Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Define Road Hunting

Wide open grasslands, scattered brush, rolling hills. Visibility of 2+ miles. Where is the line?

Park, get out, walk 200 yards, start glassing for game, return to vehicle if nothing seen?

Park, get out, walk 20 yards, start glassing for game, return to vehicle if nothing seen?

Park, get out, walk 2 yards, start glassing for game, return to vehicle if nothing seen?

Park, don't get out, start glassing for game, drive away if nothing seen?

Don't even park, just put foot on brake and glass through the open window, drive away if nothing seen?

I figure its just looking for game that can be seen from the road. Under the above situation, with rolling hills and scattered brush, you can miss a lot by not hiking off the road. Most likely, 200 yds won't show you much more, maybe. We have millions of acres of sagebrush land just like that. For the most part, you'll have to hike a lot more than 200 yds to see a great deal more than from the road.

Do you mean to ask what is illegal or what we consider road hunting?

All of the above is road to hunting to at least someone. If we're talking antelope hunting, it's almost pointless to not road hunt to some degree, and I don't mean shoot from the vehicle, but use your vehicle to help you find game. The other way I use the term is to refer to those who don't hunt very far from the vehicle, whether or not they can physically hike a half mile or more.

If you're asking what is illegal road hunting, your state's statutes will spell it out exactly.

Based upon your criteria - Both Rock Chuck & exbio. have relative answers.

1. State laws should be KNOWN.

2. W/in the law - the landscape/geography will have a lot of bearing. Depending on grass height and variation of hill heights, how far you need to walk will vary.

3. With even REASONABLE grass height, IF a buck or doe KNOWS you've driven up--they CAN LAY FLAT and you'll almost need to step on them.

Real example - some yrs back, my younger son and I were driving slowly in our deer lease. We weren't hunting, Summertime, the deer were slick and shining. I turned a corner in a cutover and SAW a couple of shining somethings (?)and then they DISAPPEARED.

I stopped the truck and told my son I had just seen deer lay down. He said, aww no. I said get out and I'll show you. We walked MAYBE 15 yds and 3 deer jumped and ran.

So the LINE you draw VARIES.

Road hunting in da UP is very different from road hunting in WY.

Takes the sport out of it

Them African dudes don't even get out of the Land Rover 'til they see something, or at least cut a track, from what I've read.

The General "road hunted" from his Russian Jeep until they found the Marco Polo rams, then started climbing...

"Road hunting" in the derogatory sense means some lazy fat-azz driving around til he finds something to shoot, preferably from in or near the vehicle. A common practice in the Bush with boats on rivers.

Waste of gas, mostly - I've had far better luck climbing a hill or ridge just off the river, or getting a half mile from where boats can travel to see what's back there, even if it means packing the critter a mile or two.

For me, its not true road hunting if a stalk is involved. Road hunting in my eyes is the act of hunting from a vehicle where the hunter spots game from the vehicle and merely satisfies the state law regarding shooting from the roadway and then takes his game once the law is satisfied.

I don't see it as a problem because the areas I hunt aren't accessible by motor vehicle. The road hunters take some game, but for the most part, push the animals into areas that I would hunt on foot.

Some types of hunting appear to be difficult if you don't road hunt. In wide open grassland where visibility is very good, it would be pointless to walk land that is void of game. You might drive until you see animals and then begin a stalk from the road if there is no shot opportunity.

That pretty well describes antelope hunting in Idaho. We don't have the large numbers like WY but we have as much terrain where they live. Herds can be miles apart. Walking it can be just fruitless exercise in many cases.

For the record, Idaho defines a road as anything that's maintained. It includes all barrow pits, etc. so to be off the road, you must get beyond all grading, etc. Many back country 'roads' aren't maintained so it's legal to shoot across them.

It is Unlawful To:
� Shoot from or across the traveled portion, shoulders or
embankments of any road maintained by any government
entity.

