Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Safety locking bolt down.

Yep, sometimes what a person says reveals more than they'd like, in a way they didn't intend.

I'll take your word for it as far as the deer hunting situation in Montana. I was looking at it from the viewpoint that the entire human population of Montana is roughly equal to the number of licensed deer hunters in NY. Given the fact that Montana has nearly twice the land area it seems hard to believe there could be as many hunters per square mile. Wasn't considering that deer are more widely distributed here or the distances hunters would be routinely willing to travel to hunt them.

I reckon I explained what I was thinking in my post above to Mule Deer. You can think whatever you wish and it won't bother me a bit.

Yes sir it will bother you.

smokespoles opinion matters about as much to me as yours. Which is to say just about zilch. And why would it ? I'm not looking to kiss anybody's azz, nor do I expect to mooch any goods or services or solicit business. In short, I couldn't care less.

Eastern traditions, Western traditions, stalking, spotting, tracking, Deer drive, alone, with another, thick cover, open cover, guided, sitting, walking, easy ground, slippery ground, personal safety, others safety. They all can change how one feels comfortable. However, for sure this will come around again.

I prefer the 3 position Model 70 safety and when moving more and more have the safety in the bolt unlocked middle, with the bolt up. Come up upon another and the bolt goes completely rearward and exposes the magazine.

Would be interesting to hear the Benoits opinions. They also shot more than a few running Deer they bounced. They must have screwed up a lot???? Were they right? Were they safe? Were the Deer they hunted semi-tame because they hunted where they were few? Both Deer and hunters. I suspect they knew when to have or not have one in the chamber. I also am sure they would have handled themselves just fine out West.

Blackheart,

Yeah, it's hard for eastern hunters to grasp hunting in the West--just as it's hard for western hunters to grasp hunting in the East.

Have hunted in New York in the Adirondacks, Catskills and one isolated state-owned "mountain" in between. As you said, hunting varies in New York--as it does in Montana from one end of the state to other, a distance of around 700 miles, with the whitetail habitat varying from prairie with hardwood draws to big-riverbottom cottonwoods to steep, thick conifer country in the northwestern part of the state.

But it's all whitetail hunting, and as I noted, my experience is that whitetails are whitetails no matter where you hunt them. The terrain and hunting pressure make a difference, but they're still whitetails, no matter where they live.

Disagree. Have been out West on guided hunts. None of us had a problem grasping their traditions or guided rules. They made sense. But it seems when they consider coming here they are the ones who think because they do it the way they do, we are wrong. At least on here, if that means anything.

The Benoits tried hard not to "bounce" deer and in fact shot many unaware out of their beds. They called their final approach when the signs told them a buck was looking to bed the "death creep". When they did bounce one though, they would shoot at them on the run. They made no bones about the fact that it often took multiple shots to score a hit and hence their proclivity for the quick repeat firepower of their beloved 760's. They also didn't try to hide the fact that they wounded some but being good trackers in remote country, didn't worry too much about it, as they'd simply stay on the track until they were able to finish it off. The same tactics wouldn't work nearly so well in areas more heavily hunted with more closely spaced property lines and without snow. Skillful stillhunting is not just bumbling aimlessly about bumping deer and taking hasty potshots. If you aren't seeing most of your deer before they see or become aware of you, you are moving too fast, not paying enough attention to wind currents, stopping in the wrong places to glass and not using your bino's as much, as often and as thoroughly as you should.

You are so right! I have never met an easterner who thought that he knew how to things better than the hick provincials out west. That is especially true of people from New York City. I've never met an easterner who extrapolated his experience to everywhere else in the world.

I can agree with a lot of that. Not all, but a lot. I always said the Benoits would have hard time playing their game in most parts of Pa.

Dame right I'm right. I'm from the East and you would be wise not to forget it. Now how do I get up onto and off this animal?

I've also ran into some from the West who started off with an attitude only because of where I came from. Works both ways.

Addition again: And the funny thing is most of us in the East don't give a hoot where you are from if you happen to wander in. Like where you came from, you either fit in or you don't.

Yep.

battue,

Okanagan already commented on this quite appropriately, but perhaps I should have defined my terms: I have yet to meet an Easterner who hasn't hunted in the West who can really grasp the difference, or a Westerner who hasn't hunted in the East who can grasp the difference.

