Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game What is your favorite NA big game animal to hunt?

What is your favorite North America big game animal to hunt and why?

On a recent get together of some pards at my cabin for trout fishing, one individual posed this question. In the small sample of five, four stated location which consisted of three basic components. Habitat, scenery and olfactory. One individual stated meat.

Elk. I moved to Co so I could hunt them every year and have done so since 1974. In NM it was every other year, and some times three. No other big game animal gets me even close to excited as elk does.
If one has ever watched the movie Open Range with Kevin Costner, when talking about his dog he said he has the mind for it, but not the legs. That's me pretty much anymore, butI still try

Operative word here is "hunt"

Female humans. Oh! I'm too old for that? Are you sure?

OK then elk.

Actually I've discovered that what I really like is camping with friends and family. I like the comraderie more than anything else and hunting provides a good framework within which I can enjoy that. I also like being in the mountains and woods, the aromas, the vistas, the serenity.

KC

Pronghorn is my favorite hunt by far.

It comes down to 2 times a year for both elk and turkey's. There is nothing like bugling elk or gobbling turkeys. Nobody can hunt sheep all the time, or Dall and Bighorns would be there on that list...

Elk by a wide margin. I'd likely give up hunting everything else just to hunt elk.

I've hunted several sub species of mule or blacktail deer, pronghorn, black bear, pigs and elk. I've spent enough time around desert bighorn and desert bighorn hunters to know what that would be like as well.
But, for me, it would be hunting the desert mulies of the Ironwood Deserts, O.H. eremicus..... Why ? because where I do it, unless you track them, they are too few and too scattered for a hunter to have a chance of finding one.
Why bother ? Because it's the only area I've ever hunted with a high percentage of older bucks, and where I can usually get a tag every year. That and I'm a desert rat at heart.
In 2nd place, of course, would be either the Desert Bighorn or the similar California Bighorn found in the desert mountain ranges of Nevada. E

Elk, by far.

I've never had the chance to hunt elk, so I've got to go with whitetail, although there is nothing quite like a good day in the duck swamp with the mallards riding in on a norther just begging to pitch into the decoys.

Dall Sheep, by far and away my favorite.
But for EXCITEMENT? Try elk on Afognak Island in October. a certain "pucker factor" there.
Bear in Fairbanks

Elk, on public land, in the backcountry.

Late November of 1980 for me. First hunt was 1982. Have only missed one or two years since.

Deer are an afterthought, a target of opportunity but one not to be taken if it interferes with getting elk.

Second would be antelope. We go to Wyoming for a weekend hunt but everyone loves the meat. Better than elk.

too bad tags are pretty much once in a lifetime

Elk...Would probably be mule deer if I could draw good tags.

Deer tags have kicked my ass.

So far I haven't found a North American big game animal I don't like to hunt, and ignoring record-book categories have taken a dozen species. The meat has always been a factor, and trophies used to be much more of a factor, but have always loved open-country hunting in wild country more than anything else.

If sheep hunting was more affordable or available would no doubt place them pretty high, and have liked my limited sheep hunting.
Have gone through periods of hunting elk really hard, but grew up in elk country and they have never excited me as much as some others, oddly enough, and these days would rate whitetails higher. Have taken one good grizzly and that is enough.

Got pretty excited over caribou for about 15 years, partly because of the real wilderness they live in, partly because of their extravagant antlers, and partly because they mostly live where fishing is really good. And they're good to eat too!

But number one has always been mule deer, with pronghorn a close second. They both live in great country, taste good, and can be hunted as hard-core trophies or meat animals, either in empty country or more casually with family and friends.

Elk, and hope to make a Bison hunt this fall with my Sharps.

Gunner

Elk. Would love to get the opportunity to hunt pronghorn sometime. But I love elk. The country, the weather, being with my boys. The experience!

Current favorite = bear. Especially because they can be hunted in the spring, when there is much less competition for the hills.

Least favorite = elk.

archery elk and trophy mule deer