This has been beat to death here on the 'fire. Nobody agrees on anything and everyone thinks everybody else is a POS because of the way they hunt. I wish this thread were deleted.

So walking an old logging road 5 miles back from the nearest drivable road, is road hunting?

Jayco

Dumb as a log.

.


Walking it no, a lazyazz cruising it (if even legal) on his ATV would be, IMO. Using the ATV to merely access a spot back in, or to retrieve game would not be, in my eyes, tho I prefer not sharing the same country with an ATV if I'm on foot back there. Either way, in Alaska, it would be illegal to shoot "from, on, or across" the road - generally understood as the drivable surface. One step off the shoulder is fine... Nor is "road" defined. No exceptions exist in the regulations for abandoned roads. YMMV.

Other forms of vehicular abuse ("road hunting" )again IMO - is my previous mention of just cruising up and down a stream under power looking for something to shoot from the boat, doing the same on ATVs in the back-country (on or off "roads"), and using airplanes to "spot and stalk" game. How one does it is often technically legal, so it's up to the individual to decide for ones self what practices are personally ethically comfortable, and there is often a fine line there.

For example, I refuse to chase caribou with a snowmachine, a common practise here. Tho technically illegal, I know of no arrests for doing so. (it is legal to "position" animals using a motorized vehicle, however, which makes it legal to drive caribou into an ambush by waiting hunters... mostly, they just chase the crap out of em until they get a shot. The last two caribou I got I located on snowmachine, parked it, walked to the edge of the bluff 40 yards away, and sat in the snow for an hour until some more came by, shot, then drove the machine a mile down the bluff to where I could get down and came back for the kills on the ice below. Like I said- there's a fine line there which only the individual can decide how to straddle.

Can't shoot across a road here, and you must also be 50ft away from the centerline of the road.

That's way too far for a road hunter.

Define road hunting:

Man: "We are not lost, the higher than hell pass road is right over the next hill"

Woman: "You said that 5 hills ago"

It is simply: shooting from the road, then hunting for the carcass...

If you need it defined....you do it.

This is a russian UAZ:

Looks like good chukar country..

I'll fess up to doing a lot of hunting from roads and trails.

When driving from A to B it is often productive to be on the lookout for animals or sign. Sometimes we�ll drive to a spot and glass for hours while listening to the Broncos or just enjoying the comforts of the truck cab. Granted, such tactics work a lot better in open country and parks than heavy forest.

For antelope, it is our preferred method. We generally have doe tags and there is simply no reason to walk through miles of open country looking for them when they can usually be spotted from the roads or trails. Once we find a group we start the stalk. Sometimes the stalks are short, sometimes they can be quite lengthy. Last year we spotted s small herd about 3/4 mile from the road in hill country and took off after them in bright 95 degree weather. Three plus miles later we were back at the truck, exhausted from the heat, having never seen them again - sometimes it doesn�t always work out as planned.

About three years ago I drove out into the sage and left the truck, then hiked 3/4 mile back to a point where I glassed for several hours in the morning. Just as I was getting ready to head out I spotted two mulies about a mile away to the north. After watching them graze even further north for a while I decided my best bet was to head back to the truck, get to the highway and get on front of them. At the highway I drove three miles north before parking in the ditch, then hiked about 3/4 mile east to a crest. From there I glassed until I found the deer again, still grazing northward. I then started a long stalk through the sage, at first staying on the back side of the crest and walking hunched over, then knee walking and finally crawling on all fours. After half a mile of this the deer bedded down in a shallow depression and I crawled a little more, to the point where further advance probably meant getting spotted on a downhill slope. A few minutes later both deer were down and I was headed back to the truck for the cart. On the way I decided to use the 4x4 trails to my advantage. Rather than drag the deer though a mile or more of sage I drove the truck south to a trail, got as close as I could to the deer (about half a mile) and took the cart from there. No point working harder than necessary.