That said, I have guided off-and-on the West since the late 1980's, and yes, I have run into many Easterners who think they know everything there is about Western hunting, because they live and hunt in one of those "high pressure" Eastern states. In fact the first outfitter I worked for warned me that many Easterners would start telling me how to hunt after a day or two, and I found he was right, not just when guiding but on various hunts across the country. A good example was a whitetail hunt on the prairies of eastern Colorado, where a guy from New England was absolutely certain the local guide didn't have a clue how to hunt whitetails.

The problem with hunting prairie whitetails is the limited "whitetail cover" is so scarce and obvious everybody hunts it, and mature bucks soon learn to avoid it. Yet this "expert" insisted on hunting from a treestand along a minor stream with a cottonwood stand along the banks, because obviously that's where whitetails would be.

The outfitter said fine, go ahead--while he and his guides took the rest of the hunters out onto even more open prairie, where they could glass for bucks, just like they do for mule deer. The biggest whitetail buck taken during the hunt was glassed, bedded down, on an almost open hillside, and after a long stalk shot in its bed by the then-editor of a major Midwestern whitetail magazine, who'd never seen anything like that before. Meanwhile the New England expert sat in his treestand (the location personally selected by him) for three days without seeing a buck, though he did see a few does.

That night a blizzard blew through, and by the next morning many deer from the open prairie had migrated to bigger riverbottoms, due to their heavy cover. I killed a very good buck while still-hunting through such cover, and my hunting partner (a much more widely experienced whitetail hunter than the New England expert) killed another good buck half an hour later.

That evening the New England expert that the big rivertbottoms OBVIOUSLY where whitetails lived. But the bucks hadn't been there before the blizzard.

The weather cleared the next day, and on the last day of the hunt the outfitter took the New England expert out hims,and glassed up what may have been a B&C buck bedded in an overgrown hayfield, far from any typical whitetail cover. The expert didn't believe him--until the buck jumped and ran, whereupon the expert missed it.

That is just ONE example of how Eastern hunters who've never been West know more than the locals. I could cite a bunch of others, including a group of hunters from Minnesota trying to perform pronghorn drives on the sagebrush prairie--which failed miserably.

In fact the first outfitter I worked for pinpointed certain states where hunters tended to be know-it-alls, despite never hunting outside their own state before. The leading state, by the way, was not Texas, though both we guided more than one Texan who couldn't comprehend "hunting" without sitting near a corn feeder.

If you want to discuss this some more, I'd be happy to provide more examples.

MuleDeer,

Because of your occupation at the time it is obvious you can site and discuss many more examples. Not disputing that. I personally didn't have any problem grasping the the difference immediately. Well, it most certainly looks different being the first. Then there was the fact I was paying someone for their knowledge and experience. Hmmm, again it would probably be wise to learn and pay attention. There was this one time when we were moving thru some thicker cover on an Elk hunt. There were fresh tracks and you could smell Elk. The guide looked at me and said you may want to put one in the chamber. I thought it was a wise suggestion. Even to this Easterner it made sense.

Outfitters and guides see it all and then some. They see it from those from all over this country. They normally will not see it from the locals and again there would be an obvious reason.

That sounds awesome in so many respects.

Addition again for discussion.

On a Wyoming hunt every morning the outfitter would tell the guides where he wanted them to go and off we went. The other guides used it as a general suggestion and they would run and gun with the hunters. Mine took it as an absolute and he would pick a spot and we would sit and sit and sit. Finally he said, you stay here I'm going to take a walk. As soon as he was out of sight, I was gone because I had had it. I was back at the spot come late evening and he was pissed. We had a discussion of the why of it and being and Easterner, I guess it just didn't matter.

Addition: That night the outfitter gave me a look, but never said a word.

Then two things happened on the last day. One was in the last hour we ran into some Cows. I had a Cow tag and he said shoot that one. I told him I didn't come to shoot a Cow and he said, "Shoot that Elk." I being an arrogant Easterner, unloaded the rifle and walked away. (As the story comes back-he catches up and says; "I have to admit, you know what you want." "Ya, thanks".) Next came the guides campfire on the last night of the hunt. Only guides and they drank beer and raised a little hell. Well one came over and asked me to join them. The guide I had wasn't there and I was told he wasn't invited, but they wanted me to know that I got screwed.


Damn Easterners never get it....

That happens too. I have encountered lousy western guides, and even lousy African PH's, who get a lot more training than the average western guide--though that also varies from country to country.

But my point is that just because somebody has hunted a lot locally, and learned to be successful on (say) whitetails, doesn't mean they know all about every kind of hunting everywhere.

And New Yorkers epitomize this. Always humble and open-minded, like blackhart.

Agree completely.