am limited to only archery or muzzleloader to fill the tag. It has a really long season of Mid Sep to Feb 28, but is not a trophy hunt by any means.

You guys hunting for meat passing up does & younger bulls etc. Did you just start hunting? Did you not have coolers & ice to keep these animals aging in ice? Is your freezer too full? Passing animals in general means you are hunting for a trophy. I’ve gotten lucky before holding out to the last morning to shoot a buck but 3-4X more often that strategy ends up in Tag soup.

I shot the first legal cow to fill my tag day 2 & then shot a meat buck early because my freezers were getting empty- then got shut out looking for a bull later in the week. For a change my plan worked for me & a couple of younger guys in our group- I don’t really want to share the many times it doesn’t work. But passing up something I’d shoot on the last day has mostly been a losing method for me.

Taking the bow out Sunday & will wait if the does are looking for a buck to come out - only because the freezer is OK.

I am perfectly fine with having ate the tags I have so far this year. I don't need the meat and I didn't want to stop hunting just then, so I elected to pass the opportunities I had on small critters. I probably would have taken a small buck or bull on the last day but I am totally fine with not having done so.

I am pretty much in the same camp. I’ll just add that part of hunting for me is the meat, part is the time outdoors, and part is trying to kill a mature buck or bull. Also I hunted the entire season with bow. Had I had a rifle there was a bull I could have killed. You kill what you want, I’ll kill what I want. That is the beauty of the freedom men like T_Inman have defended.

Understand completely & am in that same boat for the rest of archery season not ending your local season on opening day makes perfect sense. Going out of state for a week or 10 days for elk has always had the goal of bringing home elk burgers, steaks & roasts.

When I pass on animals or elect to use less effective methods or effort I seldom complain about tag soup because just killing an animal wasn’t my primary objective. I can see retirement in the not too distant future & can become the picky old guy spending lots of time in the woods. Until then I’ll probably shoot bucks & cows & fill the freezer rushing through instead of properly savoring the experience.

Yep. Been there done that and have the T shirt, cap and membership. I have seen lots of game this year just nothing in the freezer yet. Here has been a phenomenal year for mast crops. Oaks are loaded, apples are everywhere, etc,etc. like my dad told me years ago the best way to hunt mast and natural food sources is not to hunt them at all. Hunt the water and the cover where they bed. I remembered this a bit late in the season but there’s still late doe,archery and smoke pole season.

I have several recipes that you may be interested in! 😁 memtb

I thought I was gonna be eating tag soup this yr, deer sightings have been horrible. Finally got a deer last evening. Got a couple more days (evenings) to hunt, then Saturday yet. Got a buck and doe tag yet.

Not often it's happened, but over the yrs sometimes it just doesn't work out no matter how hard you try, other yrs it's easy peezy.

I too ate a very hefty tag. Saw plenty of game but none that met my goal.
I do not lower my standards.

Osky

I had deer, elk, and antelope tags. The only one I filled was the antelope. The problem with the deer was finding time to hunt. I did see a few bucks but nothing I could get close to. The elk was a November hunt in a wintering area. Winter never arrived so neither did the elk. It's colder now but there's still no snow and no elk yet.

My rule of thumb is to get something down, then maybe think about holding out for something better. I can do that here because “tags” are easy to come by, free really for geezers except for regular doe tags and extra ones for individual seasons, and I hunt 20 minutes from home. If I get a notion to go hunting, I can simply throw on my sportin’ duds, grab a legal weapon, and be in the woods in short order, from the end of September through December 31. Pretty good situation to be in.

Three deer down so far and I still have a doe tag, a ML tag, a bow tag, two days of no-tag-required geezer doe days, a bear tag (fat chance), and four days in January when I can take a deer, bear, and/or turkey with a sidelock ML or stick bow. I don’t need any more meat, but I sure like sitting in the woods pretending I do.

I think it all depends on the reason you hunt. I'm with specneeds, I hunt to put something in the freezer! Have known a lot of people looking for a trophy that settle for what ever on the last day and that just don't work for me. Last days get pretty lean sometimes. If the meat didn't matter and I was really only interested in a trophy it would be different! Then whatever I got I would probably give away the meat. Have known a couple guy's like that over the years! Like elk hunting, I always get cow tags. Lot more cows out there than bulls and lot easier to fill the freezer! Would only get doe tags for deer also but to far to drive to justify that. So, anymore I seldom hunt deer, alone now and one fork horn doesn't go very far! Love shooting and hunting buy am not a sport hunter, never have been!