Last year my son-in-law and I hunted high the first couple days, putting a lot of miles on our boots. We were in good country but weren�t seeing any tracks in the fresh snow (always a bad sign). He took sick and had to head home first thing on day three, leaving me by myself. (Daughter #2 was supposed to come along but had stayed home sick, as had my regular hunting buddy. One of those years...) Day Three I explored the GMU from the truck, checking several areas I had not hunted before, evaluating access and looking for tracks crossing the road in the snow. What I found, about 40 miles north of camp, was the migration was in full swing with large herds heading north through private land before crossing a strip of public land and into another GMU to the north and northwest. The rest of the day was spent stalking a bull in a small herd of 4 or 5 that was bedded down above the highway, only to have them pushed out by another hunter before I could complete my circling stalk around them, and watching the area from high spots on the road on the east side of the valley. A plan was developed and the next morning I was set up in the public land at dawn. Sure enough, at dawn a herd was a couple miles away, coming north through the private land. They hung up at the fence separating the public land from the private, some wandering east, some west, and a few jumping the fence and heading toward me. It was a waiting game and they disappeared behind a low ridge. By 8:30 a small group came over the ridge and crossed in front of me, game over. The pack to my truck was under 500 yards. The next day I was back, hoping to fill my bull tag. A herd with several legal bulls hung up on the private land while I parked on public land to the west. After watching them all day and tail-chasing one small splinter herd several miles through the public land, I decided to head out and try to fill my buck tag, which I did with a forky. Met a gent the next day at the Meeker NAPA store that had been watching the herd with me the previous day. He reported they had done as expected and crossed the public land just before sundown. Had I stuck around I might have filled my bull tag instead of my buck tag. Road hunting or just hunting smart? Your call � either way the freezer got filled.

About a decade ago we were driving though miles of open sage and as we crested a hill we spotted a herd of elk coming our general direction. We quickly backed behind the crest, turned around and drove about three miles by the trails miles to reposition ourselves a mile to the west. We then hiked in several hundred yards and set up and waited. The wait wasn�t long and we found 80 or so elk crossing close in front of us in a shallow cut, no more than 75 yards away. My hunting buddy filled his cow tag. Road hunting? Your call.

Longest shot I�ve ever taken happened in the same area. We drove into the sage, parked the truck and started glassing. I spotted what I thought were elk heads peering over the ridge to the south. After they disappeared we hiked south and found them bedding down on a hillock about 600 yards from where we were. None of us were comfortable with shots that long so we took cover behind some sage and waited. The elk were spotted about 11:30 in the morning and we waited though sun, rain, sleet, snow and finally more sun. The elk started moving off the hill at dusk. I closed as close as I could, covering the lat 100 yards head first on my back, pushing myself through the fresh snow with my feet, trying to ignore the barrel cactus and thankful I was heavily clothed. At 350 yards I was finally able to take a bull, a 6x5 with good mass. We were able to drive down to within yards of the elk and finished quartering it after dark using the truck�s headlights. Road hunting? Maybe. Don�t really care one way or another.

Another time we were hunting a Ranching For Wildlife ranch. We parked just off the road in a copse of aspen, hiked in 100 yards and set up on an open slope behind some sage, no elk in sight. As we sat we could hear elk in the hills behind us and thought several times about going after them. Instead we stayed put, hoping those elk would stick around. Two hours later I had my choice of about 100-ish elk as they crossed from the trees in the river bottom below to higher, scrub oak covered hills behind us. While picking a cow I was wishing I had my .30-30 as the range, as lasered later, was about 125 yards. We drove the truck to the closest point for the pack out and ranged it at just over 40 yards. Road hunting or hunting smart? Full freezer either way.

My regular hunting buddy, Dave, and I once got two cows and a bull down on public land. The truck was three miles away and down 800 feet vertically. Thank goodness it was below freezing much of the time as we had to bone out the elk and pack them on our backs. The first pack out was the heaviest and dang near killed us both. Three days later we were done. Definitely not road hunting and definitely not hunting smart, either.