A friend in Isaho, his brother, and his dad all hunted elk off horses they could shoot from. trained them themselves. Said the elk would often not spook from a mounted person like they would from foot hunter. And their horses would often tell them of elk they had yet to see themselves.
On much USFS ground, game is used to seeing horse and rider all through the summer. Multiple use allows grazing and where cattle go, cowboys will be there to direct their grazing and care for the animals.
I have also ridden close to game animal. But, of course, I have walked quite close to game animals (well, deer anyway. Elk are much more wary) during the opening days of season.
Often, early in season, if you avoid looking directly at a deer with both eyes, do not walk directly toward the deer, especially staring at it, the deer will not recognize you as a predator.
I have walked or ridden to within easy rifle range of many deer while the animal watched me approach. One early morning, opening day of season, I was riding through an aspen thicket and a spike bull elk stepped around a bend in the trail into full view at less than ten yards. I only had a cow tag that season, so I just sat on my horse and we three (me, horse, and elk) just looked at each other for about thirty seconds. The elk slipped away down the side of the mountain and was silently gone. But when I brought my eyes back forward, a small four point buck had taken his place in the trail.
I drew my scoped 30-06 from the scabbard under my left leg, then swung the left leg over the saddle horn and slid off the right, uphill side of saddle. The deer took two jumps which brought him from due North to due East of my position. I lifted the rifle and found an antler tip in the 12X scope. Then followed the antler down to the base of the skull and shot the deer in the second vertebrae. All while he just stood broadside and looked at me.
Sure, I could have pointed the rifle forward over the horses ears and killed the deer, but I would rather lose the game than subject my horse to that muzzle blast.
I particularly remember one day in about six inches of snow, about forty years ago, I walked on open ground toward a pair of deer on an open slope above and ahead of me. They stood and watched curiously as I approached. I decided I was in a good position at 250 yds for a shot.
But instead of falling backward onto my butt and rolling to a prone position, I fell to my knees and then to my belly. The deer interpreted that as a lunge in their direction and took off around the mountain.
I had to hike another 1/2 mile and gain another 500 feet elevation (where the snow was now 10 inches deep) before catching up again and filling my tag.
I promise, that is a mistake I never repeated.
